“Don’t fetch it yet,” she said quickly.
He waited, the soft fluff of her tight curls soft as heaven on his cheeks. She seemed to be squirming something out, pulling it from her gut into her mouth before she could speak it.
This happened sometimes.
“Why didn’t I know?” she finally spat out, the words falling out of her mouth like each weighed a stone. “How did I not know?”
“Because I convinced myself it was… What did I say to you this morning? ‘Animal curiosity’?” He sighed, shaking his head. “You were a pretty girl. I liked pretty girls. Not my fault. That’s all it could possibly be. And I’d remind myself so many times it sounded like a chant:She’s not a girl, she’s Libba.”
“Oh, well, that’s flattering,” she said flatly, making him laugh again.
“You know, I wasn’t sure, though, until you came back here,” he said. “I knew I loved you because you were my friend, because you were important to me, but I wasn’t sure, since you left so long ago, if it was always that generalpretty girl, base impulsesthing or if… Well. It wasn’t.”
“But you thought about it,” she pressed, and he could feel her eyes on him. “You thought about those things, even back then?”
“Not on purpose,” he said weakly, a soul-deep cringe tapping at his ribs. “Often, it was just dreams or… or my… erm… mind was compromised.”
“Oh?” she said, sounding actually pleased this time. “Oh! You did that while thinking of me?”
“Lib,” he pleaded, his eyes watering, jaw aching from how he had clenched it.
She gave a little giggle, a girlish, dainty thing that was very unlike her.
It made him finally pull away from their melded, shared shape and reared up over her with his eyes narrowed. “Is that funny?”
“It is extremely pleasing to me,” she corrected. “But yes, a little.”
“I take it the sentiment was not reciprocated,” he said, raising his brows.
“Well, no.” She blinked at him. “It never even occurred to me as a possibility until recently. But that has nothing to do with how pretty you are or aren’t.”
His eyes narrowed a fraction more. “Which is how pretty, exactly?”
She grinned at him. “Do you have any idea how distressing it has been for me realizing that you’ve been…” She trailed off, her eyes trailing down to his bare chest, to the curling hair over his heart. She gestured. “You’ve beenthat… all this time.”
“Not the whole time,” he said, frowning down at his physique.
“It just didn’t occur to me,” she said again. “Until recently, when it began to do so at a volume I cannot even define. I’ve never had trouble separating men into neat categories in my life. In one bucket sits the men for romance and lust, and in another the men I care for as deeply as family. Malcolm, Errol, Rhys, Lem, and you. You are not supposed to be able to straddle both. I did not know that was an option.”
He was watching her curiously, surprised to hear this.
Hisparents had always come across to him as best mates. Best mates who’d gotten married.
That was the idea, wasn’t it? The dream? The whole reason people who didn’t need to do it for treaties or inheritance got married?
But he supposed she had never lived with a married pair, or at least not until…
“Elias and Hattie were friends and lovers, weren’t they?” he pointed out. “They got married the instant everyone came back to Brighton.”
“Because they had to,” Libba said, smirking. “Elias and Hattie were never what I would callfriends, anyway. He was a little demon to her, in fact. Probablybecauseshe was in thewrong bucket. And she pestered the absolute patience out of him, too. Hm, perhaps for the same reason.”
“But they seem so happy,” he protested, deflating a little.
“They are!” she said, laughing openly now. “It was exhausting to watch, but they are. Now.”
“What about Errol and Ruby?” he returned, still frowning.
“Ah,” she said, a feline smile curling at the corners of her lips. “Noticed that too, have you? You can join the betting pool on if and when they ever will.”
