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 her neighbor.
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 was real. 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 actually write something.
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
When you'd forgotten how to hide
Raven's fingers stilled on the strings.
Those weren't lyrics about Bankton. Those weren't lyrics about finding peace or making choices or any of the pretentious bollocks she'd been trying to force for months.
Those were lyrics about Annabelle.
"Oh, for God’s sake," she muttered.
But she kept playing anyway, because the words were still coming, rough and imperfect but real, and she hadn't written anything real in so long that she couldn't bring herself to stop.
Home in unexpected places
Written in the smallest gestures
Trust reflected in their faces
Worth more than any measure
She played the full thing through, adjusting the melody as she went, feeling something loosen in her chest that had been clenched tight for months.
It wasn't perfect. It wasn’t even a song. There was no bridge, no catchy chorus. But it was something.
For the first time since Vegas, since Alissa, since everything had fallen apart, she'd written something real. Something that was more than a few lines. Something that she liked.
She'd written something about hope.
Raven set her guitar aside carefully and stared at her hands.
She was exhilarated. She was terrified. She was also, she realized with dawning horror, completely and utterly fucked.
Because this wasn't just a kiss anymore. This was a song. And songs meant feelings. And feelings meant…
A knock at the door made her jump.
"Please be Daisy," she muttered, crossing to the door. "Please just be Daisy with a parcel or Gloria with another terrible idea about the fundraiser or literally anyone except—"
She opened the door.
Arty stood on her doorstep, toolbox in one hand and a grin on his face.
"Morning," he said cheerfully. "Thought I'd come by and discuss the lighting setup for the fundraiser. You look like you haven't slept."
"I slept fine," Raven lied.
"On the couch, judging by your hair."
Raven ran a hand through her tangled mess of hair and scowled. "What do you want, Arty?"
"I told you. Lighting setup." He held up his toolbox as evidence. "We need to talk about whether you want spots or floods, color gels, that sort of thing. Mind if I come in?"
Raven stepped aside because refusing would only make him more curious, and Arty was already far too perceptive for his own good.
He walked past her into the sitting room, set his toolbox down, then turned to look at her properly.
His smile widened.
"Oh," he said. "Oh, something definitely happened."
"Nothing happened."
"Something absolutely happened. You've got that look."
"What look?"
"The 'I've done something reckless and I'm trying to convince myself it was a terrible idea even though part of me knows it wasn't' look." He settled into the armchair like he owned the place. "I know that look well. Used to see it in the mirror most mornings in my twenties."
Raven stayed standing, arms crossed. "You're imagining things."
"Am I?" Arty's eyes drifted to the notebook on the side table, open to her scribbled lyrics. "Because you've also got that 'I just wrote something good for the first time in ages' energy about you. And those two things combined usually mean—"
"Don't."
"—that you've gone and caught feelings for someone."
"I haven't caught anything," Raven snapped. "I'm perfectly fine."
"Right." Arty didn't look remotely convinced. "So if I were to guess that you and Annabelle had a moment last night after she rushed over here in a panic thinking you were dead, which is a natural thing to think about quiet rockstars."
"How do you know about that?"
"Daisy saw Annabelle running across your garden in her pajamas. Told everyone at breakfast this morning at Blossom's." He shrugged. "Village life. You get used to it."
Raven closed her eyes and counted to ten. Then twenty. "Nothing happened. She came over, we talked, she left. End of story."
"Hmm." Arty studied her for a long moment. "You're a terrible liar, you know that?"
"I'm not lying."
"Fine. Nothing happened. You definitely didn't write a song about her." He nodded toward the notebook. "Those lyrics are clearly about something else entirely. My mistake."
Raven's jaw clenched. She wanted to throw him out. Wanted to tell him to mind his own bloody business. Wanted to deny everything until he gave up and left her alone.
Instead, she heard herself say, "I kissed her."
The words hung in the air between them.
Arty's face split into a grin so wide it was almost offensive. "I knew it."
"Shut up."
"I'm delighted for you."
"You shouldn't be." Raven sank onto the couch and put her head in her hands. "This is a disaster. I have a rule. A very clear, very sensible rule. No women. No relationships. No getting tangled up in anything that might explode in my face. And I just…"
"Broke your own rule by kissing the loveliest person in the village?"
"This isn't funny, Arty."
"It's a bit funny." He leaned forward, his expression softening. "But also, Raven, it's also perfectly normal. You're allowed to like someone. You're allowed to want someone. That's not a disaster, that's being human."
"You don't understand." Raven looked up at him, feeling the panic rise in her throat.
"I ruin things. It's what I do. I ruined the band.
I ruined things with Alissa so thoroughly that she married someone else just to get away from me.
I'm difficult and moody and I don't know how to do relationships without turning them toxic. "
"That's bollocks," Arty said flatly.
"It's not."
"It is. What you had with Alissa was toxic, yes. But that wasn't all you. That takes two people. And from what I've read, Alissa wasn't exactly a saint in that relationship either."
"She wasn't the one who…"
"Who what? Fought back? Stood your ground?
Refused to be a doormat?" Arty shook his head.
"Raven, I don't know the details and I'm not asking for them.
But I know enough to know that you've convinced yourself you're some kind of relationship disaster when really, you were just in a disaster of a relationship. There's a difference."
Raven wanted to argue. Wanted to list all the ways she'd failed, all the times she'd said the wrong thing or pushed too hard or withdrawn too far.
But the words wouldn't come.
"What if I ruin this too?" she said quietly. "What if Annabelle realizes I'm not worth the trouble? What if she wakes up tomorrow and thinks, 'What was I thinking, kissing the miserable rockstar next door?'"
"Then she'd be an idiot," Arty said. "Which she's not.
Annabelle Swift is many things, overly optimistic, boundary-challenged, incapable of sitting still, but she's not an idiot.
If she kissed you, it's because she wanted to.
And if she wanted to, it's because she sees something in you worth wanting. "
"She barely knows me."
"She knows enough. And she didn't run away screaming, I’d have heard about that."
"She should have."
"But she didn't."
Raven opened her mouth to respond, then closed it again.
Because something about the image of Annabelle panicking, rushing over in her pajamas, pounding on the door because she'd noticed the silence, made something warm unfurl in her chest.
Nobody had ever noticed the silence before. Nobody had ever cared enough to check if she was okay.
Alissa certainly never had.
"I don't know how to do this," Raven admitted. "I don't know how to be with someone without ruining it."
"So don't try to figure it all out right now," Arty said reasonably. "Just… see what happens. Be honest with her. Show up when you say you will. Don't disappear into your own head. That's it. That's literally all you have to do."
"That sounds impossible."
"It's not. You're just catastrophizing." He picked up his toolbox. "Now, are we actually going to discuss lighting for this fundraiser, or are you going to spend the rest of the morning spiraling about your feelings?"
"Can I do both?"
"Absolutely not. Come on." He headed for the door. "We'll go to the school, look at the hall, make some decisions about equipment. It'll be good for you. Get you out of your own head."
Raven followed him to the door, then hesitated. "Arty?"
"Yeah?"
"You really think I deserve this? Happiness, I mean. Or whatever this is."
Arty turned to look at her, and his expression was so genuinely kind it made her chest ache.
"I think you deserve to find out," he said simply. "I’ll meet you over there."
And then he was gone, leaving Raven standing in her doorway, staring at Annabelle's cottage and feeling something she hadn't felt in a very long time.
Hope.
But hope wasn't the only thing she was feeling. Because underneath the exhilaration, underneath the terror and the tentative optimism, there was something else. Something that had woken up last night and refused to go back to sleep.
Want.
Real, visceral, consuming want.
Raven closed the door and leaned against it, eyes closed, remembering the kiss in vivid, overwhelming detail.
The thing was, she'd kissed plenty of women. Had quick, passionate encounters in dressing room bathrooms and backstage corridors. Had sweaty, urgent sex in hotel rooms after gigs, fueled by adrenaline and alcohol and the high of performance.
With Alissa, it had always been like that. Quick. Intense. Up against walls or in bathroom stalls or anywhere they could steal a few minutes between rehearsals. It had been exciting in its own way, but it had also been… shallow. A release. A way to burn off energy without actually connecting.
This was different.
This wasn't the desperate, clawing need to possess someone. It wasn't about power or control or proving anything.
This was about wanting to treasure Annabelle. To touch her like she could be broken. To take time. To be gentle.
To make her feel as precious as Raven was starting to realize she actually was.
The thought terrified her.
Because Raven didn't do gentle. She did intensity and passion and overwhelming chaos. She did all-or-nothing, burning bright until everything turned to ash.
But with Annabelle…
With Annabelle, she wanted to learn how to do slow. How to do careful. How to touch someone without destroying them in the process.
She wanted to kiss Annabelle properly, not just that single desperate moment at the door. Wanted to learn what made her sigh, what made her laugh, what made her come undone.
Wanted to worship her the way she deserved to be worshiped, bright and beautiful and achingly kind.
The realization was so overwhelming that Raven had to sit down.
She'd never wanted anyone like this before. Had never felt this strange combination of lust and tenderness, this desire not just to have someone but to cherish them.
It was new. It was confusing. It was absolutely terrifying.
And it was not going away.
"Bollocks," Raven said to her empty cottage. "I am so completely fucked."
But even as she said it, she was smiling.
Because for the first time in months, maybe years, she felt alive. The creative block had cracked open. The words were coming. The music was flowing.
And it was all because of Annabelle Swift and her ridiculous biscuits and her inability to mind her own business and her fierce insistence that Raven wasn't difficult, she was real.
She was terrified. She was exhilarated. She was falling for her neighbor in a way that was absolutely not part of the plan.
But for once in her life, maybe that was okay.
Maybe sometimes the best things weren't planned at all.