“I so do. My apartment is about a mile from this park, I walk down here almost every night.”
“Well, I …” she stuttered for a second, then started stomping in the opposite direction. “I didn't know that, did I? I never went to your apartment.”
“Awfully coincidental, Tocci,” he teased her, matching her step for step.
“Do not talk to me in that tone of voice,” she hissed, her teeth starting to chatter.
“What tone? You're going to get frost bite, let me help you,” he insisted, grabbing her by the elbow.
“Don't you fucking touch me!”
She had shrieked at him, but still he pulled. It was almost a wrestling match, getting her out of the fountain. The moment her feet touched the ground, she yanked away from him, almost stumbling in her haste to get away.
“If you touch me again, so help me god, I will start screaming so loud, and I won't stop until you're arrested,” she threatened him.
“Kinky.”
“And don't fucking flirt with me!” she yelled, shoving him in the chest.
“Oh, I can't touch you, but you can touch me?”
“Fuck off.”
“It's okay, I don't mind. You can -”
“No,” Katya suddenly held up her hand, stopping him. “I'm not doing this. Goodbye, Wulfric.”
She stepped around him and hurried to her belongings, collecting them in her arms. She barely made it two steps before he was next to her again.
“Katya, wait. I was caught off guard by seeing you. I'm sorry.”
She was completely shocked.
Wulf. Apologizing.
“I'm surprised you even know that word,” she sneered. He pulled her to a stop.
“It's a surprise to me, too. Look, can we cut the theatrics? I was going to call you, but jesus, fuck, what could I say? After all the shit that went down,” he told her. “I needed some time. I said that even, I needed space. If you had respected me at all, you would've given it to me.”
She narrowed her eyes.
“Respect you? Is this a joke? And if you wanted space, you should've asked for it. I'm a pretty generous person, I would've given it to you. But I wasn't asked. I wasn't consulted. There was no discussion. You disregarded me, you ignored me, and then you hurt me. Where the fuck was my respect?” she demanded.
“It was bad. I admit it.”
“Was the way you treated me respectful? Were the things you said respectful? No, they weren't. You purposefully tried to disrespect me. You tried to make me look low, you tried to embarrass me, and then you tried to hurt me. On purpose. Maliciously. You hurt me.”
He winced at that comment, and for a moment – just a moment – Katya wondered if she could get blood from a stone. Then he opened his mouth and she remembered who she was dealing with.
“I wasn't the only one trying to be hurtful – you were in that room, too. You fucked up, too.”
“Are you fucking joking!? You want to keep a score card on who was a bigger fuck up that day? Let me clue you into something, Wulf – I could've pissed on that floor, and I still wouldn't have fucked up as bad as you,” she called him out.
“I'm not keeping score. I was just angry. I'm still angry. This is ridiculous, we're shouting in the street. Let's go back to my place, and we can -”
“You're a riot tonight!” she burst out laughing. “Go back to your place? To YOUR place? It's funny, you know, because for weeks I wanted to see your place. See where Wulfric Stone laid his head at night. Now I couldn't give a fuck. Get out of my way.”
She again went to storm past him, but Wulf was having none of it. He stepped directly in her path, forcing her to walk into his chest. When she glared up at him, it was to see that he was every bit as angry as her.
“I'm fucking talking, so that means you fucking listen,” he informed her. She barked out a laugh.
“See! There's that humor I -”
She ended on a squeak when he grabbed her upper arm. His grip was painful as he started dragging her down a cement walkway. She was forced to walk on her tiptoes, still in her bare feet.
“You know what your problem is, Tocci?” he said as they walked. “You don't pay attention. I'm fucking trying to say something – hell, the universe is trying to say something by bringing us both here tonight – and you're not fucking paying attention.”
“I don't remember signing up for a lecture tonight. Take your hand off me, you have no right to touch me.”
“Your body belongs to me more than it ever did to you.”
Enough is enough.
Katya ripped free of his grasp, stumbling away as she did so. She clutched her purse and shoes to her chest, using them as a shield to protect herself from him. To protect her heart.
“Don't say things you don't know to be fact,” she hissed.
“Oh, I know it's fact – I don't care what some other guy says to you, or whatever special kind of date he took you on tonight, or if he fucks you eighty different kinds of ways. Doesn't change who you belong to.”
“It's very cute that you think you have some ownership of me,” she sighed, bending down to put on her shoes.
“I don't think it, I know it.”
On the other side of the park, there was a commotion. She lifted her head and watched as the doors to the music hall opened up. The concert was over, the attendees were leaving. People spilled out onto the sidewalks, going to their cars, walking down the road. Heading into the park. She and Wulf were about to have a decent little audience for their tête-à-tête.
“We're done here. We were done over a week ago. Goodbye, Wulf,” she said, standing up straight and trying not to shiver in her soaking wet dress.
“You are not going home like that – you look like your naked,” he growled, then shocked her when he began unbuttoning his shirt. She glanced down at herself. The sheer material of the dress only had a muslin backing. He wasn't lying, the wet color and sheerness of the fabric did have her looking pretty scandalous.
“I'm hardly naked,” she said, watching as he shrugged out of his expensive dress shirt and held it out to her.
“Close enough. Put this on.”
“Are you kidding?”
It was another wrestling match, him fighting to get her arms into the sleeves, her pushing and pulling at him. When he succeeded in getting the right sleeve on, she finally gave up. She gave him a hard shove in the chest and slipped into the left sleeve.
“You're being ridiculous.”
“And you're being an idiot, trying to walk around like that.”
“Well, that's my problem, not yours.”
“I have a big fucking problem with people seeing you like this.”
“Oh, do you? Do you, really? Well, I would hate to be a problem for you, Wulf! I would hate to be a burden on your conscience in any way!” she said in mock shock, then she whirled around and began striding towards a group of people that were heading their way. She barely made it ten feet before his hands were on her hips, twisting her to face him.
“Burden is an appropriate word for you,” he said through gritted teeth as they struggled with each other. “Just come back to my place, I can call you a fucking taxi from there.”