Page 59 of Quiver

She didn’t want to be comforted. She hated that this woman still had the power to rev her up and bring her down at will.

Kylie twirled her finger, wrapping one curl around it, and coiling Fletcher in much the same fashion. Her insides twisted and spun, and her body betrayed her again as she scooted closer. The hay scratched rough against her naked torso, the prick of it not nearly strong enough to override the pull of the body beside her. She would’ve borne any amount of discomfort or even pain to press up against her more fully, and, for some reason, the realization made her eyes snap open.

Kylie was still watching her with the same half-lidded expression, but her gaze sharpened. “What is it?”

“I’m doing it again.”

“What?”

“Hurting myself for you.”

Kylie sat up, her auburn hair spilling down the creamy expanse of her shoulders and back. “Fletch.”

She shook her head. “Don’t call me that.”

“You called me Kye.”

The word felt like a knife to her chest, and she winced against the pain. “I didn’t mean to.”

“Why?”

“Because it makes everything harder. You blur all my lines, and I can’t tell which way is up when you look at me.” Fletcher couldn’t even stand the sight of Kylie’s body, uncovered and unblemished, the tips of her nipples, the hollow between her collarbones, the smooth plane of her stomach dipping into the open V of her jeans zipper. If she stared any longer, she might drown in the desire choking out all her restraint and logic. She glanced down at the tattoo on her forearm, tracing the arrow with her eyes as it ran through the compass. The image seemed discordant with everything she felt in the moment. “Do you know Ava used to call me her true north?”

Kylie grimaced at the mention of Ava but didn’t offer a snide remark this time. “Because you’re so constant?”

“I wanted to be.” She hopped to her feet and pushed her hands through her hair as if she could somehow smooth out all the strands Kylie had tangled. “God, when she looked at me, I thought I might be able to be the person she saw, the person I’d worked to become, and I let myself believe I could do it. I believed I had done it until you showed up and sent my compass spinning.”

“I’m sorry.”

“No you’re not.”

The corner of Kylie’s mouth curled up. “Okay, not completely.”

“Do you know that’s the first time you’ve apologized to me in, like, twelve years, and you didn’t mean it?”

She rose and reached for her, but Fletcher stepped away, and, snatching her shirt off the floor, pulled it on roughly.

“Look, I am sorry you’re hurting. I hate that something that felt so damn good left you in turmoil, but it doesn’t have to. This doesn’t have to be a bad thing, not when we’re so amazing together.”

“We aren’t together.”

“Oh my God. We just were. Don’t try to tell me it wasn’t earth-shattering. I was there. I might not know you the way I used to, but there are some things you can’t forget. I heard you call my name. I felt you move inside me.”

Fletcher clenched her jaw against the visceral memories threatening to overtake her.

“Can you drop the stoicism for a few minutes and actually look at me? Come back and sit next to me for a bit? What’s done is done. The world won’t stop spinning if we enjoy the freaking afterglow before you throw up those walls again. You can’t wish it away, or pretend—”

“Don’t tell me what I can or can’t do.”

“Oh, Fletch, even you’re not strong enough to deny this power between us, and we’ve already tried ignoring it, but we were always going to end up here.”

She couldn’t argue the sense of inevitability hanging around them in those moments of surrender, but she could at least fight the idea of this being the end of the road. Just because they’d fallen this far didn’t mean she had to wallow here. She still had some agency, and she needed to assert it, if only for her own sanity. “It can’t happen again.”

“I didn’t plan for it to happen this time, but it did, and acting like it didn’t won’t produce different results next time around. Can’t we talk about—”

Fletcher held up a hand. “The only thing I want to talk about is how this ends.”

“I think we both ended pretty nicely.”