Chapter 7
THORNE
After a fitful night of absolutely no sleep, I dragged myself into Love Bites fully intending to clean until my arms fell off and my brain shut up.
It was too bad brain bleach wasn’t a real thing.
Because if it were, I would have scrubbed my thoughts raw and rinsed away the last few days until nothing remained but blissful, empty silence.
Alas, all I had was regular bleach. But since bleach worked better on bacteria than it did estranged husbands, I’d have to settle for something more tangible. Like the bar.
At least, that had been the plan.
Instead, I walked into Love Bites to find it already immaculate. The floors gleamed. The bottles on the shelves were perfectly aligned and standing at attention. The bartop shone like it was auditioning for a cleaning product commercial. And not a single fingerprint or spilled drink in sight.
“Isadora,” I sighed.
Of course she’d already cleaned. Isadora still lived in the loft upstairs, despite Lucien’s repeated attempts to lure her into his fancy estate.
But after everything she’d been through with her ex, she liked having her own space.
More importantly, Love Bites was her baby.
She wouldn’t have gone to bed until the whole place sparkled and was ready for tonight.
Which didn’t help me in the slightest.
I hadn’t come here to admire the shine. I’d come to distract myself, and since spousal abuse wasn’t an approved form of therapy—even in Eternity Falls—I’d thought a little stress-cleaning might help.
Fine. Whatever. I could work with this.
Just because Izzy had already cleaned didn’t mean I couldn’t clean it again. All that mattered was keeping myself busy. I needed to move. To do something to burn off all my excess jittery energy.
Normally, I’d go for a run. And my wolf wanted nothing more than to stretch her legs. But my last run had ended disastrously so I had zero interest in tempting fate again.
I started with the bartop, wiping it with all the gusto of a woman losing her mind. When that didn’t help, I wiped it again. Then a third time. Because my rage needed an outlet, and this was the only thing I could think of that didn’t result in me committing a felony on a specific someone.
A high-pitched, watery giggle stopped me dead in my tracks. Narrowing my eyes, I tracked the sound behind the bar to the draft beer.
There, ducking and diving around the taps, were three glowing, translucent blue menaces the size of dragonflies.
One currently hung upside down from the closest tap, using all its microscopic body weight to pull the black handle forward.
After a moment’s struggle, the sprite succeeded, and a steady drip of dark stout pooled into the metal drip tray.
The other two squealed in delight and dove, splashing in the beer like a bird in a fountain.
“Absolutely not,” I snapped, marching over and swatting my rag at them. “Out of the beer. Do you have any idea how much a keg costs?”
The largest sprite blew a raspberry at me—which sounded exactly like a tiny, wet balloon deflating—before swan-diving into the small puddle of beer.
Cursing under my breath, I shoved the tap handle closed, then soaked up their mess with my cloth.
“Go back upstairs and bother Isadora. Go swim in the toilet. I don’t care which, just get out of here.
And don’t let me catch you down here again.
Izzy likes you. But I personally have no problem hiring a witch to banish your fairy asses. ”
They responded by flicking sticky drops of stout at my forehead, chattering a string of high-pitched obscenities, and zipping up into the rafters to hang out with poor Bernard.
The chandelier chimed its displeasure at being disturbed.
I didn’t blame him. Nuisances, they were.
I still didn’t understand why Izzy wanted to keep them around.
I resumed cleaning, polishing the countertop until it shone bright enough to reflect my flushed cheeks and the wild halo of curls escaping my braid.
Sighing at my appearance, I muttered something deeply uncharitable, then moved on to the shelves, reorganizing the bottles Izzy had already straightened.
I arranged them by color. Then height. Then color again, because that felt more aesthetically pleasing even though the order made absolutely no sense.
But neither did stress-cleaning, to be fair.
I didn’t need it to make sense though. I just needed it to distract me from the more unhelpful thoughts that wouldn’t shut the hell up.
So, I scrubbed harder. Rearranged things again. Swept. Mopped. And all the while, I pretended this was normal, healthy behavior, and not the emotional equivalent of shaking a soda can and hoping it didn’t explode in my face.
Naturally, that was when my brain decided to stop cooperating and started doing that thing it always does when it takes a single thought and worry-chews it until it bleeds.
And that thought, of course, was Calder.
Gods, even thinking his name felt like I was biting down on tinfoil.
I attacked the same invisible spot on the shelf again, hoping to drown out my spiraling thoughts. But that didn’t work. It never worked. Because throwing my life into complete disarray seemed to be one of Calder’s many talents.
I mean, honestly. The utter audacity of that man.
He’d gone five years without the slightest hint of communication, only to reappear without any warning. Just bam, there he was, standing in my bar on opening night, about as welcome as an unwanted period the day before a tropical island getaway.
But if I was being honest with myself—which I was trying really, really hard not to be right now—what bothered me most wasn’t his return. It was that he still made me feel things.
That damn kiss kept replaying in my head on a relentless loop, and I hated myself for it. The heat. The familiarity. The way my body betrayed me without so much as a second thought.
No. Smarten up, girl.
The only reason that kiss had rocked me so badly was because I hadn’t kissed—or hell, touched—anyone else since Calder left.
Sure, I’d tried. I’d gone on a date here and there and had polite conversations and awkward drinks with people I’d known since childhood.
But it turned out that growing up with someone, knowing their secrets and habits and childhood nicknames, didn’t exactly inspire passion. At least, not for me.
Ugh!
I found a spot of dirt and scrubbed it until the table looked ready to file a complaint.
Why did I do this to myself? Why did I let Calder mess with my head? Why—oh why—did the fates have to give me a heartbreaking thief as a mate?
I’d done the work. I’d put him behind me. I’d learned how to function without him. Without answers. Without closure. I’d survived his absence, rebuilt my life around the crater he’d left behind, and told myself I was over him.
And in less than a minute, he’d proved me wrong.
Seeing him in my condo had rattled me more than I wanted to admit.
Crossing paths with him during my morning run had felt like someone rubbing salt into an open wound.
And discovering I’d been sleeping with his blanket this whole time—something so intimately his—had nearly sent me over the edge.
That realization alone made my stomach churn.
Like I’d been clinging to a ghost without realizing it.
Okay. Okay, okay, okay. Calm down. Breathe.
Calder Rook was back. That was a truth I could no longer ignore.
And Eternity Falls was too small a town to avoid him forever. My run had made that painfully clear. Which meant I had some choices to make. Not emotional ones—those were a mess—but practical ones. Ones that would preserve my sanity.
I couldn’t allow myself to unravel simply because we occupied the same town again. I refused to give him that kind of power over me. Whatever had brought him back to town was his problem, not mine.
Going forward, I wouldn’t chase the answers he should have given me years ago. I wouldn’t forgive him either. What I could do was act like he didn’t exist. That meant walking in the other direction when we saw one another. No speaking to one another. No hanging out with mutual friends.
It was time for a clean break. Time for me to draw my line in the sand the same way he had.
I’d barely settled on that thought when Love Bites’ door suddenly burst open. Ricky entered first, ducking out of habit even though the entryway was more than tall enough for him. He was decked out in his usual uniform of dark jeans, a leather jacket, and aviator glasses perched low on his nose.
Felix followed, nearly tripping over the threshold on his way in. I snorted before I could stop myself, and he looked up at the sound with a bemused grin, clearly pleased that he’d managed to get a reaction out of me within five seconds of arrival.
My dear twin came next, but his expression wiped the smile from my face. Cassian stopped short when he saw me, his gaze locking on with an intensity that made my spine straighten on instinct.
“I was going to text,” I said immediately.
His glare deepened.
“Okay, no, I wasn’t,” I amended quickly. “But I was planning on stopping by to visit.”
He crossed his arms, clearly unconvinced.
I sighed and dropped the rag onto the counter with more force than necessary. “Alright. I had no intention of doing either.”
“At least she’s honest about it,” Ricky muttered.
I rolled my eyes.
Felix, bless his little heart, broke the tension by hopping onto one of the barstools Izzy had painstakingly polished and spinning himself in circles. “Wow,” he said. “You can always tell when Thorne’s stressed. Everything’s either spotless or on fire.”
“Ha, ha,” I deadpanned. “Riveting commentary.”
Felix winked.
“I sent you over a dozen texts,” Cassian stated, like I didn’t already know that.
“Did you?” I said lightly. Too lightly. “Huh. My phone’s been misbehaving lately. Must’ve missed the notifications—”