Page 13 of Windlass

Stevie had not, apparently, hid her mood as well as she’d hoped. The clop of retreating hooves rang out in the malevolent silence.

Footsteps as soft as the knock came up behind her, Angie’s shaking breaths audible between the swishes of the brush. Stevie concentrated on matching the strokes to her breath. Her face felt hot and tight, and her white-knuckled grip on the brush trembled.

“I’m sorry.” The words were accompanied by Angie’s arms wrapped around Stevie’s stomach, and her face nestled beside Stevie’s. Angie’s cheek was damp. The urge to comfort her warred with her own pain. How could the feel of Angie’s body both soothe and flay her open?

She shrugged as if she wasn’t bothered. “It’s fine.”

Angie didn’t say anything, but she didn’t move either. The heat of her body on the humid day should have been oppressive; it wasn’t. The angry, bruised ache in Stevie’s chest lessened with each passing moment of contact. Touching Angie always felt like a lens coming into focus. Her arm came to rest by her side of its own volition, brush held limply in her fingers. Olive craned her head around in the crossties to examine the interruption with a warm brown eye.

She could ask Angiewhatshe was sorry for and make her spell it out. She could shake her off and stay angry and hurt, since she was going to be angry and hurt anyway. She could tell Angie exactly what it felt like to hear the person you lo—

Nope. Nope, nope, nope.

“Just . . . can you go to her place next time?” A reasonable request. More than reasonable. Any friend would be upset to hear someone they cared about getting shoved around, even if Angie clearly enjoyed it. Stevie’s molars creaked beneath her clenching jaw.

Angie tightened her grip on Stevie in a way that suggested she might be trying to control a sob. Sob or no, Stevie didn’t want Angie letting go—ever.

“There won’t be a next time.”

“Uh huh.” She’d heard that before about Lana.

“I mean it.”

“Uh huh,” she said again. A breeze stirred the horsehair at her feet into little eddies. Angie’s body, soft and hot, pressed tightly against her own. If she could only focus on the perfection of that feeling and ignore the rest of the situation . . .

Maybe she should try a dating app again to put distance between them. As if. Besides, previous attempts had only ended up with her hurting someone else’s feelings. It wasn’t fair to date someone when you were in love with someone else.

She wassucha dumbass.

Angie’s next words, however, broke the pattern. “But I need your help.”

“Okay.” Angie sat on the far side of the couch twenty minutes later with her chin resting on the knees she’d drawn up to her chest. Stevie considered doing the same but settled for leaning against the back of the couch with her head propped in her hand.

“Okay as in you’re going to tell me what’s up, or okay as in . . .?”

“Okay as in let’s talk.”

“Oh.” Her heart lurched. Talking had seemed like a good idea yesterday. Today, not so much. “Uh. Okay.”

“You know I don’t care about her.”

“Is that supposed to make this better?” Couldn’t Angie see how that wasworse? How it proved that Angie would rather be with someone she didn’t evenlikethan be with Stevie?

“I just—this might take me a second to explain.”

As if Stevie could deny her anything, least of all time. “Sure.”

“You know I’m not . . . I mean . . . I’ve got issues.”

It was impossible to get to know Angie andnotguess, eventually, that she had a rough history. Her family’s treatment of her made Lana look tender.

Angie tried to continue. “Lana is a . . .” before trailing off again.

“She’s a coping mechanism. I get it.” She did get it, too. Unfortunately. If Angie couldn’t see how unhealthy that coping mechanism was, though, Stevie wasn’t sure how she was supposed to help.

“Kink is—”

Not this argument. Stevie tried not to grind her teeth. “What you’re doing isn’t kink, Ange.”

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