And that had been enough for me then.
Until the morning I walked into Goldie’s Market—Goldie being the town bartenderandmarket owner—and found horrified looks aimed at me. Silence erupted throughout the aisles, the tension crisper than the apples. Staggering around and wondering what had happened, I continued my shopping. Grabbing the few groceries I’d come in for, I met Goldie at the register to pay when she pulled me aside.
“Faye came in this morning,” she started. Faye was Laken’s mother and a schoolteacher. We were close. Her coming to the market didn’t strike any concern, but the worry in Goldie’s eyes and tone did. Immediately, my mind went to Laken. I hadn’t seen him that day. “She came looking for Laken.”
Panting and shaking my head, I stepped back. “Looking for Laken? Wh-what do you mean? Like he went out or something?”
Goldie winced. “I don’t think so, honey.”
Confused and scared, I dropped my groceries. For ten minutes, the longest, most excruciating ten minutes of my life, I ran. I ran to Laken’s house as each and every possibility crossed my mind, the simplest explanation to the worst. For ten minutes, I wondered if he was missing. If something happened. If he was hurt, if he was dead.
Faye confirmed it to me as she unfolded a note, passing it to me with shaking fingers and tear-stained cheeks. The world spun as I caught the words “it’s over” and “I changed my mind,” and just as quickly, it slipped away.
I’d never felt so foolish, so embarrassed, so… raw.
I left two weeks after that and never saw Laken Augustus again. Until I punched him in the face about two minutes ago.
CHAPTER FIVE
There he stood. Laken I-still-hate-you Augustus.
Stumbling back, I watched the blood drip from his nose and tears rise to the edges of his eyes. Eyes I hated. Blue, but not like the sky or diamonds. Notoriously dark blue, like the deepest parts of the oceans, taunting but dangerous nonetheless. His short, messy, dark-blond hair highlighted by the Gods—if the Gods had favorites, he’d be one of them.
I was painfully aware of every movement he made. Each breath he took. Laken wiped his nose, thick veins flexing over his skin—along with his… tattoos? I focused my stare on his forearm, which I shouldn’t have. A dark hooded figure at the base of his forearm swarmed with black swirls, like smoke. The ink traveled up his arm and over his shoulder, barely visible under his shirt. My gaze made it to his shoulder, then to his face, and his lips. The same full lips that once devoured mine, the same strong jawline—sharp, but not sharp enough to make him look like an asshole; you know the type.
He’d changed, grown, matured, but… it was Laken. The same Laken I’d loved and the same one who abandoned me.
I didn’t know if my mind stopped working, if someone shoved a stopper into its gears, or if it straight-up abandoned me on the battlefield—but I couldn’t form words.
What the hell happened?
Watching him wipe his own blood from his lip, I remembered the ache in my knuckles. The clench of my jaw. The raging pants of my breath.
“Fuck, Reece, you can still pack a punch, can’t you?” His voice, a soft rasp, straightened my spine and snapped something inside of me back into place.
Be nice, I told myself. “What the fuck are you doing here?”
Laken straightened; his eyes traced my body yet wouldn’t meet my stare. His lips parted, then closed as if he couldn’t speak. “I’ve been looking after the place,” he cautiously explained, “until you got back.”
Of course.Of course, my father asked Laken to help. This definitely wasn’t the “family friend” I’d expected. I tried to hide the mother lode of knee-boggling pain begging me to aid my hand. “Why? And why the hell did it have to be you?”
Now he met my glare. His chin dipped like a dog that knew it was in trouble. “Reece.”
“Don’t,” I snapped. I slammed that door, refusing to hear another word of whatever bullshit he’d prepared. Standing, I secretly tried not to cry becausewhat the fuck.
Laken’s shock at the venom in my tone was fleeting. The widening of his eyes so brief I almost missed it before he masked it with something else.
“Need some healing cream for your hand there? Maybe some numbing elixir?” he mocked, nodding toward my aching knuckles.
Feeling his attention too warmly on my skin, I staggered back. “No. Doesn’t hurt.” I snickered.
A sly chuckle. “Didn’t hurt me, either.”
“Fine.”
“Fine.”
His eyes met mine and my walls of rage crumbled. It set in. He was in front of me again. And a new pain settled in at the reality. My father taught him,trustedhim, after never teaching me. And Laken accepted that? My chest tightened as if a corset were tied around my ribs. Like a wound reopened, my insides bled.
