Page 55 of Oathbreaker

“The dead mother club,” I reply.

He doesn’t laugh.

“Wow, tough crowd,” I say. I’m trying to be funny, I guess. I wasn’t always this cynical. This morose. I wonder if this new attitude will be unattractive to him. If he’ll get annoyed. If this will be the thing that causes him to walk away.

My heart squeezes at the thought. I don’t want that...do I?

His hand grazes mine. Our pinky fingers touch in such a gentle caress that it could have been taken as an accident if I weren’t paying attention.

“Tell me about your mother,” he says instead. I give him a sad smile.

“My mother was my hero.” I pull at the wrists of my sweatshirt, grateful that Hunter and I grabbed shoes and warm coats before leaving out the back door. “My mom worked a lot but tried her best to be there for me whenever possible. My dad was a doctor, so he worked a lot of hours, especially when I was really little. But by the time Mom was elected to the House, Dad was in a different position and didn’t need to work so many crazy rotations.”

His pinky grazes mine back and forth as he retracts and extends his finger.

“What’s your favorite memory of the two of them?” he asks me. I turn my face to the moon.

“Hm. That’s a hard one to answer. If I had to pick one, I’d say it was my ninth birthday party. I invited all the girls in my class to sleep over at my house, but no one showed.”

“That’s your favorite memory?” He lets out a small puff of air, a chuckle. I glance at him out of the corner of my eye and try not to quake at the expression on his face.

There’s so much love in his eyes that it hurts to look.

My mouth twists into a smile at the memory. “Yeah, it is. Around eight p.m., when no one showed, she said, ‘Well, can’t let all this go to waste!’ So we ate cold pizza and an entire sheet cake between me and her. Dad was not impressed because he was a pretty health-conscious guy, but he did help us build the most amazing pillow fort. It was epic. The pillow fort to end all pillow forts.”

I smile for real this time, and I catalog that the muscles in my face feel tight. Are they really that unused to making this movement?

“So yeah, best memory ever.” I finish.

“I love that memory,” he says.

We lapse into silence again. It’s comfortable.

Kitty runs back to me, a leaf sticking out of his mouth. I snag it from him, lifting him into my lap to cuddle close. He licks my cheek, and I breathe in deeply against the memories.

“What do you need from me, Winter?” Hunter’s voice is so soft, so unlike the commanding man I’ve seen him as. He’s using a voice reserved only for me.

He loves me.

I breathe deeply and turn on the log to face him fully. “I don’t know, H.”

He reaches a hand up to my cheek, and I still when he wipes away a tear.

I watch the movement of his throat as he swallows. “Do you want to talk about it?” His hand is warm against my cheek. I focus on that sensation instead of the dread that courses through me.

“I don’t...I don’t know if I can. If I should.” More tears. Always with the fucking tears.

“I understand if you don’t want to talk to me about it, but you should talk to someone. Veronica called me,” he says, and the abrupt topic change startles me a little bit. “She said that your therapist contacted her. She hasn’t seen you since before the attack.”

I’m on edge at once. Veronica’s my emergency contact, as has been the norm for the last near decade. But I don’t want to talk to Genevieve right now.

I don’t have a clear reason. I just...don’t.

It’s because you know what she’ll say. You know what you should do, and you’re not doing it.

“She cares about you. She’s worried about you. All of us are worried about you.”

I pull my face away from his hand, and he takes the hint and drops it in his lap.

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