HER || 18+ (Monsters #2) || Sequel to THEM

35 - Hickey

I take in every breath just to say your name

. . .

ZAVIER CREED

Olivia didn't say anything about the painting after explaining why it couldn't be any of us. I stuffed the painting in the depths of a closet. She didn't like looking at it, it was obvious.

So, to distract her, I offered my tattoos as her coloring book. She clapped her tiny hands, looking too fucking adorable in my jacket, and made me sit on the couch as she painted me with glaringly vibrant colors.

She was quiet for a while. Ashton and Xerxes were gone, for some meeting about the hotels - and interrogating some people.

"Zavy?"

"Hm?"

"Tell me something that I don't know."

I watched her as her tongue stuck out from the corner of her lips, her glasses on the very edge of her button nose, and her eyes concentrated on the tattoo on my hand. She was sitting on the ground with me laying on the couch.

I thought about it.

"When I was about twelve or thirteen, I fell in love with a Harley-Davidson," I said. "It belonged to a friend of our father's. I stole it, tried to ride it, and slammed right into the wall of the garage. Got this scar." I grabbed her hand and let her feel a scar on my shoulder. "It was still worth it." I grinned at her.

She gasped. "That's a big one!" She pulled my sleeve up and for a second, eyed my bicep. She shook herself out of it, while I smirked widely, and examined my scar.

"There was some sharp shit in the garage," I said.

She gently touched the scar with her index finger, almost hesitantly. "You were so young. It must have hurt."

"I think I cried."

Her bottom lip stuck out just a little. She kissed my scar.

That wasn't the worst scar I had. And she knew that. Yet, her tenderness did shit to my heart - the heart I wasn't even aware of before she grabbed it.

"I cannot imagine you younger. I don't know why."

"We have some photos," I said. "Back home."

She grinned. "I wanna see!"

"I'll show them when you visit."

She nodded happily and went back to defacing my tattoos.

"Tell me something I don't know," I said to her.

She made a thinking face. "Um - Daisy helped me set up an Instagram account."

"I know," I said.

She frowned. "How do you know?"

I picked her phone up from the table nearby and unlocked it. I clicked on Instagram and turned it towards her.

She gasped.

"There are thousands-"

"Someone wrote an article about it," I said. "Called 'Creeds' new girlfriend is actually a genius', or something."

She frowned. "Now I am sad. They always presume women are dumb."

"I got the article off the website."

She scrolled through something on her phone. "Daisy posted us! This is the only picture we could agreed on. In the rest, we are laughing like idiots."

She turned the phone around and there they were, laughing together. Daisy was looking right at the camera, but I barely looked at her. Olivia had her head turned down just a little, strands of her dark hair covering some of her face, and a hand on her mouth as if trying to stifle a laugh.