When the Sun Sets

39.

"Can't you say it here?" I ask him because, hell, I can't help taunting him.

"No," he says simply, turning around on his feet and walking away.

I let out a sigh. "Excuse me. I'll only be a minute," I say to Laila.

I don't know if she hears me because she stares after where Fai disappeared to as if she's in a daze.

I go after Fai to see what she wants. He's in the bathroom, leaning over the sink. "You wanted a word with me, darling?"

He turns his head, looking at me with the most devilish expression I've ever seen. "Close the door."

I don't know if I want to, but I know that I don't want his mother to hear what's going to go down between us. It'll be ugly. I close the door and wordlessly step further into the bathroom. "What were you thinking, Kadience? What the fuck were you thinking?!" he bellows.

"You don't like the surprise?" I ask, cocking my head to the side.

He pushes backwards, stalking towards me like a panther, ready to attack. "You're playing a dangerous game. Don't play with my fire because you'll not only get burned, but it'll swallow you. You'll come out as ash and nothing more than that."

I give him a defying look. "I love when you talk dirty to me," I say with a completely straight face.

His face twists. And then, all of a sudden, his hand goes backwards and he hits the door right next to my head with such a force, it makes a loud sound that makes me flinch and squeeze tighter against it.

I don't want to show him, but my body suddenly starts trembling. This might be the first time ever I really got scared of him. Scared that I went too far and he's going to lose his mind and hit me.

But when he turns around, his hand pinching his nose, I realize how ridiculous my thoughts are. I know he'd never hurt me. He would never put his hands on me because he knows of my demons. Yet I still can't help my body's involuntary reaction to his anger.

I'm scared to say anything because I'm scared my voice will come out shaky and scared. Because that's what I am, even though I don't want to be.

"It's not safe for her to be here. I told you one little goddamn lie that hurt no one. And you go and put my mother in such a danger that could cost her life." He's not talking to my face, he's staring at the wall.

I'm thankful for that so he can't see how my body is trembling in aftershocks of his fist connecting to the door.

"She's traveling under a fake name and she's alone. No one knows she's here. She was just a normal passenger and she has a hotel reserved under the same fake name, so she won't be staying here."

He's silent for long, long moments. "You infuriate me like no one else. Can raise my blood pressure to the roof."

"Yes, well, before it totally cools down – you'll need to take your mom to the hotel because we can't risk her using public transportation."

Fai turns around this time and he does it before I even finish the sentence. "On what? My motherucking motorcycle? Christ," he says, already taking his phone out. "You really have to go and complicate my goddamn life. I should've never looked at you twice. Knew you were trouble."

"But you could never resist trouble, could you? A little havoc. Trouble makes you feel alive, doesn't it? Runs the blood through your body."

He lifts his eyes to look at me for two seconds. "I didn't know you were also a poet, among other things."