Dangerous Liaisons [✗]

𝟎𝟑 | 𝐡𝐢𝐠𝐡

I considered slamming the container into his face, but I couldn't get beyond his warm yet stern eyes glancing back at me, his enormous arms crossed across his chest, as if startled by my intrusion on his threshold. Instead of reprisal, I surprised myself by expanding my lips in a hesitant smile, so much so I knew it would eventually drop.

"Hi." I bit out eventually. "You don't remember me?"

He frowned, dropping one rippling bicep, a hand making way to brush his stubbled jaw briefly as he slowly blinked down at me, shocked I was speaking to him willingly, much less on his doorstep. "Audrey. It would seem I do remember you. Question is, what are you doing here?"

The name my family called me by being used by him was like a sucker punch to my gut and I had to pace myself, drawing in a deep breath. It was what he was familiar with, having heard my brother call me it on many occasions, every time he picked up the phone and checked up on me.

Blaze and I didn't cross each other's paths, the possibilities were always slim because I studied miles away and I was always sheltered so well; we certainly weren't friends, we never spent time together and that would have been very weird considering our age difference.

Truthfully, we knew of each other pretty well because of Elyas. The only reason we tolerated one another, or even pretended to, was because my brother wanted to be on good terms with everyone and the pair of us happened to be his favourite people in the world.

"Blaze Thayer." I said curtly, trying to soak in the fact he was taller than ever. "I haven't seen you in a very long time.

"Same here." He countered, furrowing his brows at the use of his surname, while leaning against the door.

"You're back?" I pressed. "After all this time?"

"I live here." He replied simply. "Why are you here?"

"You left." I ignored his question again. "You went away."

"Now I'm here." He stated matter-of-factly, eyebrow raised.

"I brought you muffins." I announced, pushing the container at him.

"You poison them?" He gruffly said. "Spit on them by any chance?"

"I wouldn't do anything of that nature." I started to lose my composure. "We never had the chance to really interact, not everything my brother said about me is true. To him, I was just his annoying kid sister. Except obviously I'm no longer that. Annoying. Nor a kid."

"Is that so?" He mused. "Beats me, you still have no business being here. I have important things to get on with, and maybe you don't, that's why you're still not leaving."

He pointedly gave me a once over, eyes roaming my body, till they landed on my fuzzy slippers, baby elephants printed on the toes of it.

It was a given he was judging me.

I felt very timid and small.

"I just came to say hello." I dropped my tone and huffed, chest heaving. That reaction only seemed to agitate him, but he didn't answer me. Instead he had the audacity to reach for the muffins, and slam the door on my face, leaving me royally strung up with his parting words in mind.

"You have a staring problem."

I opened my mouth to deny it. But I knew that I had been staring at him, particularly because I was still in shock with his presence and partially because it was difficult not to observe how much his physique had changed.

For starters, his shirt hugged a chest that was broader, more defined than I remembered, his forearms paraded bulging veins, and his eyelashes curled just slightly, feathered over irises that had no business being so intricate.