Chapter 6
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Wow. I love excuses. And also therapy.
Kyran
“I’m being abused,” I say, nearly smiling. This is fantastic. I love this.
“Big baby,” Morana mutters as she brushes my hair.
She’s giving me little braids. Tying them with little bows. Touching me.
I’m so happy I could die.
After what I said yesterday, I wasn’t sure how she’d respond when we saw each other again. Clearly, she’s still opting to strong-arm me into thinking of her like a little sister, but if this is her method, the poor thing has no clue.
I mean, really. We’re on my bed. I don’t care how many glittery barrettes she’s brought with her if we’re sitting on my bed together. I’m smitten. This is fabulous.
“I’ve always wanted a wife who would play with my hair,” I murmur, sitting cross-legged and patient, dwelling on the sensation of her fingers tugging and combing.
“Can it, e-boy,” she snaps and jerks on the braid she’s doing.
I let my head fall back at the bidding and roll my eyes up to catch her wrinkled nose. “When’s a good time to tell you that hair pulling is only a brother-sister thing until the age of, like, ten?”
“Never.”
“Got it.”
“Fix your head. I need tension, or your braids will look like crap.”
Obedient little husband that I am, I tilt my chin back down and let her finish up, at which point she says, “Okay, my turn.”
My spine straightens.
I get to… She wants me to…
My heart double times when she places the brush in my hand, positions herself in front of me, and tosses her hair over her shoulders. The dark strands land in a thick heap all the way down her back, against a gray shirt dappled with black line art moths.
Placing the final nail in my coffin, she says, “Start at the bottom. Be gentle.”
Yes, ma’am…
Wetting my lips, I gather her hair, grazing my fingertips against her neck as I do. She shivers.
I close my eyes. Collect myself. Resume.
Silk. In my hands. At her bidding.
It’s so shiny. So straight. So dark.
Her neck. Her shoulders.
I swear.
She turns. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m being tortured,” I whisper, struggling for breath. “I’m sorry, Morana. This…this isn’t doing what you want it to be doing.” I let go of her beautiful hair. “I— I shouldn’t.”
She stares at me, scanning, one brow arched. “You cannot be having a conniption over brushing my hair.”
Can. Am. What of it?
My heart battles against its confines, threatening to escape into her palm. “You greatly underestimate how attracted to you I am.”
Her eyes widen by a fraction, then she faces forward. “Brush.”
“But—”
Red crawls up her neck. “I want twin braids.”
“Morana, I don’t know what you’re playing at.”
“Little sister doesn’t care about big brother’s fweelings.”
I attempt to inhale, but her lavender shampoo cloys. “Are you…speaking in third person?”
“Brush.”
Fingers shaking, I gather up her hair again and count. One big fat ugly toad. Two big fat ugly toads. Three…I actually really like toads. Frogs are great. I love the sounds they make. Deep croaks. Tiny squeaks. Amphibians are awesome.
Morana’s hair falls against her back in a single sheet of black glass when I’m finished brushing, and I’m hypnotized. The frogs and toads hopping around inside my brain go still, providing a moment of silence for me to run my fingers through the straight locks.
Her neck—red.
Her shoulder—partially bared around the loose collar of her shirt.
She shifts her position, and the edge of her bra strap shows.
Mindless, my finger finds the elastic, follows the seam, traces the line down her back past her wing bones, to the impression of her bra’s band. Silent and still, I stare, fighting to catch my breath.
Even though it’s barely above a whisper, her voice sends my hand jolting off her. “What are you doing?”
“I’m sorry.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“You’re so beautiful. I can’t handle this, Morana. I’m sorry.” Pressing my knuckles to my mouth, I force my attention to the ground beside my bed. I told her once—after she’d scared me half to death by waking me up—that if she came within a foot of my bed again, I’d pull her into it and not let go.
Empty threats, clearly.
I want to hide under my blankets until my heart slows down.
No. No, actually, I want her to change her mind and her mission. Right here. Right now. I want her to give us a chance. I want her to kiss me senseless, bury me against the blankets, and pull my hair again.
I want—
My brain to shut up before I do something illegal.
“I’m not doing anything,” Morana says. “I’m just sitting here.”
“My dear sweet beautiful lass,” I drawl, lying back to escape her nearness, “is sitting on my bed nothing to you?”
“Quite literally, it is nothing.”
I toss my arm over my eyes. “Your mission failed. Leave me before I accidentally assault you.”
“Accidentally,” she drones. “Assault isn’t accidental, Kyran.”
“Unintentionally?”
“Wrong again.”
“You’re making me lose my mind, Morana. Please. I didn’t… I didn’t sleep well last night. I zone out sometimes when I haven’t slept well. I can’t handle this. Help me respect you. Please.”
The mattress moves as her weight changes but doesn’t leave. It settles. Beside me.
Tense, I lift my arm from my eyes and find Morana lying on my pillow, staring at the ceiling. Her hair—silken, dark, perfect—rests around her face like an ocean of ink. She toys with a lock, coiling the strand around one pale finger.
“I don’t know how to explain myself,” she says.
I don’t know how I’ll get the scent of her hair out of my pillow.
“I’m not interested in a romance. But I do want you in my life. If that’s hard for you, though, I’ll try to find a different job. We’ll still have to see each other at family things, like Crisis’s and Crimson’s wedding to your brothers in the spring, but it won’t have to be every day.”
I quite utterly would die if I cannot see her every day. “Am I not your type?”
Her pupil cuts to the corner of her eye, fixes on me, then darts back toward the ceiling. “It’s not that.”
“So I am?”
“It’s not important.”
“I’d like to know.”
Her nostrils flare with a breath. Her chest fills, rises, falls. She says, “Yes,” between gritted teeth. “You…are.”
I am. I’m her type. I have never been more delighted in my life. “That information is better than a sandwich.”
Her pupils roll. “Sandwiches, your first love.”
“You’re my first love, Morana,” I say.
She freezes, staring unblinking. Snapping out of the trance after several long moments, she shakes her head. “I lost my train of thought.”
“You were trying to explain why you don’t want to romance me even though I’m your type.” I imagine she’s having a hard time on account of it making no sense.
“Oh.” She grimaces. “Right. That.” She sighs, letting her eyes close.
“Someone I trusted left me, and it’s been years, but I’m still hurt.
It’s still raw. I am, how you say…emotionally unavailable.
I don’t want to be unfair to you. That’s just how it is.
I like you as a person. I’m sure that’s obvious. ”
“What, with all the constant bickering, how could it not be?”
She winces. “Sorry. That’s just…”
“I’m joking. It’s very obvious. To me, anyway. That’s also how I show love.”
Her face warms, and her eyes open. “Family’s never betrayed me.”
“Wow. Flex.”
She exhales a laugh. “Sorry your family sucked.”
“Most of it doesn’t. That’s what matters.”
She nods. “I want more not sucking. Which means more family over a friend or a lover.”
My heart quiets, growing more stable. “Morana. I can’t be your brother. I can’t. Not with how I think about you. Not…not with how you blush for me. It doesn’t work.”
She turns her head, facing me, flushed even now. “I don’t want to lose you.”
Wing beats flutter in my chest. “You won’t. I promise.”
“I’ve been lied to before. I’ve heard these promises before. But I’m nothing special. I don’t have anything to offer you that you won’t grow tired of. You evolve, constantly. You grow. You attain new heights, while I remain static. I can’t picture how we’d work.”
“We’d work, because we care about each other.”
“For how long? How long will you be able to care about me if I don’t do anything for you?”
I dare to roll toward her and have to dig a barrette out from under my thigh once I have. “You hide your self-esteem issues very well beneath your general hubris, you know that?”
“I don’t have self-esteem issues. I’m realistic.”
“Uh-huh. You realize Zakery considers your sister to be a goddess that blesses the air he breathes when she’s just sitting around, right?”
“That’s Maelin. Have you seen Maelin? Have you spoken to Maelin? She’s precious. Lukas almost became my favorite brother when I heard he made Mae’s ex wet himself.”
Yeesh. Yeah. That was a whole…thing. “You’re funnier than Maelin.”
“Is humor that important to you?”
“Yes.”
She blinks, rolling onto her side, too. Facing me. “Well.” She lets her gaze lower. “I am funny.”
“Hilarious, mistress.”
“Why is the mistress thing sticking, Kyran?”
Why, indeed. “Because I think it’s hilarious. And, as noted, humor is very important to me.”
Breath leaves her. “Of course you think it’s funny.” Her full bottom lip pouts, creating a little divot beneath it that is so remarkable, so perfect, so kissable I find myself in physical pain. She murmurs, “You really won’t braid my hair?”
“I am too tired to touch you in any way responsibly. I begin to hallucinate kissing your neck, pulling you close, and making you want something you’ve already made clear you don’t feel safe with.”
“Why are you so tired? Your stream didn’t run that late last night and you were in bed until two today. You know if you sleep too much, you’ll be just as tired as if you sleep too little?”
That is actually information I am privy to, yes.
Ah, decisions. I could tell her that I’m an insomniac. I could tell her that nightmares haunt me, constantly. I could bare this part of myself to her. Or I could keep it all bundled up and hidden away, vying for cheap mystery.
Trying very hard not to fall into the fantasies I craft while I’m lying right here and trying to sleep, I say, “I have insomnia. Not the oh no I didn’t sleep well last night because of insomnia kind, either.
It’s every night. I’m often scared to sleep because my dreams are that dark.
I lie awake, anxious, and pray for the void of rest.”
Concern dips her brows. “That’s horrible. I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, it’s not fun. But that’s why I’m tired.
A lot. Why I really can’t quite…” My gaze slips, down, across…
her. “Handle this right now.” I blink, then again, and rip myself from the drifting dangers.
“They say sleep deprivation is comparable to being drunk. I have no idea what sorts of things my foggy mind would convince me are okay if I add you and alcohol to the same picture, but that’s basically what’s happening right now.
” When I blink again, my hand is on her cheek.
I stare at it.
Soft.
My thumb moves along the flushed skin, and I—
I pull back, stand up, and clutch my hands at my sides. Four slow breaths later, I dare to turn toward the silence of Morana.
She’s sat up.
She’s sat up, on my bed, with her hair streaming around her. A thick lock follows the rise and fall of her figure, and my mouth goes dry.
“What I’m hearing is that we’re at something of an impasse,” she says.
Really? Crazy. What I’m hearing are warning bells, going off, inside my skull.
“Where do we go from here?” she asks, as though assuming I have the bandwidth to formulate a good answer to that sort of question at the moment.
Hence, I give a bad answer, “Therapy?”
Her lips pull down, and the divot is back to haunt me with how kissable it is.
I cut my fingers into my hair and grip braids and barrettes, hoping they might ground me somehow.
Then, I formulate something akin to a list of supporting points in favor of therapy.
“You’ve been hurt, so you have trust issues.
You would otherwise not take much convincing to consider me as a life partner; therefore, therapy seems a valid next step. ”
“Bold assessment,” she drawls.
“Is it inaccurate?”
She turns, kicking her legs off my bed and giving me her back. “I’d take a ton of convincing. It’s a woman’s right to be wooed, and if you wouldn’t put in that kind of effort just because I’ve confessed that you’re physically my type, you’d make a horrible life partner.”
Say the word, Morana, and I will woo.
Breath leaves me. “So that’s a no to therapy?”
“It seems stupid to go to therapy because of one little blip in an otherwise pretty perfect life. I have parents who love me, a great cast of siblings, a comfortable home, financial stability.” Her fists clench, and she hits my bed.
“I’m just stupid.” Tears dampen her eyes when she throws a glare back at me.
“Make me trust you. Somehow. Figure out how to do that, and I’ll fall in love with you.
” She stands, gathering up all the hair things she brought in earlier.
Muttering down at them, she says, “Also—” She rises with the stuff in her arms. “—this was an excuse.”
“An excuse?”
“To touch you.”
With that rocking my wee tired cranium, she whirls around, and leaves my room.