Chapter Twenty-Nine
POPPY
Riven holds my hands in his beneath the water’s surface, rubbing a soft pattern across the backs of them with his thumb. I’ve never seen Riven look so serious. And it’s freaking me out. What could he possibly be about to say?
My mind flashes to last night. To our confessions.
I want you.
Stupid.
He’s going to tell me it made him uncomfortable. That we are just friends.
I won’t be able to survive that. I’ll have to move. Leave my coven and return to my parents’ home to be their spinster caregiver when they finally hit old age.
Thank Fate that I’m not wearing a heart rate monitor now. Though, in all honesty, I don’t know if it could track it. I don’t think a heart has raced like this in all of history.
“Just say it,” I bark, and if I had access to my hands, I’d slap them over my mouth. I didn’t mean to say that. It just flew out as my words have recently made an annoying habit of doing.
That’s becoming an increasing issue lately. I wonder if there is a spell to cure damaging word vomit.
He smiles, like he finds me endearing. Cruel Fate, why did you put this fae male with kindness in his heart and a jaw that could cut glass into my life? Was I horrid in a past life? I must have been.
“I almost lost my mind when that captain had a knife at your neck.” He looks down, jaw clenching like he’s holding back emotion. “I knew, in that moment, I wouldn’t survive losing you, and it made me question every choice I’ve made in the last three years.”
For a heartbeat, I forget how to breathe.
The words hover between us like something fragile, something too heavy to belong to the same easy, laughing Riven I’ve known for years. My heart stumbles painfully in my chest, hope flaring before I can stop it.
But hope has never been my friend where matters of the heart are concerned.
Riven is my best friend. Nothing more. My partner in every ridiculous tavern game.
The man who shows up when I need him and disappears into laughter and mirth before I can read too much into it.
The man who has made it abundantly clear, over and over again, that it’s me and him against the world—as friends.
Now, my hopeless romantic heart scrambles to translate his words into something safer. Of course he couldn’t stand the thought of losing me. Friends feel that way about each other all the time. Don’t they? Years of shared nights and laughter would make anyone protective.
But the way his jaw is tightening.
The way his voice went quiet when he said it.
That doesn’t feel like friendship.
And that’s the problem.
Because if I let myself believe it might mean more, if I let that tiny, reckless part of me imagine that Riven could look at me and see something other than the friend who pours his drinks and laughs at his terrible jokes, then I am walking straight to a heartbreak I won’t survive.
I swallow. “What are you saying?”
“That I don’t want to fake it anymore.” His fingers tighten.
“That I don’t want anyone but you, and I don’t want to pretend that this is for show anymore.
” He drops one of my hands and brings his hand up to cup my jaw, fingers weaving into my hair.
My mind is focusing on the feeling of water droplets running down my face to keep from passing out.
How can this be real? “I want you.” His voice breaks.
“I have since the moment Fate dragged you onto that stage.” A breath.
“And maybe before that.” Silence follows, my mouth opening and closing as I search for words that won’t come.
Uncomfortable in the silence, he shifts his weight and softly adds, “I will be whatever you need. Sunshine. Chaos. Someone steady. Someone dangerous. Someone who doesn’t run when things get hard.
” Thumb on my cheek. “I know that I’ve put you through hells.
That you would have chosen me in our first Festival.
That you’ve watched me jump from relationship to relationship and make a mockery of my life again and again.
” His sigh is weighted. Filled with so much regret, my heart physically aches for him.
“I know I’m not worth it, Poppy, but I’m begging you to choose me.
” His lip quivers, and I realize with sobering clarity that I’ve never seen Riven cry. “Just one more time, choose me.”
I think back to the second time I entered the Festival, when I made my match spend every night with Riven and me playing tankard toss at the tavern, or my third match, when Riven punched him for smarting off, and I took Riven’s side.
And in this Festival, my fourth match, it’s taken all my strength not to choose him every day.
It was always him. Even when I refused to see it.
I look up, waiting just a beat to take in the hopeful sheen behind his eyes. “I’ve been choosing you all along.”
The water splashes, and Riven’s lips are on mine in a flurry of want and heat.
Our mouths collide in a kiss that isn’t sweet or careful. It’s desperate and aching and far overdue. His hands dance down my body, finding my waist, as my fingers tangle in the hair at the nape of his neck and our lips move in perfect sync.
Desperation clings to me like a second skin. As if the Moirai’s loom was threading this Fate-filled moment, weaving it into a tapestry.
I need him. Not want him. Not desire him. Need.
Need coils low in my stomach as Riven’s hands drift back up, pulling my hair and tipping my head back enough to coax a gasp from me, allowing him to deepen our kiss.
A guttural moan from deep in his throat sets my blood on fire, warming my skin.
My tongue tangles with his for a brief moment before he pulls back and playfully nips at my lips.
“We’re doing that again. Soon.” I manage a laugh at Riven’s words and try to get my bearings as our foreheads rest against one another. “I’m never faking anything with you again.”
Begrudgingly and with great effort, I pull out of his hold. I need to not share air with him for a moment so I can think straight.
Riven just admitted to having feelings for me. Right? I didn’t hallucinate all of that.
“You’re going to kiss me like that and then move out of my reach?
” Riven asks. “Should be illegal.” He sinks into the water, his waggling eyebrows and eyes just above the surface as he swims to where I’m now sitting.
A smooth stone juts out under the water, serving as a perfect seat for me to sit and reflect on what has just happened.
“I need to process,” I say, feeling the mental chaos rapidly approaching word vomit territory.
“What else is there to say—I like you, and I’m not worthy.”
My shoulders fall at this admission that I know he wholeheartedly believes. “You don’t see yourself as I do,” I correct quietly. “Of course you’re worthy.”
His neck cracks loudly when he rolls it.
“You deserve someone who chooses you without hesitation, not someone who makes you wait years before seeing what’s been in front of them the whole time.
” I listen intently, biting the inside of my lip.
“When you’re quiet, I get scared you’re changing your mind about me. ”
“I’ve only been quiet for sixty seconds, Riven.” I playfully shove him. “Let a witch think.”
“I know.” His smile is self-deprecating.
“Honestly, I’m trying really hard not to ruin everything. Because I’ve been dreaming of this moment for the entire Festival, and I’ve felt like a fool because I convinced myself you weren’t thinking of me the same way.”
He considers my words for a moment, hand finding mine under the water again and lacing our fingers.
“I don’t think I ever stopped thinking about you.
I just pretended to, or categorized it as just friends.
I wanted to see you all the time because we were friends.
I wanted you to stay in Fate’s Fortune because we were friends.
I wanted to spoon you in bed because we were friends. ”
“The last one feels far-fetched,” I giggle, head falling on his shoulder in an act of practice. We’ve sat like this a thousand times, but never while having a conversation like this. A conversation that will determine the future of our relationship.
“I know,” he laughs, planting a kiss on my forehead before continuing. “You looked beautiful that night, by the way, when we were first matched three years ago. I didn’t say it because I thought if I stayed your friend, I could handle it.”
“Handle what?” I ask, sitting up to look into his gold-flecked eyes.
“Not being enough for you.” He steals my breath away.
An act that, though I’ve danced around the thought of love all my life, has never happened.
“I think I’ve always known I wanted to be with you, and then I felt that pulsing, sinking feeling when I was first matched, and like a coward, changed my mind when I got too close.
” His head lulls over, eyes piercing into mine once more.
I sit up straight, trying hard to stay grounded while my head and heart threaten to float away from me.
“I pushed it down because I was scared. You scared me. But now I know that you’re the only person I feel safe wanting.
” He swallows, hand reaching out to hold my jaw once more.
“I’m sorry. I should’ve chosen you the first time. ”
“You want to be with me?” Maybe a stupid question, but I had to be sure.
“Yes.” His answer is definitive. No pause. No hesitation. So assured and confident, it brings me to tears in an instant, because I want this, I want him, and now that we’re here, I don’t know what I’d do if he changed his mind like he is so prone to doing.
His eyes bulge, alarm contorting his handsome features. “What’s wrong?”
I hiccup, drawing in a long breath before answering. “I’m afraid you’ll change your mind again when we’re not on this love island, forced to expose our true feelings for one another and share the same bed every night. I’m your only option here.”
Riven goes very still. Then he nods once, like I’ve just confirmed something he’s known all along.