“So… were you…” he asks hesitantly.
“Coerced? No. No, it was nothing like…” I bristle at the visions and memories that led me to this point. “No. She didn’t hurt me.”
“Did she let you see her?” he asks.
“No, I was blindfolded,” I reply.
“Kinky,” he teases, and I shove him slightly, making him laugh.
“You know I’m not going to judge you for enjoying the thrill, Bon,” he goes on.
“Would it be completely crazy if I liked it?” I ask, considering the thought.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean…” I run my hands through my messy hair. “God, this sounds fucking stupid.”
“Come on. I like to think you and I can share the crazy, fucked up parts of us,” he says, beaming at me.
He’s right.
We’ve always shared that feeling together, and I know I can trust him because he’s seen me sitting on the floor begging for a drink more than once, and he’s sat with me until I figured it out.
“So, what? It’s happened a few times?” he asks.
“Yeah,” I admit. “The first time… it was at that DeathFest masquerade party. I didn’t know who she was. The second time… It went further than I should have let it. The third time—”
“There was a third time?” he asks, brows raised. “Aren’t you also fucking Gemma?”
“Wait, one thing at a time,” I say before he gets me sidetracked.
“Okay, okay. So, the third time…” He peers at me expectantly, and I huff amusedly before going on.
“The third time, I actually said Gemma’s name in the middle of it—”
“Oh shit.”
“Yeah, oh shit,” I agree. “And then, tonight…” My voice trails as I remember yelling.
“What about tonight?”
“Tonight, I was mad,” I admit. “Tonight, I wouldn’t let her touch me. I think I felt betrayed? Like all this time, she’s reminded me that she’s saved me multiple times over, she’s rescued me from bad men and shit situations, always promising that she was the only person who could keep me safe… and then she wasn’t there. It was as if I had grown a dependency on her when that was the worst thing I could have done.”
Reed begins slowly dredging his toast.
“And then, I just… I yelled at her. I lost it. I said she was the reason my life was as fucked up as it is, that her coming back into my life was the reason those guys are suddenly looking for me again—”
His brows narrow as if he wants to question it, and my shoulders droop when I realize.
“Oh… I never told any of you about that.”
He sets his toasts onto a plate, and instead of continuing what he’s doing, he drags one of the stools around his side of the bar, sits down, and pops a top on another orange soda.
And he doesn’t speak.
I love Reed.
His relationship with his wife has only made him more patient, too.
