Page 144 of Nothing More

Raven had never wanted to think of herself as the sort of woman who played emotional games. Pretending to be “fine;” holding grudges; withholding sex; employing the silent treatment. Technically, she wasn’t doing any of those things, now. She wasn’t ignoring Toly; she was thinking. Replaying what she’d said to Michelle:Are you okay? I will be. Trying to decide whatokaymeant, in this instance. She’d known better from the first than to let her heartstrings get attached to a Lean Dog, but that had happened, and there was no changing it. Despite the pain, she could cut herself free at any moment, if she needed to. It wasn’t herself she was worried about.

It was him.

One thing she knew for certain: he hadn’t been going to the gym. And wherever he was going, whatever he was doing, he wasn’t telling his club brothers about it, either.

He could have been meeting another woman, but she dismissed that thought the moment it occurred. Yes, he was showered, hair wet, skin smelling of strong, gym-grade soap, but she didn’t believe he was trying to scrub the scent of sex off himself. Drugs? His eyes were too alert, too wary, when she caught them flicking toward her throughout the movie, glazed with blue television light, pupils large and clear, faint crease appearing between his brows as he tried to read her.

Well, Mr. Mysterious: you aren’t the only one with a poker face. Just like Michelle wasn’t the only one who’d inherited the family’s assassin traits.

The movie ended, and Cass wanted to put on the sequel, and Raven excused herself to pick up the pizza mess. She expected Toly to follow her, at some point, but she didn’t expect him to do it so soon.

She set the last foil-wrapped slice of pizza in the fridge, turned around, and there he stood on the other side of the island.

She didn’t startle, but a tingling sensation bit at the palms of her hands, and soles of her feet. A readiness. Like the ding of a boxing bell.

That was instinct, though. She was self-aware enough to recognize it for what it was: her mother’s handed-down feelings, bruisable as peaches, a source of terrible shame to be hidden at all costs. Nurtured by a healthy dose of the old Devin Green Pull Back: something wasn’t going as she’d expected, or hoped, or whatever, and the best thing was to pull back, cram down those bruised-peach feelings, and clothe herself in indifference.

It was the dirty secret of why she’d always dated such dreadfully boring men. If anyone who left her feverish and needy rejected her, pushed her away, she didn’t know if she could handle the loss with anything like good grace. It had happened, finally; after an adult life spent avoiding Lean Dog entanglements, she’d gotten herself all knotted up; she was invested, and he was keeping secrets, and ithurt. A painful sting like stepping on broken glass, sharp and shocking.

She could tell him none of this, though. She wasn’t capable of being properly vulnerable: confessing, cajoling, begging. She could offer up her body, but not the ugly, mushy insides of her head and heart.

She took a careful, measured breath. She did not gasp. She did not allow her brows to shoot up. Her movements were purposeful, and not fluttery, as she pointed at the fridge over her shoulder and said, “I just wrapped it all up, but it can’t be cold yet, if you’d like some more.”

Confusion touched his face, a fleeting scrap of it, confirming to her (in a way that left her relieved) that he’d come in forher, and not for pizza. He was at least alittleinvested. “Ah, no.” He tucked his hair back – it was the loveliest texture, sleek and smooth, blackbird gleam of blue and green under the lights, not a trace of frizz, though it had air-dried. “I wanted to…” he started, and trailed off, watching his own fingers as he traced the veins in the marble countertop. “You. I mean–” Chewed at his lip ring, tongue the color of grapefruit flesh in the low light, a bright pink temptation that set unwanted champagne bubbles fizzing in her stomach.

Whatever he felt on the inside, he never presented as an awkward man; for Toly, silences seemed appropriate, and even challenging…and then there were the afterglow moments when the silences seemed comfortable as an old, threadbare sweater, enfolding and warm, as though words simply weren’t necessary.

But she was rethinking those silences now, her perhaps mistaken interpretation of them. His awkward moment now tugged at the center of her chest, a fishhook under the ribs.

Maybe, she reflected, it had nothing to do with his looks, or his broody quiet, or his Lean Dog status. Maybe it had never been the wild, wolf-and-woods-scented allure of him, but a simple need to comfort a broken thing; to mend the parts of him that had shattered long ago and been glued back poorly. She’d never thought of herself as that sort of person…but she’d never thought she’d stand across from a Dog and ache like this, heartsore and conflicted.

His gaze lifted, dark as coals through the screen of his lashes. “You’re angry with me,” he said, finally firm. Dripping dread.

He thought she was angry, and he didn’t like that. Had sought her out to ask her about it.

She was touched.

She knew it wasn’t enough. Wasn’t sustainable.

An idea occurred.

And a resignation: there was no way to preserve her heart at this point, but would it really make things worse to indulge in the physicality of it all? Surely she wouldn’t become more invested, not now that she’d resigned herself.

And in order for the idea to work, she mustn’t let him know anything was wrong. If he got suspicious, he’d bolt.

“No.” She stepped forward and mirrored his position on the opposite side of the island, so they were across from one another, on eye level. The counter was so wide, they both would have needed to stretch to touch one another. “Only preoccupied.” She caught his gaze, and offered a smile. It was an effort to keep it small and tired. “This is my busiest season with the business. Our mystery mailer couldn’t have picked a worse time to complicate everyone’s lives.”

He nodded, and she refused to let herself think he looked relieved by her answer.

“Maybe the boys managed to find out something useful today,” she said.

“Maybe.”

“I thought they’d be back by now.”

He propped his chin in a cupped hand; his sleeve rode up, and she noticed the hair elastic he wore on his wrist. A small, heartbreaking detail she shoved out of her mind. “I don’t think they ever do what they’re supposed to, do they?”

Do you?she thought. “No. They don’t.”

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