It’s now or never, Carmine. You can’t keep yearning for something he doesn’t want to give you.
Trying to summon a well of optimism she didn’t feel, Carmine informed him, “I think in a few months, when I’m settled at the funeral home, I’ll look at getting a place in Pineridge.”
Between one blink and the next, Atticus’s expression blanked. “What are you talking about?”
Too filled with nervous energy to remain slouched, Carmine sat back, adjusted her bracelets, and then placed her sweatypalms in her lap. “I know you feel obligated to look after me, but I really can’t— You’ve given me everything I need to figure my life out, Atticus. It’s not right for me to keep leaning on you and everyone else. And?—”
Carmine stopped herself. Forced air into her lungs. Tried to stop the screaming in her mind.
She couldn’t bear to gofar,not when she’d just found the closest thing to a family she’d had since she was six, but the more she considered the issue, the more resolute she became.
I can’t cling to him.
He’d let her. He’d never push her away or tell her to stand on her own two feet, no matter how much money was in her new bank account or how it might stunt his own life. He’d accept her.
But in that moment Carmine understood something crucial:Shecouldn’t accept that. She couldn’t take advantage of his kindness, and she couldn’t exist in a perpetual agony of desire, either. If there was a chance for them to be equals,friends,then she had to figure out how to survive on her own. Mostly, anyway.
There wasn’t a chance she’d stop helping Zia in the greenhouse or pushing Serafina on the swing set, let alone cut out Adriana, the only person who’d ever trulyunderstand.
She had to force the next words out past a wave of nausea. “You’ll go through some withdrawal, so it would be best if I stop feeding from you soon.”
Nerves jangling, Carmine peered at him, trying to gauge his expression, but he might as well have been carved from stone. Not knowing what else to do, she continued, “I’m so grateful for everything you’ve done for me, but I hate feeling like you— like you need to look after me all the time, that you have to let me feed. It’s not right. An anchor should— I can’t ask you to be that when you don’t feel the same as I do.”
It nearly killed her to gesture around them, to the atmosphere that had brought her so much joy just momentsprior. “I love that you want to share these things with me, but I’m not a kid sister you need to babysit, or some helpless victim you’re stuck with now. It’s okay. I can manage just fine on my own. You should live your life without being tied down to some weird temple girl you found in the back of a trailer.”
“What thefuck?”
Her gaze, which had wandered to the bar sometime during her ramble, snapped back to Atticus. She blanched.
He wasn’t blank anymore. He lookedfurious.
Pressing his palms flat against the tabletop, he slowly leaned over it until he was mere inches from her face. Speaking in a soft, deadly voice, he asked, “Is that how you think I see you? As some sort of stray I’m stuck with?”
If she could have sucked the words from the air, she would have. Carmine’s cheeks got hot when she amended, “Well, no, I think we’re friends, but…”
“But what?”
“But… But I think you feel obligated to take care of people, and I don’t want that to be the only reason you… you know, with me.”
It was a bitter irony that she now understood how he must have felt the first time she fed from him. The idea that he might only beenduringtheir intimate moments when they were what she lived for was too painful to bear.
It wasn’t just physical. It wasn’t just biology. It was connection. Intimacy. Something she only ever wanted to share with him, and memories she’d cherish for the rest of her life.
But if they meant little to him, if he only touched her and let her feed because he felt hehadto… All of it would be tainted.
Her muscles bunched as fight or flight instincts screamed. Humiliation was a million mean little bugs crawling all over her skin. She wished they were real and that they’d pick the flesh from her bones already. Anything was better than hearing thedullthunkof his bottle hitting the table top, or the way he grabbed her hand and began to drag her out of the arcade.
Carmine stumbled after him, still a little clumsy in her new tennis shoes. The flashing lights of the arcade were a blur to her watery eyes. That was probably why it took her a while to realize they weren’t headed for the door.
Atticus took a sharp right and dragged her down a hallway she’d seen people loitering around all night. Without saying a word, he pulled her into a room full of—pods?
She blinked, totally lost, as he angrily poked at a screen on the outside of the nearest one. The door to the pod opened with a musical chime, revealing another big screen and a bench. She barely had time to read the glowing words “photo booth”above the door before she’d been dragged inside.
It was outrageously bright inside, but that was only an issue for her sensitive eyes for a moment, because no sooner had the door closed than Atticus was pressing her against it, his big body blocking out everything else.
Rough hands cupped her cheeks and tilted her head back. He kicked the inside of her foot, spreading her legs, and filled the gap with one of his thighs. In what felt like a second, everything she saw, felt, and breathed washim.
“Atticus, what?—”
