Perigee [bxb] | Bad Moon Book II

14; {Tisper}: sham

an; real quick, I just wanted to say: if  you aren't receiving notifs for Perigee, please make sure it's still added to your library. Apparently the book has been deleting itself from libraries and that's why some of you aren't getting notifications.

Also this chapter is a bit unnecessary in terms of plot but very much necessary in terms of Tisper, so enjoy anyway. I know you guys are dying for the spicy stuff and I promise it's on the horizon, but the plot and subplots are also very important so please be patient! ♥

She hadn't meant to go into his room. Not really.

First, it was the hard, drumming pulse in her head. The one that had nestled in after all of that wine. Then it was that distracting crow of laughter down the hall, the sun glinting in through the window at the far end—ricocheting from a room plaque and blinding her momentarily. Yes, that. That was why she'd accidentally found herself in his room, staring at a bed with no one in it.

He must've left already—gone downstairs for a drink or out with a friend. Or maybe he'd gone wolf again, swept out into the trees for that solitude he seemed so keen on finding.

She hadn't expected his room to be so clean. It was Felix, after all. In her mind, she saw clothes strung about—those frayed-at-the-knee jeans, that black bomber jacket he always wore, so threadbare and shredded, it looked as if it'd gone through a lawn mower twice and lived to tell the tale.

But his things were put away—and definitely not by room service, because his bed was still a twisted, undone mess of rumpled sheets, the duvet kicked all the way to the foot.

Tisper wandered to his dressers, and inspected the items on top. Some change he'd pulled from his pocket, a black BIC lighter, a keychain with a scant amount of keys and a single silver bottle opener. Then a black leather wallet.

She gave a look around and nudged the outer flap open, and his ID card shown inside the plastic window. Felix Cummins, just like he'd said—but Tisper knew ID cards weren't hard to fake. She'd paid a hundred bucks to be twenty-one on her seventeenth birthday.

Staring at a photo of Felix was so different from looking at him in person. She could never really keep those dark green eyes in one place. He looked away too often, never stared at one thing for too long. Why did he look so serious in this photo? Serious wasn't Felix. Was it?

"I've got no cash."

Tisper jumped—jumped at the sound of his voice. She clapped his wallet closed and turned to him, her hands behind her back.

He was wiping down the side of his neck with a bath towel, bare-chested but dressed in a pair of fitted slacks—which was admittedly strange in its own. Izzy must have forced them on him, or maybe the ceremony really was just that important.

She could smell a rich cologne, and when he'd pulled the towel away, Tisper caught for the first time his clean-shaven face. He had a long jaw, a sure chin—a scar on the right side of it that made him look like he'd been in a knife fight. In fact, he had scars all over—not that she minded them, but she liked the scruffy unkempt version better. This Felix looked too sharp, too young, too criminal. A man up to no good.

When she said nothing, Felix cocked one sharp red brow. "Are you a kleptomaniac or is it only me you're trying to rob?"

"I don't want your money," she said. "I wanted my arrow." It was the first thing she could think of, but she jerked her chin up with conviction. "The one you ate that bird from like a shish kabob."

But she wasn't expecting Felix to gesture to the bedside, where on the nightstand drawer sat the arrow she'd shot that night—wiped clean and still resting on the cloth he'd washed it with. She didn't think he'd actually bring it back with him. It was only an arrow.