RED REAPER - Soldiers Of Fortune [book one]

Chapter THIRTEEN

Lucky O'Cléirigh

With the most violent vodka hangover of my life and my sunglasses still on indoors, I trail through the lobby of my uptown apartment building towards the elevator in a frustrated daydream.. My head aches and my conscience is weighted down by guilt but my heart soars as my thoughts keep drifting back to last night and the way Konstantin had held me in his arms until I fell asleep..

When I had woken up alone in his bed, it had taken me a few minutes to recall the events of the night before and for those fleeting seconds I knew what true happiness felt like.. All those secrets we had shared and the dirty things he'd said to me in the quiet hours, they mix in my mind to confirm every feeling I've ever had about the man.. He is everything I have dreamed of and so much more..

He is stern and soft.. Fearsome and kind.. There is a harshness to his humour and a brutality to his honesty, cruel and comforting all at once..

Konstantin understands pain in a way I can't even begin to process but in a weird way, he gives me the confidence to try and make sense of my own..
Around him, I don't feel so broken because he seems to believe in me when I don't even believe in myself.. He sees the purity in me that I have so longed to preserve.. The purity I feared I had lost when I was just a little girl..

Konstantin pulls me in, he puts me under some kind of hopeful spell and I dream of spending my days with him, telling him all my suffering and sorrow and learning how to take its weight.. He is the sticky glue with which I think I might finally begin to be able to piece myself back together again..

All my life I have felt as though there was something wrong with me.. I have lived in dreading fear that somehow I deserved all the bad things that happened, over and over again.. Every terrible experience, every horrible date, every mistake..

But to Konstantin, I am sunshine..

I am sunshine and he is the most beautiful of starry midnights.. We are so different, in our experience, yet somehow we share so much more in common than I ever realised..

But what he says and what he does are not exactly harmonious.. He looks at me like he wants to eat me, but somehow he maintains this aloof distance that pisses me off at times..

That very same cold indifference gave me a bitter sting of disappointment when he'd dropped me off at my apartment minutes ago without so much as a mention of when we would see each other again.. Part of me had wanted to desperately beg him to give me some kind of confirmation, while another had been recklessly irritated at the idea of having to ask..

Maybe I am too temperamental and inpatient.. Maybe I should manage my expectations of the man.. Then again, I never have been one to do things by halves.. But what gives me hope is the sentimental something he had given me that would ensure he'd get another chance to see me..

I take the small black film canister from my pocket with a satisfied smile, elated that Konstantin had trusted me with something as precious as the development of his old pictures.. I hum to myself in happiness, certain that he must have given them to me as an excuse to talk to me again.. Especially since he didn't exactly seem excited to have any reminders of his past life..

I know Konstantin cares for me, even if he won't set those feelings in stone.. Even if he doesn't want to label what we have.. There is something cosmic and undeniable between us.. There always was..

As I reach for the elevator call button a familiar lyrical voice calls to me and my stomach sinks in realisation and shame.. "Lucky-Doll! Heya, wait-up, Babe!"

I spin around, pushing my sunglasses up to rest on-top of my head as my sneakers squeaking against the tile underfoot..
Immediately, I see Brody looking terribly tired and disheveled, he jogs hurriedly across the lobby floor towards me with a wave..