44. THE WORDS UNSAID
THE WORDS UNSAID
UNTIL A WEEK AGO, EMbrY WOODCROSS HAD BEEN ABLE TO avoid the pitfalls most people felt in daily life—self-doubt, anxiety, and nerves among them.
Now all three churned in the pit of her stomach as she glanced sidelong at her oldest friend. That old thorn in her side that somehow had become part of her. Rye Knighton, the boy next door, the man her heart ached for under the wide, autumn sky.
With his dislocated shoulder magically mended, he was talking with Daddy and Merle in the coven pentagram, the long morning and afternoon of giving statements to Inspector Brown and his team from the Table over for now, Raven’s End cordoned off with yellow tape and wards.
There was so much still left to do, though the coven’s video feed corroborating eyewitness testimony did the heavy lifting.
But there was one thing Embry knew was not on any official list. And because she was literally the best of best friends, Amethyst Oberon knew it, too.
“What are you going to do about that, Em?”
Embry yanked herself away from her one-sided staring contest and blinked at Ames. She cleared her throat. “About what?”
Ames frowned, looking the very picture of annoyed.
“Embry Woodcross.” Ames folded her arms over her chest and arched a perfect brow for extra sharpness. “I know you’ve been through the wringer in the past week, and, well, today, but considering this is for your own good, I’m not going to let you off the hook about playing coy.”
Her BFF waved a hand in the direction of Rye, and Embry gulped. “I wasn’t—”
“Pretend all you want, girlfriend, but that does not excuse the fact that something has happened between you and Ryszard Knighton.”
Ames’s hands lifted and Embry braced for a pointer finger to the sternum but instead found her best friend lovingly pinching her cheeks for a little added color—no magic needed.
“And,” Ames continued, “we are not going to let it just fall by the wayside because you seem intent on pretending you aren’t looking at him that way and he isn’t returning your frequent glances with all the broody beanbag smolder that very hot boy next door can muster.”
For a rare instance in her young life, Embry Woodcross was speechless.
Ames smiled and bent close so that Embry’s entire vision was her best friend’s big, beautiful brown eyes. “You’ve suffered enough, Em. Go get your man.”
Amethyst Oberon, of course, would not allow Embry to wait until Rye excused himself from his current conversation.
No, she forced Embry to approach right away with a threat to involve Fairfax and Alistair if she didn’t get a move on.
And though Embry loved a good audience when on stage, she didn’t exactly want one now.
Luckily, the rest of the coven had moved out by then—some forcibly by Ames as she collected Fairfax and Alistair—and the rest of the student body and Raven’s Head faculty were safely back on school grounds.
Even more fortunate (or perhaps it wasn’t luck at all), Daddy apparently had something he urgently needed to show Merle in the conservatory.
Thus, the elder witches pointed themselves toward the house as Embry arrived at the sun-spackled spot between trees where they’d been standing, eyes trained on Rye.
“Hey,” Embry said as he waved goodbye to Lazarus and Merle. Not the strongest start, but then Rye looked at her and the fact that she was still on her feet was a miracle.
It wasn’t just that he was handsome. He was.
It wasn’t just that he was familiar. He was.
It wasn’t just that she’d wanted to kiss him for days now. She had.
It wasn’t just anything at all.
In that stunned-still moment, Embry realized she didn’t just have feelings for Rye. She’d underestimated why her heart lurched, why she felt as if no one, even Oakley, could have him. Why she wanted to kiss him, touch his face, live in one of his bear hugs forever.
She was in love with Rye Knighton.
This prickly, pain-in-the-butt, always-calling-her-on-her-bullshit, gap-year man was the one she wanted.
“Hey,” Rye replied.
Was there a rasp in his voice? Or was he simply exhausted?
She was sure his throat bobbed. Maybe. Embry knew she better say something of substance before she chickened out.
Her heartbeat took off, and though Rye was accustomed to her dramatics, fainting before she got the words out would put a serious kink in the delivery.
“I need to say something,” Embry blurted at the very same moment Rye announced, “There’s something I’ve wanted to tell you.”
Their crossed words settled, and Embry felt the need to laugh at herself and brush back her hair, even though Ames had probably made it absolutely perfect before she walked over here. Rye gestured at her with a little flickering smile. “Ladies first.”
Always the gentleman.
Embry took a step closer, planted her legs like tent stakes, and gathered herself with a deep breath that did nothing to quell the turmoil in her gut.
Despite her determination, she suddenly felt untethered.
No matter his reaction to what she had to say now, things would change between them.
Hopefully for the better, but if that wasn’t to be, they couldn’t go on this way.
She couldn’t go on this way.
Yet in that moment the right words still eluded her.
“I know you care about me…” Embry started, hand-wavy and rocky.
He’d called her smart and beautiful when she’d broken down and left tearstains down his neck in the graveyard.
Yet reminding him of that felt like emotional sabotage, somehow.
“I just want you to understand that I care about you, too. I hope I’ve shown you that, but I’m not sure I’ve done my best.”
Embry grimaced, nose crinkling. Her trademark nerve was flagging. Her palms were sweating, her heart pounding as if she were sprinting around the Raven’s Head track. “I’m not doing my best right now, that’s for sure…”
She was not nailing this in any measure. Oh Goddess, this was all wrong.
For the first time in her life, she was completely in love, and instead of shouting it to the rooftops, Embry was experiencing a tongue-tiedness she hadn’t thought she was capable of.
“Em?” Rye asked, and it was so gentle and un-goading and completely sweet that she lunged forward and put one hand on his shoulder—
And a finger to his lips. They were staring at each other, so close now.
Rye had cupped her elbows, and it was everything Embry could do now not to slide her hands around the back of his neck and kiss him.
Instead, almost as a protective barrier from her own intuition, Embry kept her finger pressed firmly against his mouth.
Their own little sign for silence so different in the light of day.
Not in the dark of a closet. Not in the shadows under her bed.
Here, in the open. Where Rye could see exactly how Embry felt about him.
“I’m almost finished,” Embry whispered, steeling herself to look into his eyes. Knowing he could read all the things she’d realized and left unsaid within her own.
But when she lifted her gaze to his, Embry was floored to realize that the window to the soul went both ways. The sea-glass green of Rye’s beautiful eyes seemed to darken this close, his pupils a whole galaxy between them.
Embry finished meekly, “I do care about you but… if I cared less, I might be able to describe how I feel in a better way.”
Her finger slid away from Rye’s mouth, down his chin, and then—because it apparently had a mind of its own—up his jaw and into the battle-worn disaster of his hair.
Yes, it looked even better than usual. In response, Rye’s jaw dropped, and Embry knew she should move her hand, that she’d crossed a boundary, that they were too close to have a serious conversation—
Rye leaned forward and kissed her.
Quick and hard, like a hand grazing a hot stove.
He was there and gone, and an apology was immediately tumbling into the air the instant he jerked back, out of her grip. “I’m sorry, Em, I should’ve asked for con—”
Embry cut him off with a kiss of her own.
She flung both hands around Rye’s neck and pulled him into her, making it very clear that apology he’d swallowed could stay buried. Embry wanted this, and his own actions were all the consent she needed on her end to believe he wanted it, too.
After a stiff moment of surprise, Rye returned the kiss, his palms skating down her arms to settle firmly on her waist. The cool fabric of their absolutely trashed (but magically un-stinky) running clothes slid seam to seam as their bodies melted together.
Embry swept her hands up from his neck back into his soft mop of hair, unafraid to touch it now, a waft of rosemary clinging to their embrace.
Rye tasted like stolen espresso and sunshine, of early mornings and full-moon nights, of always calling her on her bullshit and movie marathons on winter days with snowdrifts kissing the living room windows. Of magic, of home.
When she finally needed to take a breath—because though she was an excellent witch, she was also human, as was he, and respiration was a necessity, not a nice-to-have—Embry only pulled back enough to inhale. But with the hit of oxygen also came another realization.
Embry looked Rye directly in the eye and finally found the right words for this situation.
“I think I’ve been in love with you for a long time, Rye Knighton.”
Rye brought his hands from her waist to her face, cupping it like the most delicate piece of crystal. Or perhaps like the breakable thing that was her heart.
“I know I’ve been in love with you for a long time, Embry Woodcross.”
A twinge of their familiar banter surfaced. “I wasn’t aware this was a competition.”
“It’s not a competition. It’s a mere fact.”
Embry trailed a thumb along his jaw, then back into his sandy hair—which was even more perfectly mussed than before, if one could believe it. “Prove it, Knighton.”
Rye didn’t even hesitate. “Woodcross, do you know why I really took a gap year?”
“Not because you had a premonition that setting up cameras all over our property would save me from a literal witch hunt?”
He let out a surprised laugh. “Unfortunately, no.”
Rye’s eyes grew serious again and he played with the ends of her hair, immediately wiping out Balthazar’s last hexed touch.
“My real reason for taking a gap year was so that I could stay with you.”
Rye paused, and when Embry’s lips dropped open in surprise, he caressed her cheek with his thumb and nodded wholeheartedly.
“I wanted to be here for your senior year, and I wanted to go through undergrad and law school with you at the same time.” Embry was certain she wasn’t breathing.
“It wasn’t so I could babysit you or spy for Lazarus—please don’t think either of those things—I just couldn’t imagine my life without you in it.
So I did what I could to make sure I was there, even if it couldn’t be with you. ”
Embry captured Rye’s mouth hard and fast, just as he had previously, but without any of the accompanying panic. She kissed him like an exclamation point.
“Rye, I want you to be with me,” she assured him, just in case her actions weren’t enough. “I will kiss you a thousand times over if that’s what it takes to get through that thick skull of yours.”
“I won’t turn you down,” he answered, “but just know that”—here, he drew in a hardy breath—“all my life, you’ve been this beautiful, kind, caring presence.
I know I’m hard on you, I test you, I vex you, and you’ve suffered my moods better than anyone ever should.
But I still think you’re the best person I know. You make me better.”
Rye’s voice cracked. When he continued, Embry was sure there was a sheen in his eyes.
“So when you said the other night that you didn’t know what you’d do with yourself if Oakley managed to have me? I felt the same way about the prospect of Balthazar having you. That was why I was so awful about him”—he smirked—“though it turned out I was right not to like him.”
They laughed, because it was true that Rye was the only one besides Alistair to dislike the sorcerer before it was revealed he was a vampire-hunting psychopath.
Rye’s judgment of character was incredibly astute, it seemed, even if his original judgment was based on an entirely different metric than Balthazar’s downfall.
Embry grazed a thumb over that poet’s mouth of Rye’s and smiled at him as if he were the moon and stars—it turned out he was.
Then, because, theater kids that they were, they both very much enjoyed a callback, Embry looked him straight in the eye and told him exactly what he wanted to hear.
“No one has me but you, Rye Knighton.”