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After a few minutes, I could hear them moving from the kitchen and to the door, the breeze from it closing making the scent of liquor waft over to me.
Great.
Just great.
Not only did he clearly regret kissing me, but then he had to, what, drink the memory away too?
Lovely.
That was just pouring vinegar on the gaping wound of my self-esteem.
You could have knocked me over with one of Red’s feathers when he had stroked his fingers down my hair after ridding it of the sticky spider web which, luckily, did not have the inhabitant home at the time of me walking into it.
But when my gaze lifted, there had been no mistaking the hunger in his eyes, something that made my belly go liquid in response.
He gave me an out, all but demanded I take it.
I should have wanted it.
It was so soon.
I shouldn’t have been feeling things like desire again so soon.
Or maybe I shouldn’t have been assuming there was any right or wrong that came with recovery, with healing.
Maybe it didn’t matter how soon it was.
Maybe it all came down to what felt right.
And having his lips on mine sure as hell felt right.
Before, during, even after when he stormed away to leave me there pressed against a wall, catching my breath, trying to slow my heartbeat, attempting to bring some semblance of order back to my overwhelmed system.
I wanted to be mad at him the walk home. For being a brute, for being heartless. For, well, hurting my feelings.
But all I could seem to do was think about how it had felt for him to kiss me. Slowly, gently at first, then harder, hungrier, sparking a fire in my system that, I was sure, would merge with a fire within his own until it consumed us entirely.
There was an aching lack of fulfillment in my belly as I hid from him on the couch, mind too chaotic even to consider sleep.
Even then, when maybe I should have been doing some kind of mental check to see how I was handling the situation, to see if I was glad it came to an end, if I was even ready for something to even go to the next level yet, all I could think about was him.
We hadn’t put the animals away before the walk. So he was likely out there, drinking, shooing the chickens into the coop, wrangling red into his own, getting the donkeys and the goats safely locked away, letting the dogs have one last romp around to tire themselves before bed.
Not Cap, though.
Captain was more intuitive than I realized a dog could be, always picking up on subtle changes in my mood, coming close when he thought I needed him. Like he was now, curled up at my feet, occasionally licking the space between my sock and where my pant leg had slipped up.
Gadget, tired from his time with his goat friends, was passed out, front hooves curled into his chest. He was supposed to have one more bottle, but like any new mom with a baby, I wasn’t about to wake him up once he fell asleep.
A while later, I could hear them come back in, Finn going again to the bathroom, showering, before coming back and saying goodnight to Ranger who had been sitting at the table the whole time.
Watching me.
Or maybe I was being paranoid.
I wasn’t looking at him, after all. There was no way to know if he was looking at me or simply studying the label on the whiskey bottle he was still drinking, the clank of it and the glass cutting through the silence of the room every few minutes.
There was a sigh, the sound of the glass hitting the sink, a cabinet closing, then Ranger making his way into his room, shutting the door way too quietly for someone so big, and as sauced as he must have been with all that nonstop liquor.
Once I heard the sounds of him getting in bed, then silence, I finally shifted on the couch, staring up at the dark ceiling, listening to the whimper, howling, and snoring noises of the dogs that had already fallen fast asleep as well as the roughing up of beds as the others tried to get their spots more comfortable before settling down.
It was stupid, but I felt the sting of tears in my eyes, threw my forearm over them to keep them in, taking deep breaths, reminding myself that it was just a kiss.
A kiss.
One of dozens.
Hundreds.
I wasn’t some starry-eyed thirteen-year-old feeling lips on mine for the first time.
That said, there was no denying a strange feeling of newness, of something just… different from all the times before.
Maybe it was just the connection I had with Ranger, the way we had bonded, telling stories about our pasts over dinner, working side-by-side with the animals, making food together, relying on each other.
