Page 10 of Revive
So practically everyone had told her. “Maybe,” she agreed. “There’s just one tiny problem with that. I can’t. I’m too fucking stubborn, and my heart knows what it wants, even if my head and every bugger else tells me I’m an idiot.”
The ghost of a smile crossed his lips. “You’re not that.”
“I’m here because I want to be, Spook.”
His breath whispered between his lips. His sigh like the ocean breeze. “I’m a mess, Alle. I’m not sure I’m what anyone needs in their life at the minute. Especially you. I’ve not been kind to you.”
She squeezed his hand more tightly. “I’m not going to deny that being ghosted hurt, but I get why you did it. And like I said, I just can’t seem to let you go, and I’ve tried. I really have tried.”
“I don’t have a defence for my actions.”
“You don’t need to present any.” His actions were perfectly understandable. Fleeing from danger, real or imagined, was a response ingrained into the human psyche. “Just tell me that you didn’t actually believe I had anything to do with what Flynn and Marshall did to you. I promise you I had no bloody clue. It still sickens me to think—”
“Don’t. Please.”
He turned, then, raising his other hand towards her as if he meant to cover her lips. The knuckles of his right hand were split and only recently scabbed over. “I can’t go there.”
“We’re going to have to at some point.”
“No, we don’t. We don’t ever need to speak of it again.”
“I need to… At least a little. What they did, it was unforgivable, and I just want—”
“Alle, please.”
“—I want you to know that I’ve shed a few siblings over this. We’re not in contact anymore, and I’ve no intention of ever changing that.”
His teeth rasped across his soft lower lip. “I’m sorry about your family.”
“Yeah, me too.”
Sorry for how they’d behaved, and what they’d done. Sorry that she still didn’t have the healthiest of relationships with the two brothers she remained in contact with.
“How did you even find out? Did Xane tell you?”
“Did he hell!” If there was ever a man born to be a secret keeper, Xane was it. He’d never told her a damn thing, but any gripes she had with Black Halo’s lead singer were currently on hold, because he had at least given her this. “I found out in December, after Flynn arrived home. Would you believe, the bastard dared to claim that he’d done it to protect me?”
The sting of Flynn’s words had never faded. They prickled even now. “I was doing what every brother would. Looking out for my sister, who’s so blind she can’t recognise a monster even when presented with the evidence in black and blue all over her skin.”
But that’s not who Spook was. The man sitting by her was no monster. “Spook, I’m so sorry. It was my phone he used to lure you—”
“Alle.” His tone silenced her. Apprehensively, she met his gaze.
“None of it was your fault.”
She wasn’t quite so sure of that.
“I mean it. Let’s drop this. We’re not responsible for the actions of others. You never wanted your brothers punished for what you did when you were kids. Same thing applies now. You’re not responsible for what they did to me as adults. I don’t blame you.”
“It’s still partially my fault. I should have explained how things were. What we were doing. What I’m into.”
“Fuck that!” His vehemence shocked her. It was so sharp, compared to the softness of all his other words. “You’re a grown woman. You don’t have to explain to them. What you choose to do with your body is nobody else’s business. If you were asking them for help to get out of a bad situation, that’d be different.”
“I wasn’t, and I didn’t. I liked what we had.” She squeezed his hand more tightly. “I liked it a lot. And you’re right. It is none of their business. I don’t ask what they do in bed. Shit! I wouldn’t want to know.”
“Exactly.”
“So, does that mean you’ve accepted you’re not a monster for liking what you like?”
