38. River
river
. . .
eye of the storm
Every bird in the forest comes awake with the sun. One feathered bastard in particular has been splitting my head with a rusty saw for the last thirty minutes. I can’t pretend to be asleep much longer.
I’ve been awake since Rue slipped out of the tent as the shadows lifted from black to gray. She hasn’t come back, and I’ve been telling myself I haven’t followed because I respect her independence and need for alone time.
But that’s a lie. The real reason is responsible for the pit in my stomach. As the tent brightens, the truth sharpens and the chasm widens.
There’s a stain on the outside of her sleeping bag.
Beneath a layer of fine condensation, the darker spot stands out like an accusing eye.
I fucked her without a condom, so hard my pelvis, glutes, and abdominals are sore.
Even my fingers ache from gripping the nylon for leverage as I rutted into her like an animal.
I’ve never lost control like that. Given my own soreness, she needed aftercare badly, but all I managed to do was bundle her into my arms and yank the other sleeping bag over us before passing out.
The worst of my shame, though, is that I’d do it again.
When my muscles itch with the need to stretch and move, I finally throw off the sleeping bag. Despite the warmth of the sun cooking the walls of the tent, the air clings to the night’s chill. I shiver my way into a pair of pants and a thermal, pull on socks and hiking boots, and tie my hair back.
Pausing at the door, I take a deep breath and remind myself that I’m a mature man who can handle emotionally complex situations.
The pep talk doesn’t do shit.
But one of Gideon’s little wisdoms does.
“Courage isn’t something you wait around for—you take it for yourself by abandoning desired outcomes. To be fearless, embrace recklessness. Say ‘fuck it’ and throw yourself into the unknown.”
I mutter “fuck it” and unzip the tent, ducking through the opening. Like Rue is my personal magnetic north, my eyes veer to her. She’s about thirty feet downstream, sitting on a low, flat boulder and writing in a notebook.
My heart lurches toward her, my feet eager to follow, but I don’t think she’d appreciate me taking a leak right next to her.
I head into the woods behind the tent instead, snorting at the thought of marking my territory like a coyote.
Once that’s handled, I clean my hands, brush my teeth, and grab granola bars from the food locker.
I eat one, toss the trash, and pocket the other two.
Then I abandon the desired outcome and throw myself into the unknown—or in this case, walk with counterfeit composure into the unknown.
When Rue hears me, she closes her notebook and turns. With the glare off the water, I can’t tell if her smile is strained or welcoming until I’m ten feet away. Then I see that like her eyes, her smile contains a contrast of warmth and wariness.
I keep walking. Keep breathing. Keep smiling with my heart in my throat. Privately, I wonder if when Gideon said to abandon outcomes, what he really meant was abandon hope.
Stopping a few feet from the boulder, I present my offering.
“Hi. Brought you food.”
Her smile twitches higher. “How’d you know I was hungry?”
“Have you met yourself?”
She gasps in false affront, then snatches the bar and pats the boulder beside her. As I sit, our shoulders brush. She doesn’t lean into me, but at least she doesn’t jerk away like I feared she would.
From the corner of my eye, I watch her inhale her breakfast. On her last bite, I hand her the second bar. She eats it more slowly, then tucks the wrappers into the pocket of her flannel.
Her eyes flicker toward me before settling on the water. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.” I pause to swallow a surge of nervousness. “About last—”
“I don’t have any STIs.”
I swallow the rest of my sentence and switch tracks. “Okay. Neither do I.”
“And I’m on birth control, so there’s nothing to worry about on that front.”
My chest compresses with what could be disappointment, but since that’s fucking absurd, I dismiss it as soreness from the hike yesterday.
“Good. That’s good. I’m really s—”
“Don’t. Please don’t say you’re sorry.”
I inhale sharply. “Rue, look at me.”
She shakes her head, her gaze falling to her lap. My stomach drops like the boulder has disappeared from under me. Tension tightens my throat and shadows my voice.
“I’m not sorry we had sex. I’m sorry I didn’t take care of you afterward. I also recognize it was irresponsible of me not to discuss birth control or even tell you I have a clean bill of health. But I’d do it again in a heartbeat, even if it meant facing down another bear.”
Her breath quickens, the cheek facing me turning pink.
“You know what else? I fucking love that you’re leaking my cum right now. I love that you’re wincing every time you move and will feel me every step of the walk home. I loved every second I spent inside you, and I want more. I will always want more of you.”
Her eyes snap to me, blue ice thawing as she dissects my expression.
“Want me to prove it? Give me the okay, and I’ll bend you over this boulder right now. I’ll be gentle this time. Maybe.”
Her gaze darts to my lap, her blush deepening. When she licks her lips, I almost groan.
“I… I need to talk to Ivy.”
My dick has never shriveled so fast. Rue’s lips twitch at the disgust on my face, but her amusement is fleeting. She sighs, her eyes returning to the creek.
“I’m glad you don’t regret it. I don’t either. But I did wake up with a lot of guilt. Like a crippling amount of it. I can’t keep this from her anymore.”
“And if she freaks out? Will you choose her over me?”
My heart throws the questions from my mouth, bypassing a hundred mental stop signs. Rue’s expression of shock only compounds my remorse. Recoiling off the rock, I take a step backward and lift my hands.
“Forget I said that. Do what you need to do.” I turn away. “I’m going to take the tent down.”
“Have you told her?”
I stop but can’t bring myself to turn around, not even to see if the tremble in her voice is from hope or fear. I don’t want her to see the answer on my face, or worse, evidence of the war raging inside me.
My head wants me to tell her what Ivy said, convinced that if she knows my sister supports this, she’ll give in. It screams at me to confess my feelings and beg her to give me the chance to make her happy.
But wrong or not, selfish or not, my imperfect heart is louder.
I want to be chosen.
Forcing my features into a semblance of calm, I glance back at her. Draped in gold from the rising sun, her expression inscrutable, she’s never looked more like a goddess of nature—fierce, radiant, and remote.
But all I see is my Princess. My sweet Ruin. An incomparable masterpiece of wildness, fragility, and strength.
“I love my sister, Rue, but she has nothing to do with this. Only you can decide if I’m worth the risk. I meant what I said yesterday—I will catch you. But I can’t jump for you.”
Her stoic facade shatters. Nostrils flaring, hands curling into fists, she slides off the rock and stalks toward me. I brace myself, expecting her winds.
What I get is the full fury of her storm.
It hits me like a giant’s fist. Daggers of ice punch my chest. Whips of wind flay me. Hail turns me to pulp. I nearly stagger, locking my knees at the last second.
When she opens her mouth, I expect the same rage, but her voice is soft and smooth. The flat of a razor before it turns and cuts.
“You don’t understand, River. You didn’t grow up being taught you were wrong, that you’d never be loved unless you changed who you were. You didn’t have to fight tooth and nail every day to protect someone else from the same abuse. You didn’t fail.”
Quelling the urge to check my chest for a gaping wound, I gasp air into punctured lungs. She’s inches away now, her beautiful face twisted in pain. I try to reach for her, but my arms won’t cooperate. I can’t even say her name.
“I didn’t protect Teddy, and he died. All the magic in the world went with him.
I kept going because I promised him I would, but I was failing at that too.
Every day, more and more of me drained away—until Ivy found me and taught me how to live.
How to be a part of the world again. I owe her my life.
So yes, if she forgives me, and the price of that forgiveness is you, I’ll pay it.
Even if losing you means losing magic again. ”
Shock shreds my final line of defense, but the moment I stop protecting myself, everything changes. Her hail thaws to delicate snowflakes. Her gales soften to breezes. Then… nothing. A soft, drifting quiet.
The eye of the storm.
My head clears, and my pulse descends from run-for-your-life speed to the more manageable don’t-fuck-this-up.
I take a deep breath.
“You’re right. I don’t understand your pain. I can’t. But I’m here. I’m listening. You can tell me every truth, show me every scar, and it won’t change how I feel about you. Let me help you carry the weight.”
She stares at me for an endless moment, lips parted and eyes glassy. Then she blinks and looks away.
“I… can’t. Not right now.”
I wrap those three words around my heart like a bandage. Not right now isn’t never.
“That’s okay. There’s no pressure or expiration date on the offer. Thank you for explaining why Ivy means so much to you. And if you ever want to talk about King Theodore the Brave, I’d really love to know him better. So far, he seems like the coolest brother. Way cooler than Wilder.”
Her smile is small but real. “King Theodore. I forgot my LSD alter ego told you about that.” She lifts her gaze to mine. “I think you would have liked each other. You could’ve started a club of emo Pisces boys.”
I cough out a surprised laugh. “Wow. On behalf of myself and Teddy—rude.”
She shrugs, a tiny sparkle in her eye. “I never said I don’t like emo Pisces boys.”
I grin and reach out to tuck an errant tendril of hair behind her ear, then slide my hand beneath her braid to gently clasp the back of her neck. The slightest pressure brings her chest to mine. As I search her eyes, my smile fades.
“I don’t know your pain, but I do know what it feels like to be colorless and empty, and to keep moving forward without hope for what lies ahead.
When Caleb died, I built a fortress around my heart, and I’m still crawling through the rubble of that choice.
I haven’t let anyone see all of me—every last flaw—for a long, long time.
It’s scary as fuck for me. So I’m sorry I said what I did about choosing between Ivy and me. That wasn’t fair, especially since I—”
My throat closes as I’m struck by the memory I’ve been hunting for days. It unfolds in slow motion and excruciating detail.
My greatest mistake.
The pinch of Rue’s nails digging into my back yanks me out of the past.
“What just happened? You disappeared.”
Gazing into her concerned blue eyes, I realize if I wait for the courage to tell her this, I never will.
“Seven years ago. I was in San Diego for the twins’ graduation—your graduation. Ivy told me to be nice to you because you’d just been dumped. At the party that night, you asked me to kiss you. Do you remember?”
She stiffens and looks away. “You said you’d rather drink sewer water.”
“I’m sorry. God, I’m so fucking sorry. I freaked out because of how badly I wanted you to mean it. I was afraid you were just drunk, that you didn’t actually want me.” I stroke her jaw, coaxing her eyes back to mine. “I should have said yes, Rue. I was supposed to kiss you.”
She frowns. “Supposed to?”
“Yes. Granny told me about you when I was eleven years old, and I buried her message with everything else when Caleb died. I only remembered it recently.” Her eyes widen, and I smile faintly. “Just one of those probable, implausible things I understood years behind schedule.”
Her arms go slack, hurt swimming in her eyes before it’s masked. My pulse ticks up again as I try to work out how I fucked up.
It hits me a second too late.
“I’ve heard all of Ivy’s so-called messages. They’re vague as hell. But my raging skepticism aside, unless Granny K said my name, you have no way of knowing if her message was even about me. Did she say my name?”
“No, but—”
“So you don’t know. Not for sure. Which means all your confidence about us is based on something a psychic told you over twenty years ago—when you were a literal child. Everything you said yesterday…”
She tries to step away, but I hold fast. Wind stirs between us as the eye of the storm starts to pass.
“No. No. I meant every word I said yesterday.”
“Then how? How are you so positive this won’t blow up in our faces?”
Because I love you pools on my tongue, but the words evaporate before I can speak them. No matter how much I want to give them to her, I still have rubble to climb over. A heart terrified of being broken and hoping to be chosen.
“Because I feel it, Rue. I feel us. I always have. As much as I wish I could go back seven years and kiss you, Granny’s message has fuck-all to do with how I feel today. That’s all on you.”
The winds fade as she relaxes in my arms, but I’m not out of the woods yet. She’s wearing an expression I’ve seen a thousand times.
I cradle her face in my palms. “What’s bothering you?”
“Nothing.”
“That’s strange, because you look annoyed.”
“Maybe your face is annoying me.”
I bite back a smile. “I bet it wouldn’t annoy you if you were sitting on it.”
Her mouth drops open, color spreading beneath my thumbs. I chuckle and drop a kiss on her forehead.
“So fucking cute when you blush. Now tell me why you’re annoyed.”
Her nose scrunches. “Because of two and a half years ago.”
Even though I know instantly what she’s referring to, I frown in apparent confusion.
“What happened two and a half years ago?”
She trails a hand up my chest, slow and teasing. I’m completely unprepared for her to grab my nipple and twist it. I stumble backward, wheezing out a pained laugh as I rub my chest.
“Ow—damn, that hurts.”
Rue arches an unimpressed eyebrow. “You deserved it. Liars get purple nurples.”
I blink, the pain forgotten. “I’m sorry, did you say purple nurples?”
She takes a step toward me. I backpedal fast, hands up, and try to stop laughing.
“Okay, okay. Yes, I remember. You let me read your book, I tried to kiss you, you ran away.”
“Did… did you mean it?”
The hesitance in her voice kills my smile.
“Yes. I meant it.”
Her shoulders relax, the tightness around her eyes disappearing. “Then we’re even, because I wish I’d kissed you too.”
“Yeah?”
She smiles softly. “Yeah.”
I prowl toward her with every intention of stripping her out of her clothes and defiling the sun-warmed boulder.
I make it two fucking steps.
“Hey-o, campers! Sure am glad to see you two alive and kickin’. Thought for sure we’d be mopping up parts.”
Kirk’s cackle echoes down the creek.