I could tell him now. Why not? I already told Corbin during sex. Maybe that’s my thing.
“Come on, you two!” Blake called from the stairwell. “I can hear Mussolini calling us. We’d better hurry back before he comes after us with a dictionary.”
“Flynn, I have to tell you something.” I took a deep breath. “I realised something last night. All this…what we’re doing, I didn’t know what it meant at first. I thought maybe it was our magic calling us together, and being with you guys made me forget about the pain of losing my parents. A big part of that wasyou– the way you make me smile, the way you don’t take anything seriously. And I just want to…what are you doing?”
“Got this blighter inside out,” Flynn grinned up at me, pulling his sock off and banging it against the ground to turn the toe out. Thick plumes of dust rose up around him.
I gulped.Here goes. “Right, yes. So, I just wanted to say that…I love you.”
The grin froze on his lips. His eyes wheeled around, panicked, desperate to look anywhere but me.
Flynn’s lips moved, but no sound came out. He gulped, tried again, still nothing.
The words hung in the air between us, floating without restraint, unable to be shoved back into my mouth no matter how badly I wanted to.
Say something, dammit.
I tried again. “How do you feel about that?”
Flynn stood up, his sock forgotten in the dust. His face turned away.
My heart tore in half down the middle. I placed my hand over my chest in an effort to hold it together, but there was nothing I could do. The pain was on the inside.
“You guys coming?” Blake called.
“Right behind you!” Flynn raced for the door, his arms flapping beside him like he hoped he could fly down the stairs and escape me.
I sank back onto the chair, tears streaming down my face. I struggled for breath as the pain in my chest pressed the air from my lungs.
He doesn’t love me. He doesn’t care.
I thought Flynn’s joking personality was a coping mechanism, a way for him to avoid confronting some of the terrifying things that had happened to us, and that had been a part of his past. But maybe I was wrong. Maybe he didn’t give a shit about the coven, the fae, any of it.
Traces of his magic sizzled along my skin. I wished I could burn them away.
How can we go on when I know he doesn’t give a shit about me?
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
FLYNN
Youidiot.
You bloody potato-sucking, gobdaw scut.
I raced down the stairs after Blake, Maeve’s crumpled face haunting me with every step.
Turn around, go back to her. Throw your arms around her and tell her how much you love her, how much you need her.
I pumped my legs harder, leaping down the last few steps and disappearing into the street. I sprinted through the market, into Regents Park, my chest bursting, my thighs aching, my dick flopping uselessly against my thigh.
My lungs burned. I had to stop. I collapsed on the grass, gasping for air. What was the point in running? I could run and run across London and into the bloody Thames, and it wouldn’t erase Maeve’s stricken face from my mind.
I love you too, Maeve.
But I’m scared.
I could have justsaidthat, but I didn’t. Because I was a fecking idiot. Because I looked at Maeve and I saw all the times my ma told me she was getting clean, that this time was going to be different, that we were going to start a new life and she was going to look after me and give me everything I’d ever wanted, and then she shacked up with another druggie scut and left me to fend for myself.
