Page 32 of Wicked Ruin

Mine, some treacherous part of me thinks as she walks toward the car. I get out and open the door for her, which makes her smile almost bashfully. “Thank you.”

“Of course.” She won’t open her own damn door, not when I’m here.

Then we're off, like two thieves into the night, away from the criticism and judgment of anyone who'd give us a hard time about any of it.

“I'm so nervous,” she says, and I'm surprised at how steadily she's talking after five drinks. But at least I know now—if she's had five drinks, this isn't going anywhere. With that many drinks, consent lines blur, and she has to consent.

So if I've taken her out drunk, this is only ever going to be a conversation. A fun night. A safeguard for me not doing exactly what I want to do to her.

One stolen evening in a stretch of thousands of other evenings, none of which I'll be able to steal quite like this one. Just us. Just the two of us, the way it should be.

“Surprised at how well you've held your liquor,” I say, giving her a sidelong glance. “Five drinks, and you’re acting sober as a monk.”

“My liquor?” she says, with that curious little shrug of hers. “I haven't been drinking, Declan.”

Oh fuck.

“What do you mean?” I say, my pulse jumping.

“Probably enough sugar and caffeine to keep me going till Sunday, but no alcohol.”

No. The one thing keeping me from the edge—gone. Just like that.

Christ.

Bridget leans back in the seat, tipping her head against the headrest, and looks at me in that way she does that cuts right through me.

“Why is it always like this with us?”

“Like what?” I ask her, and then I can't help it. I'm reaching over, my fingers threading through hers, holding her hand, and it feels right. Natural. Stolen. Like something I was never supposed to have, but something I’ve been taking anyway, one small piece at a time.

“Normal,” she says. “Uncomplicated. Like⁠—”

She tilts her head and doesn't finish the sentence. She doesn't have to because I know exactly what she means. And some part of me, there under the gilt edge of a full moon over Dublin, understands that I have been doing this wrong for a very long time.

Does she feel the same?

“Because we're friends,” she murmurs, answering a question I didn't ask. Her thumb traces the side of my hand.

“Friends.”

She hits the radio station and starts streaming some shite pop that hurts my ears.

“No,” I say, turning it back.

“It's my car ride.”

“It's my car.”

She changes it back. I change it again. She makes a sound of pure indignation and changes it back again.

“This is not music,” I tell her.

“This is excellent music. You have the taste of a man twice your age.”

“Well, I’m older than you.”

She snorts. “What does that have to do with anything?”