Heterodox (BOOK 2)

Chapter 16 |2|

~Vesper~

Is he or is he not asking me out?

He looks at me almost expectantly waiting for an answer; some response that can lead to future plans to seeing the latest movie. Arrangements for pick up, best sitting spots or how much buckets would last throughout.

'So...I'm guessing we can't watch a movie sometime?'

Shoot shoot shoot. What do I do?!

Something stupid, that's for sure.

"Sure, I still like movies, ya know...," I suddenly take interest in the blank counter underneath my propped elbows. "This weekend I think, MB and Circe will be available to join us. I remember Circe mentioning that she wanted to do a Pirates of the Caribbean movie marathon. She's been going on about it for a week. Maybe we could buy some popcorn varieties or some pretzels..."

Great. I'm babbling now.

While my brain sighs in relief at the bullet dodged, my heart just drops in disappointment.

"Oh...okay." I detect the same disappointment in his tone and it takes everything in me to hold myself back from dismissing everything I said and continuing our plan on a one on one date.

"Uh, favourite colour?" I find myself desperately asking, like grabbing onto any adrift log to keep me afloat from drowning in awkwardness.

"Burgundy."

"Oh, okay. Mine's indigo..."

This is awkward; like drowning, stifling, mind-boggling awkwardness. Like; how do I survive this? HOW?

Then I come up with an idea. "Your turn," I smirk," Just know that this is your fourth question."

His eyebrows shoot up in confusion. "No... I should still have three questions to ask!"

"Not really. You asked about my dreadlocks, my necklace and my opinion on books and movies."

"That last one doesn't count! I'm supposed to find out yours as well from your question. You're bending the rules!"

"There weren't any rules to start with. Besides you've asked more than five questions anyway, you rulebreaker."

"You're bad at this game." He sighs. "Fine. Where do you get your weird t-shirts?"

"At Rhodes at the mall."

"I get mine at Detour."

"Whoopdedoo for you."

He rolls his eyes.

My turn. My last question too. What don't I know about the tall, silver-eyed, British dirty-mind I know as Talon Grey? Wait a second...

"What was life like to you and Circe before you left Britain?"

His whole deportment changed almost instantly, making me regret even asking.
"It was okay," he says curtly, gazing off somewhere else as he struggled to maintain his cool. Slight failure. "My turn."

"I was hoping for something more descriptive," I retort, giving him a quizzical look.

A long drawn out sigh is my response and I can't help but wonder what could have been so bad about Britain that Talon is reluctant to talk about?"

I watch him rise from his stool, pick up our empty mugs and carry them to the sink to wash. Probably a distraction. A nice gesture though. After a while of me staring at his back, he started to respond. "We were happy. "

"Our mom was a model and designer. Dad is the founder and CEO of the Fable Motor Corporation. Darci was our nanny back then too. We all lived together in a mansion at the brink of London. Then mum died, dad disowned us when he found out we weren't truly his and shipped us off to his elder brother, AKA, our real father." He spat it out like venom; his back tensing with the inner pain he felt to his core. "Our real father also abandoned us to the point we were scrangly shells of ourselves. When he found out how we were being treated, our fake dad shipped his brother to jail and instead of keeping us closer than ever, he shipped us here; so far away where he could barely care!"