CHAPTER 12 #2
Kessian went still. “What sort of memory?”
“A bad one. It was a breakup. Between you and a guy called Dom.”
He sucked in a breath and didn’t say anything for a long while. Then he said, “Well, that’s embarrassing.”
“For Dominic, maybe,” I muttered.
“How much did you see?”
“Enough to know he was an arsehole.”
“No, I mean … what did you see? Exactly?”
Was there something in particular he really didn’t want me to? “He killed your plants, asked for breakup sex, then drove off without saying goodbye.”
Kessian let out a breath of relief.
“I take it those weren’t your happiest memories, but they weren’t the worst?”
He shrugged. “I’ve made my peace with it. On my own, I don’t have to worry if my partner can make the rent, or if he’s going to tell me he loves me, then twenty-four hours later pack up all his things and leave.”
“If you want to take a detour tomorrow, we can track him down and see if the wraith’s still hungry,” I said darkly.
He snorted a laugh. “Really. It’s fine. I’d rather be free to fuck who I want without the emotional turmoil attached.”
I tried to ignore the way my gut twisted. Well, that settled where we stood. I should have been relieved, but a yearning for true connection still played cat’s cradle with my heartstrings.
Kessian propped himself up on an elbow. “Have you ever had your heart broken, Tal?” When I took too long to answer, he said, “Really? Never?”
“My life hasn’t left room for long-term relationships.”
“I’d have thought a man with a face like yours would have had at least one runaway romance. Maybe in high school.”
“A face like mine?” I laughed ruefully.
“You look like the charming lab partner or librarian who’s somehow the last to realize everybody fancies him.”
He’d skillfully redirected the conversation away from the dream. I might have persisted, if only to question how I’d found myself inside his memories in the first place, but there would be time for that in the morning, and I didn’t want to pick at his old wounds any more than I already had.
“I don’t know about that. And no. Even my one-night stands were rare. People usually find me abrasive.”
“They just haven’t gotten to know you.”
“Most people don’t get the time to.”
“What’s the longest stay you’ve ever risked?”
“A week. In the mountains, where there were more sheep than people. I don’t know if it counts.”
“And you didn’t keep in touch with your family?”
“Oh. Er …”
“There’s no judgment. I can’t remember the last time I heard from my mum. I just wondered.”
“You and your mum don’t talk either?”
“As soon as I turned eighteen, she told me she wanted to travel, so she was selling the house, and I’d better find a job and a place to rent.”
My heart felt like a rusted hinge. Like a creaky door opening a crack. “And she didn’t keep in touch?”
“We were talking about you.” He poked me in the chest. “Fae missed you. Why didn’t you pop in from time to time?”
The dark felt like a confessional. “I did at first, but it got hard. We all changed, but we still wrote to the old versions of ourselves. Every correspondence was a reminder of how little we knew each other anymore. It made me feel lonelier than I already was.”
“You couldn’t visit?”
“I didn’t want to risk it. Plus, I never found talking to people easy. It would have been even harder, knowing I could never go back for good.”
Kessian moved closer, his cheek pillowed against the back of his wrist. I felt like we were kids at a sleepover, confessing who we had a crush on.
You, I’d have to say. I have a stupid crush on you.
“I never would have guessed you found talking to people hard,” Kessian said.
“Because with you, it’s not.”
In the dark, I could just make out the shining midnight of his eyes and the curve of one starry cheekbone catching the moonlight. I couldn’t see the subtleties of his expression, and between the two of us, he was better at reading people.
But I thought, over the sound of crickets and frogs chirping outside, I heard his breath catch. “Are you saying you think I’m easy?” Kessian said, tone melodic and teasing.
“That’s not what I meant at all!”
“Because for you, I can be,” Kessian finished.
His hand splayed against my chest, hot as a brand, and he had to feel my heart speed up. I grabbed his wrist. “We shouldn’t.”
“You know … talk like that might give a guy the impression you’re no longer interested in that rain check.”
“I think you know it’s not for lack of interest.” My voice came out rougher than intended.
“Then what is it?”
“You know the answer to that, too. The people I get close to get hurt. It’s dangerous.” And I was afraid of getting hurt, too.
“Maybe I’m a thrill seeker,” he said, leaning in close, closer, until the next words might as well have been a kiss. “Maybe I want you more than I fear what might happen.”
“Kessian.”
The mattress shifted. He put an arm around me, carding his fingers through the hair at the nape of my neck. All I had to do was lean in.
I wanted to. All the early mistrust of the night had molded into something new while throwing that pot in my studio and peeling open our vulnerabilities.
But the visions from the spring still plagued me, the future too mercurial to let myself slip a step further into Kessian’s orbit, and he’d said himself that he’d rather be free to fuck who he wanted. I couldn’t afford to catch feelings.
Tomorrow I would either be dragged back into the dangers of Shearwater again, or I would stay in Coill Darragh, safe from the wraith but miles away from Kessian, and I had no reassurance that his heart was tripping as quickly as mine.
Yet I still leaned into his hand where it cupped my jaw. Still couldn’t bring myself to push him back.
Something curled over his shoulder around his neck. At first I thought it was a lock of his hair, but he’d tied it up in a knot to sleep, and it was too dark, like a slice of pitch.
I jerked back in time to see the long, clawed finger retract, and then the darkness seemed bright around the lightless creature. It hunkered behind Kessian, spooning him like a lover, and though its face was only a collection of shadows, I thought it was grinning.