21. What Feels Right

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Tara keeps quiet at my words

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Tara keeps quiet at my words. All I get is a timid glance so unlike her everything I want to say flees my brain. 

“Would you like to watch a movie when we get home?”

Cool, Bast. Offer her some Netflix with a dash of chill. So subtle.

“Sure.” Tara jerks her shoulders in a careless shrug. “You can choose one, Basti.”

“You’re giving me permission to choose the movie? I’m impressed. What if I have awful taste?”

She scrunches her nose, and I can’t help smiling at how childlike the gesture is. She’s wrapped in a sweater that looks a size too big and doesn’t have any makeup on, not that it makes her less beautiful. 

“You have awful taste in shoes,” Tara says. “We’ll see about movies.”

My eyes dart to my sneakers. “What’s wrong with my shoes?”

“You should clean them sometimes, Basti. Maybe they’re not so bad, but it’s hard to tell the color.”

I laugh. “Shut up. They’re black.”

“The ones you have at home are supposed to be white.” Tara winks. 

“If I clean those, will you—"

“Nope.” She wiggles her index finger. “No more deals. You said one question, so that’s all you’ll get.”

“Okay. Ready to go home?”

Tara tilts her head in a yes, and I start the car. My gaze bounces between her and the evening traffic. She looks out of the window at first, but a few minutes later, she closes her eyes, slumping into the seat. 

When I park, Tara’s sound asleep.

I curl my hand around her shoulder and squeeze lightly. “We’re home.”

Her eyes flutter open. “I’m sorry.” She stretches, yawning. “It’s been a long day.”

I want to ask her what she did before I got home, but I’m not sure how she’d take it. I already found out what I needed, anyway. 

“Did you come up with the movie?” Tara asks as we enter the building and take the stairs to our floor.

“Not yet. But I will after dinner. I’m starving.”

“Same,” she says from behind me. “Someone has to eat all that food. Will you open the door?”

“Sure.” I fish out the keys but halt on the last step. Tara bumps into me. Luckily, my reflexes are quick — I save her from falling by circling her waist with my arm and take a calming breath when all I want to do is punch the wall Elena is leaning on.

I have no clue who let her in or what she’s doing here, but it doesn’t change that I want her gone. I wish there was a rewind button for me to press so I could take Tara somewhere else —to a movie theater, a diner. Don’t fucking know, don’t fucking care.

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