Midnight Muse

I wish I could sleep, too.

“Still salty you weren’t invited, Princess?” I deflect.

She scoffs and steps around me, clearly more than ready for this conversation to be over. I’m not, though, spinning on my heel to follow her towards the building. “As if.”

She stalks for the door but my longer strides eat the distance between us easily. “I think I might catch the elevator with you,” I tell her. “Since we’re going to the same floor, and all.”

I don’t know why I’m trying to engage, why I’m egging her on. I’ve had a nice enough night when I escaped the party, but there’s something about her. I want her attention on me, even if it’s because she’s annoyed with me. I want that sharp tongue and dark glares pointed in my direction.

I could easily apologize for earlier, for shutting the door in her face and telling my roommates to do the same, but I think I’ll wait. As much as my ride helped calm me down, I’m not ready to make peace with the fact that she threatened to have my motorcycle towed.

I don’t play about my bike.

“No, thanks,” she responds, all but ripping the front door off its hinges. She’s probably hoping that it will hit me on the backswing but my hand’s already there, catching it and pulling it wider, trailing her inside.

“More of a stairs kind of girl, I presume?” I ask innocently, referring to her trip up to the fourth floor by stairwell when I had taken the elevator up.

She grits her teeth and I can tell that she wants to take the bait as she jams her finger into the button, calling the elevator.

It’s still on the first floor from when she must have taken it down to move the truck. The door opens with a whine that makes me shiver.

“More of a ‘don’t talk to me’ kind of girl,” she retorts, nearly growling when I shove myself inside of the metal box with her. Her anger clouds the space, thick and cloying. She keeps to herself during the ride, much to my dismay, glaring at the neon green numbers as the rickety elevator ascends.

“Feisty, Princess,” I smirk.

“Do not call me that!” Her scowl is strong. Scary, almost. It has the corners of my mouth twitching upwards.

“Sure thing, Princess.”

CHAPTER 4

QUINN

Adeep rattling of the walls shakes me from my sleep. It vibrates through my chest, the ardent bass and pounding drums reverberates my bones. The timber of the singer’s voice swims in my head, throaty and low, and I’m unable to pluck the words from the lyrics and make sense of them this early in the morning.

I blink once, twice. My eyelids feel like sandpaper and my head is stuffed with tiredness; a sharp pain settled in my skull despite the darkness of my room.

Night still licks the walls and I groan, rolling over. I shove my pillow over my head but it does little to block the disruption coming from the other side of the wall. I have no idea what time it is. If it’s still the same night where I’d run into the asshole next door on my way back inside from moving the truck, I’ll be absolutely livid.

After I noticed the motorcycle was gone, I was hoping that things were starting to finally look up for the rest of my first night at my apartment. Knox—as the third boy at the door supplied—had left while his roommates’ party seemed to be winding down, if the three giggling drunk girls on the elevator ride down to the lobby was any sign. They’d been gushing about one of the roommates, Slate. One of the girl’s brunette hair was disheveled in her ponytail, as if someone had tried to run their fingers through it, or had wrapped said hairstyle around their fist.

Gag.

“He kept calling me baby,” she raved, her voice filled with awe. Both of her friends started squealing in excitement. I could hardly contain the desperate urge to roll my eyes at their annoyance, how they openly talked about the lines of muscle cording his body and the length of his cock with a complete stranger inside of this tiny metal box with them. It’s not as if they were whispering. I cut a glance at the girl swooning over one of my rude neighbor’s appendages.

Her bright green eyes were clouded with drink and I couldn’t help comparing them to Knox’s jade ones. I was still itching to draw them, but was much too annoyed and exhausted to do so. Her face was flushed, the top button of her shirt undone. She looked like everything beautifully fucked.

My mouth flattened into a line, wondering which of the remaining two roommates had been the one to claim her tonight.

Eventually, the doors to the elevator had screeched open, but even the shrill noise didn’t deter their gossiping. They stumbled out of the elevator with a cheerfulness only alcohol and dick could conjure, laughing their way up the quieting streets.

It was a miracle that I didn’t have a parking ticket clinging to the window of the rental truck. I had moved it both easily and quickly, something I would’ve been able to do if that asshole Knox had given me the damn space when I asked him to relocate his motorcycle in the first place.

And, of course, as I cursed his name for the umpteenth time of the night, he appeared.

Cloaked in a worn leather jacket that clung to his broad shoulders, and what I’m assuming is his usual garb: black pants, combat boots, and t-shirt. There was a tight line to his mouth, his deep eyes reflecting the nighttime sky, caressed by equally dark, thick lashes. He looked as tired as I felt with slight purple rings around his eyes. Knox’s helmet, that, when he shucked off, pulled his hair up in the most perfectly disheveled ways, even more so when he ran his gloved fingers through it with that damned smirk on his face, directed at me.

He hadn’t allowed my gaze to linger on his handsomeness. A streak of mischief glimmered in his eyes like a shooting star, taunting me. When Knox spoke, his tone was deep and dulcet, unexpected for the jeer that was about to fall from his perfectly pink lips. It took longer than I would admit for my tired mind to grasp onto the words coming from his moving mouth. His asshole-ish smile only widened when I scoffed and took his bait.