18. Daphne Bloody Kiss
eighteen
Daphne: Bloody Kiss
“Daphne, please get into the car,” Finn pleaded, hanging halfway out of the window.
The way his golden strands caught the early morning sun reminded me of summer. Not that he would have noticed, because I remained frozen, chained to the wet sand, staring at my phone.
I didn’t know what Thay was after when he asked about the night of the naked party.
He wasn’t the type to press for details, especially with Wolfe.
I could still remember the very first time I slept in his bed until dawn, and the expression on Thay’s face when I opened the door and saw him sitting on the floor, staring at me.
There was a dark poetry in his eyes, moving in slow circles as he drank me in under the half-light.
“Hi,” I had said, but he didn’t move. Thay just sat there as if he had been teetering on the edge of madness all night, shattering in places I rarely saw.
It did not matter that he had brought some faceless thing into our room hours before, because for Thay, sex wasn’t intimacy.
When it was over, it was over. But my sleeping in some other man’s arms had violated something fundamental about who we were.
I knew this because I had spent the entire night trying to get back to him without breaking whatever Wolfe and I were.
“I…” My voice rolled into a stutter when he stood, cloaking me in his shadow. “I missed you,” was a stupid thing to say, but the offset look in my expression must have appeased something growing inside of him because he stepped forward.
“Mmm hmmm,” he nodded, glancing at Wolfe’s door. “Start the shower. I need to talk to Wolfe.”
I glanced behind me at the shirtless man standing in the doorway, observing our interaction. Wolfe was beautiful in the morning; his rugged features made wilder by the disheveled state of him.
“Don’t kill my boyfriend,” I said with a laugh, but Thay didn’t smile.
He only dropped his gaze lower to meet the darkness in my eyes.
I tilted my head, giving him the look, then turned to Wolfe, who watched me with a playful grin.
An expression I was surprised to find, considering I had pretty much run from his bed at first light.
“You’ll learn,” he rasped, throwing his arm around my waist to draw me closer.
The shadow at my back tensed, creating a cold sweep down my spine, but I didn’t turn.
“I’ll learn what?” I asked, allowing the heat from his fingers to ground me, if only a little.
“To stay,” was all he said before pressing his warm lips onto the shape of my mouth.
Maybe I would. Maybe I wouldn’t. But more and more, this man was feeling like mine. Not in the way Thay was, but I could make space. I could love both.
I nodded, slipping the kiss into my back pocket to dream about later.
“I mean it, Thay,” I warned. “Don’t hurt him.”
Thay didn’t speak, but the impulsive way his muscles moved told me the only thing holding him together was my presence. I pretended to close the door to our dorm when I watched him lunge, taking Wolfe by the throat and squeezing until all the color in his face dissolved.
Wolfe wasn’t afraid. He was… ignited.
“You’d better think long and hard before choosing to enter a relationship with her,” Threx said, tightening his grip around the rugged line of Wolfe’s neck. “Because you won’t be her boyfriend. You’ll be mine. And I promise I fuck harder, and not in the ways you’d imagine.”
I blinked, heat flooding into places pleasure should never gather. But seeing Thay claim me this way made all my darkness dance.
Wolfe smiled, locking his resolve on the center of the threat. If Thay were the storm, then Wolfe walked through it without flinching.
“Now if you’ll excuse me,” Thay dropped his head low, hovering over Wolfe’s mouth in a dangerous promise, “I have to go wash your cum off my woman’s body.”
Then, in a slow-motion daydream, Thay kissed him.
Hard.
Deadly.
Broken.
And my thighs lit on fucking fire.
“You don’t get to taste like her.” He took my kiss back, dropping his chin so he could wipe Wolfe’s blood from his lips.
Wolfe released a punchy smile, spitting on the ground. “I’m not going anywhere, Threx,” he growled. “And enjoy washing my cum off our woman’s body, because we both know I will never have to do that with you.”
“Daphne!” Finn stopped the engine and fell onto the sand. “Are you okay?”
“What?” I asked, staring at the hundreds of unread text messages with a scowl. I did not have Lyla’s number, and besides, even if I did, what the hell would I say? Run?
“Look, I didn’t mean to freak you out this morning. I am sorry.”
Finn searched my expression for signs of disapproval.
“What?” I asked again. “Finn, I’m not mad at you,” I promised. “You slamming a door is the least of my concerns.”
“Fine.” He snatched my phone from my fingers and shoved it into my pocket. “Then, please get in the car.”
The only thing missing from this guy was a white horse and a sword. I smiled, crawling in.
“That’s for you,” he said, pointing at the brown paper sack with a grin.
I peeked in: toaster waffles, syrup, and sparkling water. My stomach groaned in anticipation.
“Best gift ever,” I cheered, patting him on the shoulder as he climbed in next to me.
“Just don’t tell all the chia seed eaters, or they’ll revoke my subscription to Midwifery Plus,” he teased.
“Have you ever actually eaten them?” I questioned, gagging. “Fucking nasty.”
Finn laughed, putting the car into motion.
“Everything okay?” he wondered, turning on the heat that wrapped me in a hug.
“Maybe. I don’t know,” I admitted. “Some things are happening at home,” I mumbled, leaning my head against the windowpane.
“Look, I feel I owe you an explanation for this morning,” he stated, folding his lip slightly under.
Wow, I always wondered what this looked like in real life, emotional obligation without all the edges and implosions.
Spectacular.
“You don’t owe me anything!” I yawned, longing for sleep.
One reason I loved childbirth was the way the world stopped, and for a single moment, nothing else mattered.
“We barely know each other, Finn, and whatever past you and Xaden clearly have is none of my business.”
“Still,” he said, turning onto the road down the main street. “You might as well find out from me.”
My head slumped forward at the idea of carrying one more person’s demons inside my brain.
I knew this was broken thinking, a reflex designed to protect me from emotional burnout, but it didn’t excuse it.
Sometimes I had to work extra hard not to be a shitty person, especially in moments like this, when someone was bleeding in front of me, needing to be seen.
“You see, Xaden and I were best friends for most of our lives,” he began. “Until the night of graduation, when I ended up stupid drunk, slept with his sister, and then got her pregnant.”
A laugh punched into my throat, but I swallowed it down. Not because it wasn’t fucked up, but because this was the kind of thing you watched on Showflix at dawn, after a hundred hours of doom-scrolling.
A weird feeling lodged low in my stomach.
“Anyway,” he continued, clamping his molars down tight. “When his sister lost the baby, she didn’t take it well. And by not well, I mean she downed half a bottle of Xanax she found in her mother’s drawer and went to sleep.”
My fingers curled into my thighs. Nathem had always warned me against the use of that particular drug.
“They saved her,” he choked out through a crackled breath. “But she never really bounced back. Tess was on a fast track to do big things. Brown University. All that shit.” He exhaled. “Now she works at the recovery center she was sent to.”
The road hummed beneath us.
“And of course,” he added, quieter than before, “her family blames me for everything.”
A heartbeat passed while I searched for what to say next. Sometimes the best thing to do was to listen and remain quiet.
“Even Xaden falling back into drug dealing,” he continued when I said nothing. “Because it turns out rehabilitation centers are expensive.”
“They are aware it takes two people to have sex?” I asked, rolling down my window. I was still cold, but the space needed to be aired out. “And choose not to use a condom?”
“They don’t care, Daphne. They just need someone to blame. And honestly, Tess and I danced around it for years. While I had preferred not to get her pregnant, it is not like I regret sleeping with her.”
“Does she know that?” I asked, turning to get a better look.
“I think so,” he mumbled to himself. “I hope so.”
“Maybe make sure,” I pulled my phone from my pocket. “Also, you recognize that Xaden’s actual issue is with himself, right?”
Finn’s brows furrowed, shaking his head. “No, Daph. It is most definitely with me.”
“Think about it. You were his best friend. He trusted you. He let you in…”
“If this is you trying to help, you’re doing a shitty job at it!”
“I am just saying that Xaden blames himself more than he blames you, and someone he trusts has to help him let that shit go, or at the very least, forgive himself for things he could not control. Have you said that to him?”
“Said what?” Finn huffed, turning down the rocky driveway to my cabin. “I’ve apologized out of my ass to that guy, and he doesn’t give a shit.”
“But have you taken accountability?”
Finn breathed deep, rolling his neck in a way that suggested he was done with me.
“Have you told him that you and Tess made choices together that were out of his control, and none of this is his fault?”
“Nope,” he said, behind a grin that closed the conversation for good. “What about you and that whole architect thing you brought up in a café?”
Because what better way to get the spotlight off yourself than to shine it somewhere else?
“Are you asking about Thay or my childhood?” I asked, popping the tab on my sparkling water and taking a sip.
Despite being parked outside my cabin, I had the distinct feeling I was going to be here for a while.
“Both, I guess.” He shrugged. “I mean, I shared the darkest spot in my existence with you. The least you could do is even the battlefield.”
I took another gulp. There were no dark splotches in my life. The whole thing was blotted out.
“The second I tell people about my story, they act differently around me. And while I am not ashamed, it’s exhausting to deal with repeatedly.”
“I’m not as shallow as you think,” he said, giving me an expression that poked at something uncomfortable inside me.
“Fine,” I exhaled. “But if you look at me with the slightest shred of pity, I will ask for a new preceptor. Understand? I’ve already lived through this shit; I do not need to do it twice.”
“Deal!” he consented, urging me on.
“As I said before, my parents did not know I existed until they did. I can’t even comprehend how I made it to six years old.
I have almost no memories of being fed, dressed, or taught to bathe.
All I know is that I spent most of my life on a dirty mattress in the center of a moldy bedroom at the edge of Seattle, across the way from a boy about my age.
I used to see him pace through the window in my room, especially at night when the lights began to flicker. ”
Finn listened, leaning his head back against the headrest.
“His parents liked to play sick games, poking at him to see how long it took for him to piss himself or making him play guess the number with a syringe full of heroin waiting if you got it wrong.”
Finn shifted uncomfortably, and I wondered if I should stop. This wasn’t easy for most people, and that was okay. It shouldn’t be.
“Go ahead,” he urged, meeting my eyes to tell me to continue.
“One night, he climbed through my window after his father put an iron to his back and basically never left. We looked after each other. He became my family. He fed me, and in return, I made sure he did not disappear. Over the years, we kind of just melted together.”
“Holy hell, Daphne.”
“After a stint in juvie, he found me beaten to a pulp after my father pimped me out to a bad mustache with too much muscle. When I fought back and didn’t stop, he promised to return with friends.
That night, Thay packed what little shit I had, and we ran away together,” I gulped. “I guess the rest is history.”
History that was none of his business.
“Fine,” Finn said after a long moment of silence. “You win.”
I sipped my drink, letting the bubbles coat my insides.
“It’s not about winning. Scars are scars, Finn. We all come from somewhere, and what breaks one person fortifies another. You don’t get to choose that. You don’t get to choose how you break.”
“Can I ask the obvious question?” he arched a brow. “How are you two not married? Or together? I mean, how do you even move around it?”
My phone rang, making us both jump.
“You don’t.”
I glanced down to see Thay’s name vibrating and hit the video icon with a scowl.
“So,” I said, cutting off Thay’s ability to speak first, “Finn was just asking me a question.”
Thay sat on his bed, staring at me behind a pair of sad eyes.
“Oh yeah? And what did Polo Shirt have to say?” he sighed, rolling my mentor’s existence between his knuckles as if it were a coin.
“He wants to know why we’re not married or together.”
Finn cleared his throat, suddenly fascinated by the view outside his window.
“Did you tell him that’s none of his fucking business?” Thay asked, leaning forward.
“No,” I smirked, burning holes into his eyes. “Is Lyla okay?”
“For now.” He let the question fall to the floor. “So, how do you want to respond?”
“What do you mean?” I asked, surprised when he turned my game back on me.
“If it were up to you, and no answer was wrong or a lie,” he explained quietly. “How would you explain what I am to you?”
It was time to get out of the car. I cast a glance at Finn to say goodbye, who nodded when I reached for the handle.
“Can I pick you up later?” he mouthed.
You would think the dark, stormy bits of my story would have shoved him firmly into the friend zone. If not that, then surely the devil on the other end of my phone would have. Instead, Finn watched me with those pretty eyes like someone licking a flame in the middle of a bonfire.
Perhaps he thought he could save me, and I possessed a tiny urge to see him try.
I nodded yes and climbed out of the Bronco.
“No. Don’t leave him yet,” Thay ordered, and I paused before shutting the door. “I want you to answer his question. Tell Finn who I am to you. I want to hear you say the words.”