Page 71 of Feverburn

I gulped, feelingrude. The moment was filled with things left unsaid. My limbs trembled, so I distracted myself with another question.

“So what’s your greatest fear?” I asked.

“Killing you,” he said without hesitation.

The breath exited me with a surprised wheeze. “God, I was asking that as a joke.”

“I answered, wishing it was.” He tilted his head while pulling a line across the paper. “Are we going to talk about it?”

“I said I was all in.”

“I’m all in, too, but we still need a game plan.”

“It wasn’t supposed to be like this,” I groaned, resting my head on my bicep. “I was supposed to move here to hide away and heal. I was hoping Silver Springs would take off and I’d be a successful business owner again. Then branch out. But now I feel like this shitty person because I don’t want to tell Kaylee about us.”

“You’re not a shitty person.”

“I am. I find myself resenting her and Harley because they can date openly. If anything, you should run away from me. I’m a hateful hag.”

His hand stilled as he looked up from his work. “You forgave Kaylee when you found out about the affair.”

“So…”

“I beat the shit out of my little brother, then ignored him for three years. We’re not the same, Rosie. You’re way more forgiving. You’re better than I’ll ever be.”

“That’s not true.” I leaned forward to take a sip of wine. I needed to approach this with as much delicacy as possible, but I was unsure how. I licked my lips, the tart wine drying my mouth. “But I think we should keep things, you know…private.”

“Go on,” he said, immersed in his process.

“I want to protect us. Everything is so new and raw. I can only imagine what rumors will crop up.”

“Can you see how not telling people about us could make me still feel cursed?” he said calmly.

I snorted. “Well, when you put it all reasonable like that…yeah. Now I feel even more like a piece of shit.”

He chuckled, “If we’re going to put the curse behind us, why would it matter? We’ll just tell people to fuck off. They’ll move on. And when you live a long, happy life, it will be proof enough.”

I licked my lips again. “I’m not ready.”

He bobbed his head with a resigned look. “I can respect that.”

“We haven’t even been out on a proper date.”

He stared at me with a tortured sigh.

“Not for a lack of trying on your behalf,” I amended. “Listen, I want to protect this until after the blessing. Keep it private until it’s permanent. Those are my terms.”

“When is the blessing?”

After the confessions in the lake incident, I consulted the stars, literally. “It’d be best to wait for Venus to move into a more favorable sign. So that puts us at early August.”

“It’s late June. That leaves us all of July.” His brow creased. “It’s too risky. What if something happens to you in the meantime? I can’t let that happen.”

“We’ll be fine.”

“You can’t know that.”

I got up, crawling butt naked across the couch. “Those are my terms. I want to keep this discreet. That gives us time to enjoy things before public scrutiny.” Quite frankly, I also needed a shred of autonomy in this situation.

---