Page 78 of Hades

Great. As if I need something special just for me. I nod my head even though I know she can’t see me. Dread is precisely what I’ve been feeling.

“I saw him, you know,” I burst out.

“What? When? And why didn’t you start with that?” she snaps.

Standing at my bedroom window, I look down onto Comm Avenue and then over to the shadowed nook across the street. It’s the same place where I’ve stood night after night, hoping to see him again.

Fat load of good that Ph.D does me in rationalizing my own behavior.

I let out an audible sigh and drop my head, pressing my forehead against the cool glass. “It was a few months ago, the same night as the date with Kevin,” I inform her and wait for her reaction.

Kevin was a doctor that had worked briefly with Michael in New York and now has a thriving practice here in Boston. Both Salem and Michael thought it would be a great idea to set the two of us up after I relocated. Usually, I wouldn’t have agreed, but it hadn’t looked as if Reaver would come back. So, I went on one fricken date, and that was the night he chose to show up after over a year without a word.

I hadn’t wanted to appear rude and bolt across the street, hoping that Reaver would wrap me in his arms, so I did nothing and I did everything. I laughed and smiled at everything Kevin said when in truth, I couldn’t tell you one word of our conversation from that night. My attention was on the mammoth shadow of a man lurking across the street. Then the good doctor went in for a kiss, and Reaver disappeared.

“Hello, Kennie. Are you still there?” Salem’s voice lifts me out of my momentary daze. But the moment I’m back in the present, I can feel my heart clench.

“Yeah, I’m here,” I manage to squeak out as I feel my throat start to tighten and my eyes begin to burn. The tears that I have been holding back for so long are threatening to spill forth, and I am helpless to hold them back. I make a last-ditch effort to sniff them back, even tilting my head to the ceiling, hoping they will roll back into my eyes.They don’t.

Instead, a pathetic sob escapes my lips.

“Oh, sweetie,” I hear Salem say as she attempts to calm me down. “Don’t cry.”

I can’t help it, I’m in full-blown sob mode.

“I’ll be right there,” I hear her say.

If it were anyone else, again, I would question her timeline since we are thousands of miles apart. But over the past few years, I have learned so much about the world I live in. When I made the decision to move from the Colorado research facility back to Boston, I made sure that there was a Dimmu gate close by. Humans can’t travel through them without someone else, but Salem can.

Tossing my phone on the bed, I head into the kitchen and grab two glasses and a full bottle of wine from the fridge. She may need blood to survive, but she can still eat and drink like the rest of us. I’ve barely poured the wine when there’s a frantic knock at the door.

Before I can even say hi to my oldest and closest friend, she swings her arms around me and embraces me. The moment she does, the tears start all over again.

“Shhhhh,” she coos while stroking my hair. “Why are you so upset? Tell me what’s going on. I thought you had…” Her voice trickles off as I continue to sob almost uncontrollably.

As a Behavioral Therapist, I know I’m being irrational and letting my imagination make decisions for me. All I need to do is be fucking rational, and everything will be fine. Yet right now, that simple task seems to be impossible.

“What’s wrong with me?” I manage to squeak out. “Why am I so stupid?” I push away and head into the kitchen to grab my wine. “I mean, he hasn’t spoken to me in a year. A fucking year, and somehow, I’m upset that—” I stop mid-sentence and flop down onto the couch because I don’t even know why I’m so upset.

“Have you called Ash?” Salem asks, and I shoot her a condescending look.

“Are you kidding me? What would I even say?‘Oh, hey, Ash, you don’t know me, but I really like your brother. Have you heard from him? Because he ghosted me a year ago and I’m still hung up on him.’Yeah, that doesn’t sound insane and desperate at all.”

“I’m afraid you’ve lost me,” she admits as she pours herself a full glass of wine.

With a deep breath in and a hearty swig from my glass, I try to regain my composure. Or at least what little of it I have left so that I can explain my sudden burst of crazy.

“After Kevin left, I went searching for Reaver. I couldn’t help it. I thought I was finally over him, and then once I saw him, it all came rushing back. So, like an idiot, I spent the night wandering around, looking in every nook and cranny of Boston.” I pause to take a deep breath because the emotion is still so raw. “Anyway, he was gone. But you want to know what the strangest thing about it was? The entire time I was wandering the city, I felt safe. Like maybe he was watching. I don’t know. And now my gut is telling me he’s going to do something stupid. Does any of this even make sense?” I question as I down the remaining wine from my glass.

Salem gives me a wide smile. “It makes perfect sense, actually. You and Reaver have a connection, you both just haven’t figured out where it fits in yet.”

I’ve known Salem for a long time, which means I know damn well when she’s holding something back. It’s probably not going to be something I want to hear but fuck it. If I can’t take it from my best friend, then who will I take it from?

“And?” I ask, knowing there will be more.

“And you have to take into consideration Reaver’s past. He isn’t like other guys. He’s broken inside. And I don’t mean he’s had a bad relationship broken. I mean down to the core deep, fucked-up shit broken.”

She isn’t telling me anything I don’t already know. Reaver and I had spent many nights just talking. I know he was holding back, trying not to scare me off. But knowing some of the terrible things he went through only made him that much more loveable. It amazed me that he still had the capacity to show love and compassion after centuries of torture and neglect.

---