NALA POV
Ivin was in a room in the sa underground building I was for God knows how long without checking on and even worse he was having a conversation on a phone like he had all day to do it.
He was not looking like a man who had left a person or maybe a group of people completely isolated underground for three days with zero information and zero explanation.
No.
Instead he was sitting in a chair with one ankle crossed over his knee and a phone pressed to his ear like it was a regular Tuesday and the world was behaving itself. I could feel the chaos in my head shifting into sothing like Rage.
He looked up briefly when I walked in.
Sothing like relief crossed his face so fast I almost missed it but I didn’t miss it. I saw it and I knew what I saw and he knew I saw it and then it was gone and he was back to being a wall with eyes.
He said sothing low into the phone and ended the call.
I waited until I heard the door click shut behind Lena before I opened my mouth.
"Three days."
"I can count." His voice was flat.
"Clearly you can count but apparently you cannot communicate because three days Ivin, three whole days of nothing and I am sitting in a room down here with no phone, no information, no idea what is happening and no idea if you are even still alive and you are just sitting here on a phone call like I am not even a thought in your head."
He looked at with that particular expression of his that I was starting to recognize, the one that ant he was listening but had no imdiate plans to validate anything I was saying. Like my frustration was weather he was observing from indoors.
"Say sothing." I snapped.
"You didn’t ask anything."
"I am asking now, what the hell has been going on for three days and why was I the last to know anything?"
"You were not the last to know anything." He stood up and I hated that he stood up because he was already too much to deal with seated. "You were not supposed to know anything at all. There’s a difference."
"Oh brilliant, so I’m on a need to know basis in my own life now, that’s fantastic, that is genuinely a great system you’ve built here."
"Your brother is still alive."
I stopped.
"In case that was sowhere in the pile of everything you were about to say next." He held my gaze with absolutely no expression on his face. "Ethan is alive. Whatever is in your head is an exaggerated nonsense."
I hated how much my body wanted to sag with relief because I was in the middle of being furious and relief was not invited. I kept my face together.
"And you couldn’t have told that three days ago before you stord out angrily."
"I had more important things to manage."
"Right. And I’m not important enough to fit in your schedule."
Sothing moved in his jaw.
"What do you want Nalayna?" The sound of his gruff masculine voice calling my full na did sothing nice to my starved pussy but let’s ignore that.
"I want you to act like I am a person who exists and not a liability or a furniture you left in storage."
"You are not furniture, I can’t decide on the liability part seeing as you or your brother are yet to pay your debt"
"Could have fooled ."
He looked at for a long mont and said nothing. I looked away first. I hated that I looked away first. I walked to the other side of the room just to have sothing to do with my feet and put so air between us because he was crowding without moving and that was sohow more aggravating than if he had just gotten in my face about it.
"Is that all you’re going to tell ? Ethan is alive and everything else is none of my business?"
"Yes." After a heavy silence he added "For now"
"For now." I repeated it back slowly so he could hear how it sounded. "My brother’s life is a for now situation."
"Your brother’s life is being handled."
"By you."
"Yes."
"The sa you who disappeared for days without a word."
"The sa who has kept you fed, sheltered and breathing underground while soone out there is looking for reasons to make your situation worse." He said it without raising his voice, without any particular heat, he laid it down on the floor between us like a set of facts he was tired of being the only one accounting for. "So yes. By ."
I wanted to say sothing that would cut through that. I turned it over in my head looking for the right angle while he just stood there waiting, like he had already decided how this ended and was giving the ti to arrive there myself which was the most infuriating thing he could have done.
"I don’t like you." I said it plainly.
"I know."
"I want to be very clear about that while we are in a room together because apparently clarity is sothing that needs to be established between us."
"Are you done?"
"No I am not done, I have been marinating in a room by myself for three days with nothing to do except get into argunts with people I don’t know and think about everything that could be going wrong and you standing there with your phone and your face and your two word answers is not making any of this easier so no, I am not done."
He tilted his head slightly. "Marinating."
"Don’t."
"I didn’t say anything."
"You were about to say sothing with that face."
"I don’t have a face."
"You absolutely have a face and it is doing sothing right now and I need you to stop it." I grabbed my jacket that I dropped earlier while arguing with him, from the back of the chair because I needed sothing to do with my hands and because being in this room was starting to feel like standing inside sothing I couldn’t na and I was not interested in naming it today.
"I’m leaving. I’ve said what I needed to say, you’ve said your three sentences, we’re done."
I headed for the door.
I had my hand on it, had the handle in my grip, and then his hand ca flat against the door above my head, pressing it shut with a quiet finality that went through my whole body before I could do anything about it.
I did not turn around.
He didn’t move or attempt to explain. No. He didn’t say a single word.
He just kept his hand on that door and breathed and I stood there with my back to him and my heart doing sothing completely unauthorized in my chest and the silence between us was so loud it had a shape.
"Ivin." My voice ca out steadier than I deserved credit for, I could feel his hard torso pressing against my back and slightly against my head.
"Ivin." I tried again, this ti my voice was hoarse, I was so sure he could see through to my soaking things, I cleared my throat and faked the confidence.
"Move your fucking hand."
"Carrot top. Need I remind you that you agreed to be my girlfriend"
"Fake! Fake girlfriend" I bit back "and no one is here to fake it for?"
"I make the rules sweetheart"
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