He shakes his head, muttering something too low for me to hear as he turns on his heel and strides toward the kitchen.
I watch him go, feeling the last vestiges of my rage dissipate, replaced by a hollow ache that matches the sullen throb in my foot. We were so close. So fucking close to…something.
Then my beautiful, broken brain had to shove Bastian in there.
I’m my own worst enemy.
I walk back to the window, staring out at the ocean, now fully dark, the waves crashing relentlessly. The wine in my glass tastes like nothing, but I drain it anyway.
There’s a clang and a scrape as Kai cleans up the mess in the kitchen.
A few minutes later, he walks back holding a plate stacked with sandwiches. So that’s what he was doing when I heard the fridge open and close a hundred times.
“Dinner is served, m’lady,” he says dryly, one side of his mouth tilted up in a fake smile.
I lean past him and give the messy counter a hard stare. “I’m definitely not cleaning that.”
He shrugs. “I’m sure someone will take of it.”
Maybe he’s hoping someone else will clean the mess he made of my heart, because he sure as shit doesn’t seem capable.
I laugh hollowly.
He laughs too, and it sounds just as empty.
It’s obvious we’re both pretending that this is normal.
That this is fine.
That we’re not both still bleeding from the claw marks we left in each other’s hearts all those years ago.
Chapter 72
Kai
The bonfire I built isn’t doing all that much to ward off the cold. But fuck, I’m still loving it. Its flames are so hypnotic, neither of us has said a word for at least half an hour. But Haven isn’t dressed as warmly as I am, and when I see her shiver, I realize we’ll have to go inside soon.
Don’t wanna.
Inside is where shit unravels.
We ate the sandwiches in charged silence as we worked our way through the rest of the wine. But then it just sat in my stomach like a congealed mass, and I wanted to throw up just to be rid of it.
Thank God Haven said she wanted to swim in the ocean. When I cracked a smile for the first time in what felt like years, and told her she’d die trying, we both started laughing.
Felt like the glass of the snow globe we were trapped in finally burst.
I knew what I was doing to her back then, after I left Riverside. Knew it, because our separation nearly fucking killed me…and I knew she felt exactly the same.
But I didn’t have a choice.
My family shed Riverside like a snakeskin. I couldn’t mention it without getting a sour look from my dad. The kind of look that promised a backhand if I kept going.
And then there was Ezra.
If my parents were fighting a war against Riverside, then he was the fucking general of their army. He played Punch Buggy with me, except I’d get a fist in the side any time I mentioned Riverside, our old single-wide, or Haven.
I didn’t blame him back then, and I still don’t.
