Page 42 of Quiver

Fletcher arched an eyebrow as they drove under another streetlight near the edge of town.

“Okay, fine. I lied.”

Fletcher shrugged, not seeming remotely scandalized by the confession.

“I wanted this role so badly,” she went on, “and I could own it if I got a fair shot, but in going for it, I may’ve cut myself off from every other possible role for my future.”

“What makes you think you aren’t going to get it all of a sudden?”

She shook her head. “I got bawled out by my agent, and she’s right. I’ve been here two weeks and haven’t even shot an arrow from a horse yet. There’s no way I’ll impress anyone for years at this rate, and this bomb can drop at any moment. The impending sense of failure has me by the throat, and it’s triggering all my fight-or-flight instincts. I’m flailing trying not to lose the one thing I’ve sacrificed everything else for.”

Fletcher shifted in the seat uncomfortably.

“Sorry.” She reined in the panic once more. “Did I break too much of the no-personal-conversation rule there?”

“No, I was remembering something someone else told me rather forcefully earlier.”

“Did you get bawled out, too?”

“I wouldn’t go that far, but Gram gave me a rather blunt talking to.”

“Gram? Wait, your ex-girlfriend’s grandmother gave you a lecture? Where? About what?”

Fletcher’s jaw twitched as she pulled into her long driveway, and for a second Kylie suspected she was about to shut down again, but with nothing but the high beams swirling in snow and darkness, she started to speak. “She thinks I’m alone too much and it’s taking a toll.”

“That can’t be the first time someone said as much.”

“She also said Ava and I weren’t a good match because she was too nice for me.”

“Holy shit. What did you say?”

“I don’t know. I sat there while she talked about how I knew too much for my own good, basically. Things about getting burned, and, I don’t know, maybe being out of control or over the top I guess.”

“Are you hinting at something we have in common?”

“Maybe.” Fletcher pulled up in front of the barn and turned to face her for the first time since leaving the restaurant. “I don’t know much about your life or what you need, but I do know what it’s like to throw yourself into work as a way of making it through.”

She believed her.

“And I know what it’s like to fight to hold onto something no one else thinks is worth working for. I know how it feels to toe right up to the line other people see as the boundary between sanity and obsession. I guess we always sort of honored that in each other.”

Her chest tightened at the truth and the shiver of anticipation it sent through her. “What does it mean that the thing I need to cross that line with right now is the same thing you’ve crossed it with for ages?”

“I don’t know,” Fletcher said in a low voice, “and I don’t think I believed you at first because it seemed too damn convenient.”

She scoffed. “Not for me it didn’t.”

“I understand now. You were lost back there, lost in ways I haven’t seen more than once or twice in our lives.”

She suffered a little wave of gratitude that Fletcher didn’t mention the night they’d broken up specifically.

“I guess something finally broke through for me. You’ve staked your whole career on this, and you turned to me in order to pull it off. I’m still not sure if I should be impressed you value my skill set enough to swallow your pride or offended that you thought you could still pull my strings and get your way, but tonight when you were melting down in front of half the town, it didn’t seem to matter as much anymore.”

“What are you saying?”

“Fuck if I know.” Fletcher climbed out of the truck and tromped toward the barn as snow swirled on the wind around her.

Kylie wasn’t sure what to do, but, in the end, she chose the same path she’d always chosen when Fletcher got hold of an idea too big for her to convey quickly. She followed her.