Fuck.
I run my hands over my scruffy cheeks and squeeze my eyes closed, wishing all of this would just go away, but when I reopen them, Raven is still here. She’s still looking at me with a furrowed brow and so much confusion.
Her mouth opens and closes a few times, her lips glistening. Thunder booms, rattling the glass in the old window and shaking the floor. “But…”
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
I glance away from her.
This woman has already seen me far too exposed, and now, I just ripped that opening even bigger, allowing her to see even more. Now she sees the boy I was in high school. The one who was intimidated as fuck by all girls, but especially ones like her who weren’t afraid of me, who never shied away.
It would be best to end this conversation now, before things go any deeper, before even more gets exposed, but for some reason, I can’t bear the fact that Raven has been living under such vile misconceptions about me and my motivations since that night.
“I don’t know who the fuck you think I was when I was sixteen, Raven, but I sure as hell wasn’t a lady’s man. I wasn’t running around sleeping with all the girls on the mountain in high school, and I don’t know why you would even think that.”
She doesn’t offer any explanation, just continues to stare at me, dumbstruck. As if even now, while we’re standing here finally airing it all out, she still can’t believe me.
“I didn’t want you to regret anything that night, Raven. I didn’t want to take advantage of you. I didn’t want to be that fucking asshole. And I certainly didn’t want my first time to be with a girl who was so drunk that she didn’t even know what she was doing.”
Raven never blinks.
Never looks away.
It’s never been in her nature to back down. And she certainly won’t in this argument, either.
“I knew exactly what I was doing, Connor. There were any number of people I could have wanted to be with, but you were the only one I trusted.”
Those words drive into my chest like a knife.
You were the only one I trusted…
It’s easy to forget we once had that kind of relationship. A real friendship where Willow, Killian, Liam, Raven, and I could count on each other for anything any of us needed. As children, the McBride homestead was a safe place for everyone. Mom opened her arms and the door of the cabin to anyone who needed a soft place to land or a warm hug, and the fact that one night changed all that for Raven hurts more than anything.
“I knew that you would take care of me, Connor. That you wouldn’t hurt me.” She twists that damn knife and shoves it deeper. “And then, you went and hurt me in an even worse way.”
Fuck.
I pace away from her in the tight cabin, only able to move a few steps before I hit the door, but it puts more space between us that I desperately need. My escape is now permeated with her scent—that soft floral note that clings to her even up here. It’s impossible to breathe in this cabin without it invading my lungs.
Being stuck up this mountain with Raven was always going to be dangerous, but now it feels like that blade of hers is poised at my heart, that the tip of it is threatening to pierce straight through it.
This hatred for Raven developed because of how volatile she’s been with me since we were teenagers, how intently she’s gone out of her way to attack me, my character, my family, my brothers without regard for what she should do, which is mind her own fucking business.
But now, seeing what she thinks, knowing how wrong she’s viewed everything from that fucking night on, I almost understand it.
Because the way she looked at me the next time I saw her after that night felt just as awful as this does now.
“I need you to understand something, Raven. You seem to always think the worst of me, and you apparently have since that night, maybe even before it, but I did it to protect you. Just like I’m doing this to protect you. And I would, whether you were Willow’s friend or not, because it’s the right thing to do. Because…”—I release a mirthless laugh—“because even though you make me angrier than any person on this fucking planet, I don’t want to see you hurt. I don’t want to see anything happen to you.”
“Because it would hurt Willow and Killian, and Liam and Lucky?—”
“No.” I shake my head. “Because it would hurt me.”
Her back tenses, a wary look deepening the green of her eyes.
“The last few months, my life has been this dark hole, where all I’ve felt is pain and guilt about what happened that night on the homestead. I’ve felt like I haven’t been living, like I haven’t been able to breathe. The only time it has felt like I was alive is when I’ve been arguing with you. You may spark something in me that I hate, but at least it sparks something. Like a tiny firefly, a fleck of light in the darkness. That’s what you’ve been the last few months. So, despite how much we hate each other, our arguing, whatever the fuck this is”—I motion between us—“has reminded me that I am alive, even if I don’t want to be at times.”
She sucks in a sharp breath. “You don’t mean that…”
