The McKay Boys

28| arcane•

"Cool. And this one is mine?" He took the plate from me with the last one sitting on top of it.

"Yeah..." I hung my head, folding my hands in front of me. I felt so shy around him at that moment, and to make matters worse, he wasn't wearing a shirt. I had nowhere to look but at the opened ceiling, watching the dark, musty clouds crawl across the tainted skies. His pink, puckered mouth must have looked appealing as he chewed his meal, and I had this sad thought, that maybe Khalil didn't like me the way I liked him. It was as though he needed me to keep him safe, and not exactly needed me, if that made sense. Subtracting my ability to protect him from the darkness, maybe there would be no use for me. I'd just be like one of those girls at school, someone he wouldn't think too highly of.

I wasn't stupid. I knew love and lust. I wasn't exactly educated in the field but I knew how the two differed. And Khalil had often touched me in ways that were a little sexual. Maybe he was only experimenting with me. He didn't like me romantically...

And the thought hurt a bit.

"This is nice. Thanks, Amelia."

And suddenly, I felt distant from him. I'd always feel distant from him because Khalil didn't voice his emotions much. He didn't reveal his real feelings to me, and he kept a lot of things to himself. Kanan was more vocally bold, though I got the impression that he only revealed what he wanted you to know. Keegan wasn't vocal at all, and truthfully, Khalil leaned more on the sexual side. He liked kissing me and touching me. And I knew that those factors could not be perceived as love. I wished I could read his mind to know what he was thinking, but I knew that was impossible.

"Amelia?"

I snapped from my head to see him watching me worriedly, eyebrows tightly drawn together as he chewed slowly. He swallowed hard and asked, "Are you okay?"

I nodded and scratched the top of my head. "Yeah. Could you take the plate back to the kitchen when you're through?"

His face fell a bit, but I couldn't tell why.

"Okay."

I turned away to leave when he suddenly grasped my arm and pulled me back to him, my feet squeaking against the damp deck. He bent to rest the plate on the ground and swallowed the last of his bread.

"Um...Amelia..."

His complexion had changed to a flaming red, and I stepped away from him, fearing we'd start doing things we weren't supposed to be doing again. That night while he touched me in his room, his face had become a ripe red, and his eyes somehow became a darker shade of blue. Though the room had been underlit, it wasn't hard to make out his hooded gaze under the white beam of the moon and his phone light.

He noticed my uneasiness and released a soft sigh, wetting his already moist lips. "Are you okay?"

No. "Yes..."

He rubbed the back of his neck. "Amelia, I-I just wanted to say I am really sorry if... I scared you in my room the other night. I didn't mean to...it's just..." He looked down, water dripping from his hair. "Sometimes, when I am around you, I feel...I get..."

I didn't want to talk about it. I felt confused and sensitive at that moment that any word or action of his could have affected me emotionally.

"We don't have to..."

"I don't want to talk about it." I smiled a little, interrupting him. With his neck still bent, he looked up under his wet lashes. "Can we...talk about that some other time?"

After a few seconds, he nodded and tried to mirror my plastic smile. Mirrors are accurate, so his smile came off just as fake as mine did.

I chewed on my lip awkwardly. "Well...I'll see you later, then. Ashton must be waiting."