Chloe (Made Men, #3)(36)

Walking beside him was exactly as terrible as you would think. Everyone—and I mean everyone—stared at them while giving them a wide berth. It was like the hallway had split, and everyone lined up against the lockers to watch them pass.

She was sure she had drawn blood in her palms with how hard she was pressing into them. Please let it end!

Getting closer to the classroom door, she couldn’t take the stares anymore, so she made a run for it, and she had barely touched the doorknob before his voice boomed.

“Chloe!”

Suddenly, she dropped her hand.

Amo approached the door, opening it himself.

Why couldn’t you just let me run away?

She felt even more embarrassed by the scene he had caused.

After walking into the classroom slowly, the door slammed behind her from Amo making even more of a spectacle. The room of students drilled their eyes into her even more than the ones had in the hall.

Finally making it to her seat, she scooted to the very edge of the table as Amo sat down beside her.

“Why did you just run for the door?” he demanded quietly.

She could feel the blood start to trickle down her nails at this point.

“Tell me why, Chloe,” he demanded again.

She had yet to look at him, let alone give him an answer.

Staring at her, he finally noticed her twitching hands. “Open your hands.” He could see the little bit of red peeking out under her fingers. “Chloe, open your damn hands before I open them myself.”

Gently, she opened her hands, too afraid he would follow through on his threat. She didn’t have to look at him to know what he was thinking. Freak.

“Fuck.” Jumping up, he didn’t waste time before going to the front of the class and grabbing the whole box of Kleenexes. Coming back, he ripped a bunch out. You could see he wanted to grab her hands and hold the tissues to the marks, but he didn’t. Instead, he carefully laid them on her hands, making sure he didn’t touch her. The act was almost … sweet. It made her wonder if he was even a beast or jerk at all.

Closing her hands, she let the tissues start to soak up the blood.

This time, his voice was soothing when he asked, “Why did you run for the door?”

She found out she could talk to this Amo. “E-Everyone w-was staring at us.”

“Is that why you did this to yourself?”

Solemnly, she nodded her head.

Pulling out more tissues, he made her change them out. “Put more pressure on it.”

She closed her hands more firmly to stop the bleeding.

“I’m sorry I yelled at you. I thought you were doing it just so I couldn’t hold the door open for you again.”

She was finally able to meet his dark eyes. To actually see how badly he really did feel about it made her heart twinge a bit. She wasn’t sure if she really knew him at all. Finding out he had only made the scene because he had wanted to hold the door open for her was cute in a chivalrous way.

“It’s o-okay. I’ll let you hold the doors from now on.”

He actually cracked a smile at her joke. It was the first one she had really seen on him.

Brrring.

She quickly averted her eyes. The bell had made her realize she was staring at him. Her cheeks flushed a bit when he didn’t move his eyes off her right away.

Their class seemed to creep by, and about a third into it, Amo made her check her hands to see if the bleeding had stopped. It had, so at that point, Amo got up, uncaring of the teacher lecturing, and threw away all the used tissues, as well as placed the tissues back on the desk.

As he walked back to his seat, Chloe felt his stare until he sat down.

The remainder of the class, she felt herself get a little bit more comfortable next to him. It wasn’t much, but a small difference was some kind of progress. This seemed to make the class go by faster, and when the last bell of the day rang, she was surprised for once.

“You’re not gonna try to make a run for it again, are you?” he asked when she quickly got up.

“N-No, Sebastian’s locker is out there, and you basically said you wouldn’t help me, remember?”

A smug look crossed his face. Instantly, she forgot all the nice things Amo had just done for her.

“Y-you d-did something to him.”

His face dropped. “No, I didn’t. I went back to class. Nero and Vincent were the ones who went and saw him.”

Chloe bit her lip, “Really?”

“Yep,” Amo reassured her.

Staring at him for a moment, she began to believe him. At least, I think he’s telling the truth …

Standing up, he went to the door then stopped when she didn’t follow. “You coming?”

Chloe didn’t want to feel the stares on her again.

Seeming to read her mind, Amo asked, “You know why they’re staring like that, don’t you?”

She looked to the floor. “Because they think I’m a fre—”

“No, you’re not a freak,” Amo snapped. He paused for just an instant before he said, “It’s because they’ve never seen me walk a girl to class before.”

She didn’t believe him at first, but thinking back, she realized she hadn’t, either. Nero and Vincent were always the ones with girls wrapped around them between classes.

Building up the small amount of courage she had inside of her, she took her first step toward the door. The beast might not be so bad after all.