Page 22 of If I Stopped Haunting You

Neil’s only response was a brilliant smile.

With painstaking slowness, Skinner pulled out the screws as Neil held up the doors to the liquor cabinet. Their hands played a game, careful to avoid one another as they bent close, nearly forehead to forehead, the silence of the castle surrounding them and spilling into the narrow space separating them. When she leaned close, he arched away, and vice versa. And when the last screw had been twisted free, Neil set aside the doors, and they peered into the open liquor cabinet. The bottles were in a variety of shapes and sizes, most of their labels coated in a healthy layer of dust. Neil reached forward and pulled out a green bottle, wiping a hand over the label to reveal—

“Whiskey,” they said in unison as if sighing.

Neil raised a brow, appraising her. How could he possibly forget the way she’d downed that whiskey the night before? “I keep forgetting you’re a whiskey drinker.”

She smirked, reaching for two glasses. “People like to make assumptions about me.” She motioned for the bottle and unstopped it, the sound reverberating in the quiet room. Neil watched in fascination as she wiped the insides of the glasses with a napkin before pouring in two fingers’ worth of the amber liquid.

“Most people,” she continued, closing and setting aside the bottle, “assume I don’t even drink. My dad always warned me about firewater. There’s that stereotype about Natives and alcoholism. There have been so many studies over the years, but the one thing I’ve taken from them is it has nothing to do with genetics. The higher rate of alcoholism in Natives has more to do with contributing factors, things like economic disadvantage, generational trauma, cultural loss, lack of treatment options. My dad loves beer, but he refuses to drink whiskey because he believes he’ll become addicted. I’ve simply limited most of my alcohol consumption to more social environments.”

“You’ve thought about this a lot, haven’t you?”

“Every single time I drink.” She laughed, and Neil was alarmed to find it was a soft sound. “I can hear my dad’s voice nagging me at the back of my mind every time I take a sip. When I’m home, I tend to stick to beer, but even then, it’s just sad to sit alone and drink.”

Skinner held a glass out to him, and he took it, his fingers grazing hers. Neil yanked back with a grimace, whiskey sloshing over them both.

“Sorry,” he muttered, setting aside his glass and reaching for a napkin.

“Don’t worry ’bout it.”

She swatted away the offered napkin. A drop of the amber liquid splashed on the back of her hand, and Neil watched, captivated, as she brought it to her lips and licked it clean. Her tongue snaked out from between bow-shaped lips, trailing a slick path toward her wrist, and the sight of it, the imagery of all the other vulgar things her tongue could do instead, made his cock hard.

Neil had a boner.

For Penelope Skinner.

What in the actual fuck?

He blinked in surprise, something unwelcome flitting about in his thoughts as he stared down at her. He found himself remembering the ruins, the way she felt under him, against him. The way he’d wanted to capture her mouth with his.

Skinner’s lips parted, eyes going wide as if she could read his thoughts.

“Would you stop staring at me?” she said, taking a step away, face heating.

The rush of cool air from her absence seemed to knock some sense into him. “Sorry.” He laughed awkwardly as he wiped the rim of the bottle with another napkin, angling his body away tohide the bulge in his pants. “Who would’ve thought we’d end up here four months later.”

“Who. Would’ve. Thought.”

Her tone was sharp.Toosharp. Neil frowned at her. “I’m sorry, did I say something wrong?”

“Who. Would’ve. Thought,”she repeated. “Do you haveanyclue what you did to me?”

“Toyou? What about what you did to me?”

“To you? To me!”

Neil pinched the bridge of his nose, the whiskey fumes flooding his senses and making his eyes water. “I’m sorry, but what did I ever do to you?”

Skinner blanched. “What. Did. You. Ever. Do. To. Me.”

“Stop talking like that. And don’t look at me like that,” he started.

“Like what?” She stepped forward, eyes narrowed on him. “You ruinedeverything.”

“Me?” Neil scoffed. “Youwere the one who threw the book!Youmade that choice.”

“And you? Have you ever stopped to think about the repercussions of your decisions on other Native authors? I had to work ten times harder than you. One, because I can’t just prove how Native I am, but also because you keep writing these harmful stereotypes. You can’t reclaim the word ‘savage.’ You can’t claim your characters are changing the world when they themselves are problematic! Misogynistic, racist—what did you think you were doing when you wrote Trent?” Skinner shoved her hand into his chest, making Neil stumble back a step. “For every two-dimensional character, for every racist slur, for every white influencer you cater to in one of your books, me and every other Native author are working to undo that damage and take back the space you’re taking up.”