She studies my face. “Yes. It matters to me. Is it – is it because you don’t like to be touched?”
My head jerks back. “What?”
How the hell does she—
“You shift your body to avoid it.” Her green eyes see too damn much. “It’s small, but I noticed in your office, when I tried to move past you. It was more than politeness. Wasn’t it?”
Shit. My mouth dries up. “Yes. I don’t… respond well to it.”
“But you can touch others.” Her voice is quiet, thoughtful. “It’s the action of people touchingyouthat makes you uncomfortable.”
Fucking hell, she’s perceptive.
“It must be difficult to be with someone and not have them reach for you.” There’s something careful in her voice, and I don’t particularly like it, my body prickling. As if she’s analysing me. Seeing the gaps, the ragged holes in my psyche.
“If you’re looking for a sob story, you won’t find it here.” I’m not going into our history. Not that it’s only mine to share. “You’re correct. I find it difficult to receive touch – and this arrangement will remove that option.”
She can’t touch me,reachfor me, if she’s unconscious. Even the thought has something coiled tight inside loosening. “You’llneed to ask River and Kai for their reasons. They’re not mine to give.”
“Of course.” She sounds subdued. “Thank you for telling me.”
My brow lifts. “I’m not sure I told you anything. You seem to see quite a bit, however.”
Her cheeks flush. “I spent a lot of time watching people when I was younger from my window. I used to enjoy trying to work out the type of person they were. Their story. I’m sorry if I’ve brought something up that you don’t like talking about.”
“And you?” I cut that discussion off, not wanting her to look any fucking deeper than she already has. “What’s your reason?”
I study her face in the darkness. The way her eyes drop to her lap, studying her hands.
“When you have never had a choice,” she says finally, “being offered one is a gift. An opportunity I don’t intend to waste, before—,”
“Before?”
“Before they put me in a box I can’t get out of. Before I stop looking for those choices at all.”
Something thuds inside my chest at those whispered words. “Briar—,”
“I have to go.” She’s already opening the car door, slipping out of the jacket I handed her to wear as we left the club. Her face appears in the doorway. I drink in her flushed complexion, the way she tucks a piece of hair back behind her ear. “Bye, Jenson.”
And then she’s gone, the door closing carefully behind her before I can respond. I wait as she walks away, her arms wrapped tightly around her body as she makes her way to a dark house halfway down the street and heading up the steps. She lingers in the doorway for a minute before slipping her key into the lock and vanishing.
My head thuds back against the seat.
Now to tell the others.
***
I swing past Mystic to collect Kai before heading back to Ravenhall, the night making way for early dawn. Dove waves at me cheerily from the doorway as he shrugs past her, a holdall over his shoulder and a new set of bruises covering his face to add to the collection he already has. The cut above his eye looks like it’s reopened, and he doesn’t look at me as he slides into the seat Briar recently vacated. His arms slash in a cross, just once.
Don’t.
Lips pressing together, I pull away from the curb. We make the trip back in silence. Kai’s eyes are closed as if he’s feigning sleep, but his breathing is a little too harsh to get away with it.
“I need to speak to you in the kitchen. River too.” Yanking the keys out of the engine, I step out. He follows my lead, stalking ahead and pushing the front door open, River leaving it unlocked. He’s already in the kitchen, awake and showered, flicking through his phone as he points to the coffee machine. “Just made it.”
Kai heads for the fridge instead, pulling open a beer as I pour a coffee. “She said yes.”
The movement around me ceases. With my back to them, I can’t see either of their faces until I turn around.
