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“I can’t even blame her,” I say into his chest, his henley soft against my cheek. “It’s my fault my father’s locked away.”
Gideon pulls back and peers down at me, his grey eyes fierce. “It’s not your fault you were sick, Ro. It’s not your fault your dad went to such extreme measures to get you help. And it’s not your fault your mom is jealous of your father’s love. You deserve his love and hers, too.”
I don’t know what to say to that. I’d long ago accepted that my mom would never love me like a parent should, that she would always resent me. And it’s been okay because Desi loved me and my dad loved me. And I think it’s still okay. I shake my head. “I don’t want or need her love. It would feel hollow after all this time.”
He tucks a strand of hair behind my ear. “I’m sorry we’ve been so rough on you. We had no idea what you were already going through.”
“It sounds like even if you had, you wouldn’t have had a choice.” Robert Harris doesn’t strike me as a man you just ignore.
His face turns grim. But he doesn’t deny it. So I rub my fingers over his forehead, smoothing the wrinkles and press a gentle kiss to his cheek. “Thank you, Gideon.”
His surprise is evident in his arched brows. “For what?”
“For listening to me. For trying to help me, even though it didn’t seem like help. For holding me when I needed it.”
“You should never thank us, not for anything. We were horrible to you. And we should beg you for forgiveness for the rest of time. ”
“I’m not denying that. But the intention behind it definitely counts. I might even forgive you, eventually. For all the awful things that you did, you still saved me from certain or near death at least twice.”
He shakes his head, his hands coming up to cup my cheeks. “You’re amazing, Ro. I don’t think we deserve you.”
“Probably not,” I say, grinning up at him. “I guess you’re just super duper lucky.”
He laughs and bends to press a gentle kiss on my lips. A gentle kiss that ends with my legs wrapped around his waist and his fingers buried in my hair and my shoulders pressed against the mirror.
There’s a loud thudding that breaks through the haze Gideon’s lips have created in my brain. When I pull away from him, Gideon presses his forehead to mine. “I think someone’s knocking on the door,” he mutters against my lips.
Right.The door.With three other boys on the other side, who are likely wondering what’s taking so long.
I swallow hard. “We should probably answer it.”
“We should.” He doesn’t pull away. Instead, he kisses me again as the pounding on the door becomes more intense.
“Rosalind Sweeney,” Desi’s voice cuts through the mood in the bathroom like a scalpel through flesh. “Open this door this instant.”
Five
Desi is not pleased. Not pleased at all to find four men in my room in the middle of the night.
She’d expected Hardin. He’d let Sam know he was taking me back to the hotel to dry off after being caught in the rain. The assumption being that he would hang out with me after. But the addition of three more boys seems to be too much, even for my very modern thinking sister.
“Do you want to explain to me now what’s going on?” she asks, pulling herself up onto the counter on the other side of the sink. She’d taken one look at my puffy lips and mussed hair and banished Gideon from the bathroom so that we can talk in relative privacy. “Who are all these boys?”
“I go- er, I went to school with them.” I don’t meet her eyes.
Her hand flies out to smack my shoulder. “Excuse me, youwentto school with them? What does that mean? They’re from Capitol in Olympia?” Even as she says it, I know she doesn’t actually believe it. All four of them have a shine on them that speaks of money and status, not exactly Community College material.
“No, they go to the SSU. I just don’t anymore.” I’ve been dreading this almost as much as I was dreading telling my mother.
“You what?”
Before she can blurt the flood of questions she wants to ask, i hold up a hand to stall them. “I dropped out. I didn’t have a choice. They knew about Dad. I couldn’t handle the thought of everyone looking at me like I was responsible for someone’s death.”
“Ro, you aren’t responsible. Anyone with half a brain can see that if they know the complete story. Did you try to explain?” God, I love Desi. She believes the best in everyone. Even asshole rich kids.
“It wouldn’t have mattered.” I take a deep breath and explain everything. Well, notquiteeverything. I talk about the bullying, the bugs in my lockers, the messages on my wall. I leave out the man in the woods and being pushed down the stairs. She definitely doesn’t need to know about the coven that ordered their members to get me out of their school. I leave out the bit about magic.
By the time I’m done, she’s furious. “Why didn’t you tell me?” She practically shouts at me.
