Page 82 of Fall Into Me

“The drive!” Was I yelling?

“You’re yelling.” The way the sun hit his eyes made the copper flecks reflective. Like tiny gems in pools of violet.

I cleared my throat. “Straight here and then get on the highway.”

“Oh, a little out of town adventure? I thought this was a Darling tour.”

“It is. Number two, and probably the most important.”

“Will you tell me why?”

“Not yet.”

“Cali—”

“Once you get on the highway, take the first exit.”

Fane did everything I instructed without complaint. And me? Well, I did my absolute darndest not to look at his forearms while he drove and continued to refuse to admit to myself that I think I had a real thing for neck tattoos.

I was sure he could feel my eyes on him, but the way he sat didn’t change. His posture was relaxed, with one hand on the wheel and the other resting on the door, his hand in his hair. If you didn’t know him, you wouldn’t know the word “soft” could apply to him. And maybe it didn’t.

Fane was imposing.

The sharp line of his jaw that held a faint shadow, burnished-brown hair that I was sure never existed without his hand running through it at least once. Arms, thick and corded with muscle, decorated in tattoos that were now down to his hands, where he had a constellation on it that I still hadn’t had the nerve to ask him about. The other had a compass in the same design as the pocket watch on his neck. Beautiful and shadowed and dark.

“Take a right here,” I murmured, still lost in him.

Fane’s hand twitched a couple of times like he wanted to reach across and place it on my knee. To grab my hand and lift my knuckles to his mouth.

I knew we both remembered the way he used to do just that before. Now, he just sat there, letting me look.

My chest ached and my stomach dropped. This tangled mess of disappointment in myself, anger at him, and anger at the whole freaking world, just swirling around.

I cleared my throat and noticed only then that the truck had stopped. It was too late now to pretend he hadn’t seen everything I’d been thinking.

Too late to hide the brutal pain that lingered in the tissue of every part of my body as if what my life had turned into in the last two years wasn’t something that hurt me constantly.

That the life before it wasn’t something I mourned all the time.

“Cali.” Fane’s voice broke. He reached out, taking my hand and entwining his fingers with mine. “I need to talk to you.”

I watched our hands in my lap and felt my body slump in exhaustion. I knew he had things he wanted to say, and I’d been so adamant that he didn’t deserve to have his words heard. I didn’t owe him anything, even though the wondering at what he had to say ate away at me like an itch I couldn’t scratch.

I nodded. “I know. But, not yet.”

“Cali.” That was hisI’m building up to fight you on thisvoice, and it tugged at the corner of my mouth.

Closing my eyes, I pulled in a deep breath before pulling my hand from his and remembered the ‘why’ that started this all in the first place.

“We’re here,” I said, jumping out of the truck, the gavel shoulder Fane had pulled off onto the exact place we actually needed to be. The moment I heard the telling click of the car lock, I found the hidden path with ease, listening to his footsteps behind me as we disappeared into the trees.

* * *

“I’m just shocked,” he said.

I kept my eyes laser-focused on the relatively overgrown path in front of me. “I don’t see why.”

“You don’t seewhy?” Even though Fane was behind me, I had no issue imagining the incredulous look on his face. “Wewent hiking a total of three times together over two years, and I had to carry you on my back for most of each of those experiences.”

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