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It was her turn to grab him by the arm and drag him over to the alley between Pearl’s Pub and the laundry mat. It was on the opposite side of the building from the entrance to the Pit and it was dimly lit. If anyone saw them together, they’d suspect that they were making out. If yelling occurred, they would write them off as drunk and leave them alone.
“Whatever you think you know, I can assure you that it probably isn’t true,” Mykie hissed, letting go of his arm.
"I know that you were adopted by Chance ten years ago. You're not just a Cantil Girl; you're like, the Cantil Girl.”
“That’s simply common information,” she said, ignoring his second sentence. “What’s your point, Renly?”
“My point?” he said through clenched teeth, his eyes wide. “My point is that you aren’t who I thought you were when I brought you home. I thought you were just a waitress, then it turned out that you were Chance’s assistant, and now you’re his daughter? He’s known for being in the Snake King’s pocket.”
Mykie crossed her arms. So, he didn’t know everything. Good. “Details about my father are not something I just tell someone. Especially when it hasn’t come up. You’re making a bigger deal about this than you should be.”
“What are you talking about?!” he yelled, throwing his hands up. “The last time we saw each other, you were holding a gun and told me not to leave my house unless I had one too. Don’t you think I have a right to know why?”
“Why are you getting mad at me for you not asking me about my life?” Mykie huffed.
He looked at her, dumbfounded as she continued.
“You know, you’re standing here, accusing me of lying to you, but what do we really know about each other, Renly? You helped me out at the club and got me drunk enough that I had no choice but to go home with you. We crossed paths by complete mistake, and you think I’d tell you my entire life? That I owe you that?”
When she reflected on this conversation, she realized how insane she sounded. But, at the moment, she thought nothing else made sense except that Renly thought more was owed to him than he received from her.
Renly’s expression slackened at her words.
“Do you really feel that way? That we crossed paths by mistake?” he murmured.
Mykie gripped her fingers into the roots of her hair, feeling her confusion rise. “Yes. No. I don’t know, Renly! Ever since you walked into my life, I’ve been off-kilter and haven’t figured out a way to right myself.”
“The feeling is mutual,” Renly reached forward and grabbed her hands from their tangled spot on her head. He brought them down until they were held between their bodies. “I don’t—no, I can’t believe us meeting was a mistake. Maybe I could have believed it before, but the moment I saw you in my father’s office for that meeting, I knew it wasn’t a mistake.”
He dropped her hands and slowly lifted his to hold her face between them. “I’d never been so scared in my life until what happened at the restaurant. I didn’t want to see you get hurt, and in that moment, I realized that I’d do anything to protect you. I was convinced that you were helpless, and were just a victim of who you associated with. But suddenly you had a gun, and I realized I was the only one helpless at that point, and I didn’t like that.”
Mykie stepped back, letting his hands drop. “So that’s all I was to you, up until that point? A helpless girl that you needed to protect? From what, Renly?”
“From worse men than me,” he said, his fists balled at his sides. “I see the way people—men—look at you when you walk into a room, Mykie. Especially in there. Like that man the first time we met.”
He pointed behind Mykie toward Pearl’s.
"I shook it off after we met the first time, believing you saw it and just ignored it. But then I saw the way my friends looked at you, and I realized you didn't have a clue. I thought that was impossible, that you must have been playing coy, but then I came to the conclusion that you didn't know your effect on men. That's why I told my friends to back off from you. You weren't playing around like they may have assumed. I didn't want you to get overwhelmed by them, either."
She couldn’t believe the utter bullshit that was spewing out of his mouth.
"I'll have you know," she said, her voice quiet but strained, "I knew exactly what kind of game I was playing. The difference is that I don't look at my relationships as a 'game'. When I get close to someone, I'm serious, unlike you. How many girls have you taken home just like you did with me, huh? Corbus didn't seem too surprised to see a half-naked girl walking around your house, just that I was making breakfast."
She pointed a finger into his chest harshly.
“I may have been having a problem in the beginning navigating these new relationships, but I never needed nor wanted your help.” She turned her body slightly and took her finger off his chest to point back at Pearl’s. “And in there? Boy, are you confused. No one is looking at me in the way you’re implying. You may have been confused walking in there with your strait-laced friends, but no one else that you are referring to as ‘looking at me’ is. That place right there is my home. I may have to deal with a rude customer here and there, but no one disrespects me. Not above or below ground in there. Why did you think telling my name to anyone at the door would get you inside? Did you think I was just the favorite flavor of girl there? But, oh, you just ignored that, didn’t you? Since it didn’t fit your reality of me, right?”
Renly stood silently, looking at her as she dropped her hand from where she was pointing and turned to face him straight on again.
"Huh? You have nothing to say now?" Mykie snapped. She could feel her irritation with the situation raising by the second, and this would be the moment that Jezebeth would have to pull her away and tell her to calm down. That she was supposed to be the reasonable one.
Jezebeth wasn’t here, though. And for the moment, that was Renly’s fault, too. She would have never had to defend herself or call Jezebeth for help if she didn’t feel like she had to prove herself to Renly by getting into that restaurant. They wouldn’t have found out about Adam that day, and she would have her best friend at home with her.
Mykie couldn’t take the silent look anymore. She pushed Renly until his back hit the concrete wall behind him, his hands flying up in defense. She grabbed and held each of his wrists on either side of his head as she leaned forward into his face.
“Answer me! How can you stand here and accuse me of keeping secrets when everything was right in your face! You knew where I worked and you saw my tattoo, in Blaine’s bedroom. Admit it, that you knew I was more than you thought I was, but you just ignored it because you wanted me to be someone different for you.”
She knew that if he wanted to, he could push her off. He might have been a little smaller than her in weight, but he had height on her that he could use to overpower her.
