Page 58 of Ravens
Tired, I leave them behind and find my way to the study where York is supposed to sleep. I have no interest in taking his room, and it feels more prudent to be where I can hear and see more. Removing the cushions from the couch, I pull the bed out and flop down on it. Maybe they will be able to kill me in my sleep because the vodka is definitely making me feel dull and groggy.
I pull the gun out of the back of my pants and slide it under my pillow as I hug it.
“You didn’t say anything about me,” Carter says from behind me.
I shift onto my side and find him standing in the doorway with his hands in his pockets. “Jealous?”
“Maybe a little. Shit.”
I laugh quietly and put my face back into the pillow. The reason I didn’t read Carter in front of the others is because I’m afraid to push him too far over the other side of the line from me. He’s a swing vote.
“You’re a rich kid,” I say, turning my head to him. “Generational wealth, I’d guess. Educated, but not at UCLA. Probably Cambridge. I’d wager your family has an estate that looks an awful lot like a castle somewhere in the motherland. You joined the military as a ‘fuck you’ to your parents and everyone else that wanted you to go into business and take over the family estate.”
He rolls his lip between his teeth.
“And I think you chose explosives because as much as killing doesn’t bother you, you’d rather be removed from the actual act. I don’t know if that’s a sign that you’re trying to salvage your humanity or if it’s just proof of indifference.”
His head bobs, and he looks at the floor. “Well . . . I asked for it, I guess.”
Glancing up to the ceiling, he turns on a heel and walks back down the hall. I drop my face into the pillow. I probably should have kept my mouth shut, but vodka doesn’t care. Leaving the gun under the pillow, I drag myself up and head to the bathroom.
William slams into me outside the bathroom door, and I hiss, pressing my hand to my arm.
He steps into the bathroom ahead of me and grips the door. “By the way, if I wanted you dead, I would have taken the head shot because I am very good at it.”
“So what?” I point to the wound in the back of my arm. “This was just a love tap?”
“Hey.” He shrugs with a grin. “You’re the one that started running.”
The door closes on my face, and I lean my forehead against it, taking a cleansing breath as my head swirls. Not wanting to wait, I wander down the hall and up the stairs to the other bathroom, which is empty, and I take the time to wash my face and scrub my teeth with one of a dozen new toothbrushes I find under the sink.
York is waiting outside when I exit, and I’m not sure I have the energy. It must be five or six in the morning by now, and I have had so little sleep.
“Have you always been this good at making friends?”
Whatever is going on between us is a bit too complicated in this environment, and despite myself and the help of vodka, I wish that wasn’t the case. At least in the woods we only had one tent, so our proximity was forced . . . and therefore acceptable, I guess.
Even then, there was no overt affection around the others.
So, this is much the same except we don’t have the excuse of only one place to sleep anymore. I wrap my arms around his waist and breathe him for a second, before letting him go. “I need to sleep.”
“Me too, but I saw you took the couch from me.” He runs his hand down my back.
“I upgraded you.” I pat his chest and head down the stairs without looking back.
In the living room, I flick off the lights, even though the sky outside is graying with dawn, and slide out of my pants before crawling onto the bed and collapsing.
Twenty-Nine
Sometime later I feel the flimsy mattress dip, and I slip toward the depression.
A firm arm wraps around me, pulling me flush. “I’m having trouble sleeping without you, Theresa.”
“Stay with me,” I whisper, adjusting my head as his other arm slips under it.
We lie there quietly, and I don’t open my eyes, but I know the room is filled with light now. I have no idea how long the others will sleep, so this moment may be fleeting, but I’ve been wanting it since we got here, and I know that’s a terrible thing.
A terribly stupid thing.
