Brutal Blueblood

I was immediately irritated with myself for being flattered. He’d literally been unaware of my existence for years. I shouldn’t feel butterflies just because he was looking at me while he spoke to me.
As we walked away from the building, he asked, “So were you coming from Preston Media?”
The way he asked—curious, a little reserved—set me on my guard a little. If he’d gone for the Everston, did that mean he also wanted to work in magazine publishing? Did that mean he could be my competition in the future too?
I answered as vaguely as I could, “Just a short meeting. It wasn’t a big deal.”
He looked at me, and I could tell he wanted to ask more, so I cut him off. “What about you?” I asked. “Were you heading into the building?”
His answer was as vague as mine. “No, I was just in the area.” He seemed to want to change the subject because he jumped to another topic entirely. “So, how come you never hang out with us?”
What? “I hang out with Sera and the girls,” I said defensively.
No, you don’t. Only when Sera makes you.
“I’m glad she dragged you on this trip, then.”
“Sera has made it her mission to get me to have fun. I’m not, but you know it’s hard to say no to her.”
“Yeah, that’s Sera. Been like that since we were little.”
“Oh yeah. That’s right. You do live nearby.”
He nodded. “Practically across the street. Once when we were four, at the playground with our nannies, I grabbed a handful of sand, lifted her hair, and put the sand all in it.”
I stopped, mouth agape. “Oh my God, no. You were a little asshole.”
“I was an arsehole, all right. Thank you for noticing.”
I snorted a laugh, and there was that grin again. “I didn’t know never to touch a Black girl’s hair. I was four. But Sera just very calmly turned to me and scowled. You know that face she makes when someone’s about to be eviscerated? Then she had this very sweet voice—I still remember it like it was yesterday—and promised that every day she saw me for the next five years, she was going to put sand in my hair.”
“That sounds like a little Sera.”
“It does, doesn’t it? That cool, calm, ‘I am absolutely the queen of my universe.’ And you know what, she actually did. Every day when we went to the park after that, for a solid week, there was Sera waiting for me with sand in her hand. Once or twice, I tried to run; that was worse. That was much worse.”
I laughed and laughed. Why was this so easy right now? To talk to him? To be with him?
Maybe it was because this was the first time we’d ever talked—really talked, since blurting out MCU fan fiction factoids right before a kiss didn’t really count—and I was seeing glimpses beneath the frozen surface of the Ice King.
“And then, well, she heard one day that we were moving back to England, so she told me that the days of sand would have to end. But when I returned, she would find some new way to torture me. I told her she’d never catch me.”
“Oh my God. Let me guess, she actually caught you?”
He nodded. “God, I can still see Sera chasing me around the playground, hand full of sand, and me crying the whole time.”
“Something tells me that you don’t cry.”
“Well, I was four, what do you want? But still, it was a manly cry.”
I giggled. Actually giggled. Like a cliché schoolgirl. Jesus.
At the busy crosswalk, we both halted. As the New York taxis flew by, one of them hit a puddle. Without even blinking, Owen wrapped an arm around my waist, lifted me out of the way, and shielded me with his body. Once again, my heart didn’t know how to take the contact. I blinked in surprise at him. “Jesus, do you have a knight-in-shining-armor complex or something?”
He didn’t grin then. Just stared at my mouth. “No, actually. I’m not really for saving people.”
“But still, you saved me three times now. I feel like I owe you.”
He released me immediately. “You owe me nothing. It’s simply the right thing to do.”
I watched him for a moment. “That’s you, isn’t it? Mr. Do-the-Right-Thing.”
He shrugged. “Possibly. Though I think that’s more a function of being told so many times what the right thing to do is. I know exactly how I’m supposed to behave in every situation. But is that merely etiquette muscle memory or actually feeling the urge to do the right thing, you know?”
“What? Does Owen Montgomery have the urge to be a rebel?”
His gaze flickered over me again, and then slowly focused on my lips. “You have no idea.”
Despite the wind blistering so hard it was chapping my nose and lips, my whole body flushed hot and warm. I started to sweat. Finally, the light changed again, and we were crossing the street. I spotted a hot chocolate stand on the corner, and God, how my mouth watered. I literally would kill for one, but it would be better to wait until I got to Sera’s. I didn’t really have the money to spend on it anyway.
As we walked by, my lips twitched involuntarily and my stomach grumbled, which was not helpful. I wanted it to stop immediately.
“Should I buy us some hot chocolate?”
I stopped and glanced up at him, irritated I had to crane my neck to look into his eyes. “What?”
“A hot chocolate? Do you want one?”
I did want one, but why did he want to buy it for me? “I can get my own.” It looked like I would be spending money today.
“Don’t be stubborn.” I could practically see his shoulders widening and setting in place as he crossed his arms. “I’m buying you a hot chocolate. Besides, your stomach grumbled. You’re clearly hungry. Why won’t you let me do it?”
“Because I don’t need you to do it.”
He tipped his head back. “Look, you’re