The Sharpest Kiss by Elizabeth Myles (the false prince .txt) 📕

bathroom, scrabbling through the medicine cabinet for supplies. She hurried back with a packet of gauze in one hand and a bottle of hydrogen peroxide in the other. She sat beside him and fought  with trembling hands to get the bottle open and wet the gauze. She spilled some of the cold liquid down the leg of her jeans.

“I’m sorry,” Jason said again, and shot his hand out to encircle her wrist. “Dara, I’m so sorry.”

“Why do you keep saying that? What did you do?”

“I love you,” he slurred. “You know that right?” The look in his eyes was so wretched, it made her heart feel like it was ripping in half.

“Of course I do. I love you, too.”

“I love you so much.”

“I love you, too.”

“You’re everything to me.”

Dara nodded, battling back a rising sense of impatience. She wished he would just get on with whatever he was trying to tell her, that he would explain what was wrong so she could help him.

“There was a girl there,” he said, swallowing hard. “At the party. Never seen her before, don’t know where she came from. Really pretty girl, though…”

Dara froze, a lump of ice forming in her stomach. She felt her eyes grow.

“I don’t…” Jason swallowed again, and Dara noticed his lips looked painfully parched, like he hadn’t had anything to drink all day. “I don’t know how it happened. Or why, but I…I kissed that girl.” Misery flooded his eyes. “I kissed her, and I don’t know why. I didn’t even want to…”

Dara’s breathing nearly stopped. Her vision darkened around the edges, and she had the strangest impression the room had begun to shrink, the four walls pressing in toward her. Her first instinct was to recoil from him. She wanted to rip her wrist from his grip and shoot to her feet, pelt away into the bedroom, and slam the door shut. She wanted to sink to the carpet and cover her head with both arms.

More than anything, she wanted to forget she had ever heard such a nauseating admission spill out of Jason’s perfect mouth.

“Dara…” Jason said, shaking his head.

She shook her head, too, and tugged on her wrist. Tears were collecting in her eyes. Let me go, Jason. Let me go. The words were climbing up her throat, readying to emerge on a yell. She tensed her legs, gaining leverage to pull away.

“Dara…” He released her and buried his face in his hands, letting out an anguished sob.

The sound froze her in place again. And then it undid her. Raw and tormented, it wrung Dara’s heart like a rag, and, in an instant, her own pain seemed to dissolve like vapor. There was only concern left behind for him, for this man she loved more than anything else in the world.

“Jason? Honey?” She draped her arm around his shoulders and leaned her head against his. As she pressed a comforting kiss to his temple, she noticed a smell she’d picked up before, when she was bringing him up the stairs. Sour, like he’d been sweating a lot. In panic, maybe. Or in fear. Goodness, what had happened to him tonight? Something awful, she was suddenly sure. A fresh wave of sympathy crested in Dara’s breast.

“It’s okay,” she crooned. “Everything’s going to be okay now, baby, I promise.”

Another quiet sob shook his shoulders, and then he lowered his hands, turning to gaze at her with red-rimmed, astonished eyes. “You’re not mad?” he sniffled, wiping his wrist across his nose.

Dara shook her head, realizing that she really wasn’t. Not anymore. For the past few hours, she’d been imagining all sorts of horrifying scenarios, wondering if she would have to start phoning the police station and emergency rooms, trying to figure out if Jason had been in some terrible accident. Now, she was just relieved he was home and in one piece, that he was still alive. Because Jason wasn’t only her husband, he was her very best friend. He had never done anything to hurt her, had never cheated on her or anything close to it. Why would he suddenly start now?

I kissed that girl, and I don’t know why. I didn’t even want to…

Whatever had happened to him tonight had obviously been against his will.

Affront bubbled up inside Dara, sending an acidic taste into her mouth. Something had been done to her husband at that party, and she was going to help him figure out what it was. She was going to help him fix it.

“I’m not mad,” she said evenly. “Not at you. Now show me where all this blood came from. Where are you hurt?”

Jason flinched as he tugged down the collar of his jacket and showed her his wound.

That time, Dara did recoil, gasping in horror as she dropped the gauze to the floor and slapped her hand over her mouth. The bottle of hydrogen peroxide slipped from between her knees and splashed all over the carpet.

Chapter Four

So, lemme get this straight. Two days ago, he sort of blew you off, and then he called you sounding like he’d just downed half the bar by himself, and left a voicemail saying you were awesome and asking you out to dinner, and then…what? He just stopped talking to you?

Lucy carefully tapped out her reply to Jessica.

Yeah, pretty much. Weird, right?

Aaron had been late to work the day after he’d drunk-dialed Lucy and asked her out to dinner. When she’d texted him to find out if he was okay, he’d written back that he was sick and had overslept. He’d shown up an hour later, unshaved and wearing sunglasses, and marched right past her desk, into his office, without saying anything to her. Minutes later, he’d sent her an IM asking her to cancel all his meetings for the day, and to do whatever it took to put off any calls or visitors until tomorrow morning. He’d stayed in his office the rest of the day with the door closed