“Xane,” she blurted. They’d been over this ground on multiple occasions, but she never felt like she’d ever got a complete grasp of it.
“What in particular about him?”
“Do you love him?”
Spook gave a gentle laugh, like anything louder might scare shadows from the corners. “Pretty much since the day I met him.”
The simple honesty of his words caused a throb in the centre of her chest, and the sting of tears to tickle inside her nose.
“Alle,” he clasped both her hands. “Look at me. Yes, I love him. That’s never going to change. You’ve no idea what state I’ve been in, and he’s been there. He’s always been there, but…” He sighed, and briefly closed his eyes, stealing away the blue of them. “I’m trying to phrase this so you’ll understand.”
“It’s complicated,” she wheezed, trying to inject some humour into the moment that felt too strained, and was pushing barbs into her skin.
“Yeah, it is. In the same way that all relationships are. But here’s the thing, I don’t want to be with him like that. I mean, I do. I’m not saying there’s no heat between us, or that we couldn’t build something incredibly strong, but it’s not what either of us really want. It’s more like a secondary attachment. He’s a safe space. I’m not sure I’m doing a very good job of explaining this. What I feel for him, it’s not the same as what he feels for Luthor and Dani, or what I feel for you.”
“Which is what?”
His thumbs rubbed circles across the backs of her hands.
“Which is what, Spook? You’re going to have to tell me, because after everything that’s happened, I don’t actually know. I mean, you’ve clearly debated whether you even wanted to see me today. And we’re standing here now, and I still…I still don’t really know how you feel.”
“And there she is,” he murmured, but a smile flashed on his lips as he said it, and a gleam shone in his eyes. His head tilted, as his teeth snagged on his lower lip.
“There who is?”
Spook flashed her another wry smile. “I used to convince myself that you were only trouble when you were around. Put a little distance between us, and I could slip all those troublesome feelings you roused in me into a box, leave them somewhere to moulder, maybe in an attic or a chest at the bottom of the ocean, right alongside all the other things I didn’t want to deal with. The problem is, a) it’s not true, and b) even if it were, eventually the locks corrode, or someone takes a hatchet to things and then all your demons come crawling out.”
“So, I’m a demon?”
“In a sense. I’m not saying it to be shitty, or demean you, but the truth is that you’re something I haven’t wanted to deal with. You make me feel things I don’t want to feel. Leastways, I haven’t wanted to feel them. Now? Honestly, I’m not sure. I know I ought to let myself, because who the hell wouldn’t want to feel love or be loved, but, Alle, all that baggage I’ve got, it hasn’t gone away. Maybe it’s not ever going away.”
“You still haven’t said—”
His forefinger and thumb curled against her chin.
“You madden me. You make me crazy. Dammit, Alle, I hardly dare tell you what I feel. The truth is… Shit! It’s a lot. Too fucking much. You’re inescapable. And that scares me. My past, it’s…” He shook his head, then stretched out a finger and traced it across her cheek.
Alle turned into the caress. She captured his wrist so that she could press her lips to his fingertips, then traced the side of his index finger with her tongue.
Spook watched her, a fever-bright gleam in his eyes, before dragging that wetness over her lips and chin. “There are no good relationships in my past. I want to allow myself to be with you, but the risks seem vast, and the potential for getting hurt…” He shook his head.
“I’m not going to hurt you, Spook.”
He cradled her hand against his cheek. “I want to believe that. I really do.”
“You said you don’t blame me.”
“And I don’t, but that doesn’t make everything instantly right. It doesn’t undo what happened. It doesn’t change the fact, that whether you’ve severed the links with them or not, your brothers are still out there, and so is my ex.”
“So, you’re just going to hide forever?”
He sighed, for, of course, that’s exactly what he’d been doing.
“Baby steps, Alle. Baby steps.”
Yeah, except that she was stretched to the limits of her endurance. Sod baby steps. “Well, I love you, Spook Mortensen, and even if you daren’t say it to me, I’m saying it to you. I love you. I want nothing more at the moment than to be with you. Give me that chance. Give us a chance. Maybe we can actually make it work. Wouldn’t that be fabulous?”
“It would,” he acknowledged. “I have missed you.”
