Annabelle opened her eyes and stared at the cottage next door, the questions buzzing in her mind like bees.
What are you doing, Raven? What are you thinking?
She stood there for a long time, watching the light in the window, waiting for an answer that didn't come.
Chapter Twenty
Raven woke with her face pressed into the couch cushions, drool on her cheek, and an immediate, visceral sense of oh God what have I done.
She'd kissed Annabelle.
She'd kissed herneighbor.
She'd kissed the relentlessly cheerful, sunshine-personified primary school teacher who brought her biscuits and organized fundraisers and probably believed in fairy tales and happily-ever-afters.
"Fuck," Raven said aloud to the empty room.
She sat up, rubbing her eyes, and tried to piece together exactly what had led to this disaster. The late-night tea. The vulnerability. Annabelle's fierce declaration that Raven wasn't difficult, she wasreal. The moment at the door when they'd both stood up at the same time and then somehow…
Raven groaned and flopped back against the cushions.
She'd broken her rule. Her one, singular, non-negotiable rule.
No parties. No wildness. No women.
Especially no women. Women were complicated. Women led to drama and heartbreak and five years of toxic on-again-off-again bullshit that poisoned everything good in your life until you couldn't remember what it felt like to breathe without pain.
And yet.
Yet she couldn't stop replaying it. The softness of Annabelle's lips. The way she'd made that small sound in the back of her throat. The way her fingers had threaded through Raven's hair like she wanted to hold onto her.
The way she'd looked at Raven.
"Stop it," Raven told herself firmly. "Stop spiraling. It was one kiss. People kiss. It doesn't have to mean anything."
Except it had felt like it meant everything.
She pushed herself off the couch and stumbled into the kitchen, reaching for the coffee grounds with shaking hands. The clock on the wall read half past eight. Annabelle would be at school by now, teaching her little pupils about fractions or grammar or whatever primary school teachers taught on Thursday mornings.
Raven poured water into the kettle.
This was fine. Everything was fine. She'd just avoid Annabelle for the next few days until the awkwardness wore off. Keep her head down. Focus on the fundraiser. Write her bloody album.
She just needed to actuallywritesomething.
The kettle whistled and Raven made herself the strongest coffee possible, then carried it to the sitting room where her guitar was waiting. She settled into the armchair, fingers automatically finding the strings.
She was so used to nothing coming, or fragments coming, that she barely thought about what she was doing.
And then something strange happened.
Words came.
Like finding shelter in the rain
Like a door left open wide
Like someone calling out your name
