Page 14

Crow

I t hurts to crack my eyes. I peer at the world through slits. I have no idea where I am or what happened. I remember getting sucked out of my body like Raven took a vac truck to my brain, and then… nothing.

The room is dark, the curtains drawn. At least the fucker had that much decency before he passed out, knowing that when he surrendered our body back over to me, I’d be in a hell of a state.

My mouth is fuzzy and foul. Raven. Goddamn Raven. He must have drank like he had gills and depended on the liquid for survival.

I get my eyelids unglued against the throbbing in my head. This is the first time that I don’t remember clawing my way back, but here I am.

I flop onto my back and catch sight of an ocean of fiery hair splayed out on the pillow next to me.

I jerk back like someone lit the fucking bed on fire and waited for me to wake up and find out. The motion slams into my stomach, which lurches straight into my throat. It’s far worse when I tear the sheet off my body and come face to face with my full nudity.

No, no, no, fucking no. Raven! You said you would protect her! That means guarding her innocence, you fucking prick. You slept with her? You, you… she was a virgin!

He’s silent, or maybe he’s drowned out by my need to get out of this bed and get to the bathroom.

Immediately.

I’m a wreck, probably still a little bit drunk, wobbly and unsteady. I lurch across the room as fast as I can, but I’m not fast enough to get into the separate little alcove in the bathroom that has the toilet. Everything Raven poured down our throat last night comes up in a hot torrent that projectiles over the floor and splashes the wall. It’s so violent that my nose stings and my eyes water. It keeps coming until my stomach feels like it’s being twisted into a wet rope and wrung out. I’m covered in sweat, my head splitting.

If only I could find Raven and tear him out physically. I’d torture him for this. Punish him unmercifully for the torment. It’s unfair that he never has to go through this. He never has to reap the consequences of his actions.

“Oh, Crow. Hey. Here.”

Fuck. My humiliation is complete now that Tarynn is standing right behind me. She’s got a white hotel robe on. She’s like an angel with her pale skin and that halo of vibrant red surrounding her face. She doesn’t look the least worse for wear, despite the fact that if Raven slept with her, he likely allowed her to get drunk too, and she must be hungover as hell.

Before I can stop her, she’s grabbing towels off the rack, opening them up, and throwing them down on the floor, ready to clean up my mess.

Her small hand hovers near my back. I’m still bent over, panting and ready to heave if another wave hits. She pours me a glass of water and passes it over.

I don’t doubt that if I drink it, it will probably just come right back up, but I down it anyway. It’s cold against my scratchy throat, and washes some of the vile taste out of my mouth.

Raven, you fucking prick, tell me what you did last night!

He’s silent. That nothingness is a taunt all on its own. I have no choice but to ask Tarynn.

I clutch the vanity to hold myself up. “Are you… did we… I can’t remember anything.”

“Oh.” She flushes. “Yeah. I- we went for a walk, and it was late. I can’t really remember anything after that either. It’s all just sketchy images of buildings and lights. We must have had more drinks, but we got back here okay.”

She snatches another towel off the rack, but offers it to me shyly to wrap around my waist.

Great. I totally forgot that I was standing here buck ass naked.

“Did I- I’m sorry- I…”

“No!” Her hand flutters near my shoulder like she wants to touch me, but she’s afraid. Her presence here and her ease around my nakedness must mean that we did something last night. “You didn’t do anything wrong. Please don’t apologize.”

My head hurts too much to keep not asking the one thing I need to know. “Did we…” I can’t do it. I can’t get the words out.

She shakes her head. “No. We didn’t have a condom. I do remember that part, where we went out to get some, but everything around here was closed.” She flushes, but she smiles so shyly and bright that she’s fairly glowing . “I did ride your face.” She finally sets her hand on my arm. “I’d like to do that again, when you’re feeling better.”

The lights in the bathroom glint off metal on her hand. A ring.

A gold. Fucking. Band.

On her left hand, on her ring finger.

I reel around, gagging, getting to the toilet this time. I throw myself over it retch until I’m soaked in sweat and utterly wretched. It’s worse that Tarynn is right behind me, kneeling, rubbing my back, asking me what she can do for a hangover.

It’s a hot minute before I can wipe my mouth, flush the mess away, and gather up enough courage to look at my left hand.

When I catch sight of that matching gold band, I start shaking. The tremors hit and hit hard, shivers wracking my body so hard that my teeth shake. Tarynn has no sense of self-preservation. She should be appalled by this, by me, but she wraps her arms around me, pulls me to the wall, and holds me like I’m a child, not a grown man twice her size.

No one has held me since I was a kid.

I can’t let her do this. Any of this.

“Fuck, Tarynn,” I curse, but that’s all I can get out.

“Shhh.” She pulls my sweat soaked hair back from my face.

“I’m sorry,” I rasp, but I’m not able to tug away from her yet. How can someone so small have so much strength? She’s like a magnet, pulling me to her with forces I can’t see. Her arms don’t even wrap around me entirely, but I don’t want to leave them. “I’ll fix this. However it happened, I’ll fix it . It’s Vegas. It was probably all for show. It likely wasn’t even ordained. If we didn’t get any paperwork, then it’s doubtful that it’s legit.”

She shifts so she can see my face. “What are you talking about?”

She doesn’t know.

She doesn’t remember.

She hasn’t even seen that ring on her finger or its mate on mine, a series of gold manacles.

How the fuck could we have become the ultimate Vegas cliché?

Right. Raven , the fucking bastard. He didn’t want to leave. He didn’t want it to end. He didn’t want to give Tarynn up. He did this. Purposefully. Gleefully. And now he’s refusing to explain. He’s left me alone with the aftermath.

What the fuck else is new?

I should have known I couldn’t trust him. He promised to look after Tarynn, that he’d never hurt her, and he did this .

I take her hand in mine, holding it up so she can see the rings. She gasps, the sound burrowing down into the soft parts of me that I thought had hardened over with scar tissue by now.

“Oh. I see what you mean now.”

She doesn’t rip away. Doesn’t scramble back and start hurling obscenities at me. She actually leans in closer, her arm tightening around my shoulders like she can’t bear to be parted. Like we got into this mess together, and we’ll see it out as a team.

Unbelievably, she brushes back my damp hair and kisses my temple. Even on my best day, I wouldn’t have deserved her kindness. My heart is a stone in my chest, dragging down, down, trying and failing to beat. Rocks don’t pulse. They don’t bleed

I guess it’s not a stone because I feel like that’s exactly what I’m doing. Bleeding out.

Raven has fucked with me in the past, but this time, it hurts . I realize how perilously close I am to coming unraveled.

I think Tarynn must sense it too. She moves a fraction, speaking softly right near my ear. “Have a shower. I’ll order something solid and bland up here. If they have ibuprofen, I’ll get that too. I’ll finish mopping up the bathroom, and I’ll go get you fresh clothes from your room. We’ll eat and we’ll figure out what we’re going to do about this.”

How is she so unfazed? I’m literally in here, ejecting everything out of my body, losing my mind, freaking the fuck out and she’s so dead calm. Out of the two of us, I’m supposed to be the experienced, worldly one.

“What happens in Vegas could stay in Vegas,” she whispers, in deference to my splitting headache and shot nerves. “We don’t have to tell anyone. We’ll get it undone. Let’s just get you cleaned up and get some food in you. Things will look better then.” She pauses and then covers up a laugh with the back of her hand. I fail to see what’s funny, and my face must show it. “I’m so sorry,” she nearly bursts out with laughter. She has to bite her knuckle. “Here I was swearing to myself that I’d never eat oatmeal or drink orange juice again, but that’s the best thing I can think or order right now.”

“No,” I pretty much moan. “Not that. Toast. Please.”

That’s right. Remember to use your manners.

There you are, you slimy fucking ass piece of shit! We need to fucking talk right the fuck now.

Oof, I can see you’re upset. Also… gross. You’re a mess, sweetheart. Get yourself cleaned up and maybe we can have a conversation.

We’re going to have it when I want to have it.

You know, I think I’m going to stop answering to your demands.

“Crow?”

“Hmm,” I mutter, getting myself upright. By some miracle, the towel is still locked around my waist.

Tarynn rises as well. She can’t stop looking at her hand. Her eyes flick there every few seconds. “Don’t freak out. I know that the word marriage can shake even the toughest guy, but we’re good.”

Everything about this morning should have been a role reversal. I should be the one taking care of Tarynn, reassuring her, looking after her not the other way around.

Fucking rights. Get your shit together.

Unfortunately, Tarynn finishes wiping down the bathroom and washing her hands before she even lets me get into the shower.

As I step under the spray in a now clean bathroom, I still want to die.

I’m sorry Crow. In all seriousness, I am.

“My body,” I growl under my breath. “It’s my body, Raven. My cock. My mouth. My life. You took what wasn’t yours. You took from Tarynn, and you took from me.”

That’s the problem. It’s always been about you. You think this body is yours by rights. I was with you from the start. It’s mine too. How do you feel when you’re in the backseat and I’m the one driving? Do you like being helpless? Do you like getting shoved so far down that you don’t even know what’s happening? That’s how I’ve felt.

I try to drown out the cascade of words, but now that he’s started, he’s not going to stop.

I’ve had to piece so much of our life together. I’m not the one who gets to touch and taste and discover. You know the most basic questions people ask? Favorite food, favorite color, that shit? I don’t even know what my favorite food is. I haven’t tried nearly enough. I don’t have a favorite color. I barely have anything at all. I did keep her safe last night. I didn’t break my promise. I gave her pleasure and she returned it, and that was very much her choice to do so. I might have got a little bit out of hand later, but we were having a good time. I suggested getting married as a joke. I didn’t mean it. I’d had far too many drinks by then. I didn’t realize those tall slushy things actually contain that much alcohol. All I knew was that I wanted to keep her. She’s ours now.

Are you insane? She’s not ours. We’ve known her for five hot minutes.

Borrowing my sayings is the highest form of flattery, you know that, right?

She’s not ours. She doesn’t belong to her parents or anyone else. Kindly fuck off and don’t come back until I have this sorted out.

You were just begging to hear from me. It pissed you off that I was silent. I was trying to think of a way to apologize so you’d actually believe that I never meant to harm anyone.

But you did. That’s the problem with you. You’re always causing harm to everyone else, to me, to your own fucking self. You leave me to pick it all up after and put our life back together. It’s unfair.

Unfair? You want to talk to me about unfair? I’m trying. What the fuck have you ever done? You’ve always treated me as the enemy. Even last night, after I helped you win all that money, you had no desire to let me out to enjoy this, even just for a moment. You’ve never had a true weakness until now. I know it. It’s her. She’s the one thing we’re in agreement over. I’m sorry that I shoved you aside last night when your defenses were down. If we can come to some sort of agreement, I won’t do it again. We both want what’s best for her. For once, can we stop fighting and be a team? I miss you. I’ve always missed you.

I thrust my fist against the tile, stopping just short of shattering it.

I’ve never felt so out of control. I need to fix myself before I can fix anything else. I thought what I had going on in my head was bad before, but this has reached a different level. Worse, I feel like shit, but not just from my pounding head or rocky stomach. It’s not the usual hangover from body swapping with Raven or even from the alcohol, though that does feel horrible.

I’ve been able to tune out Raven’s emotions for most of my life, but right now I can feel his frustration and his hurt. I don’t like the guilt that keeps building up.

It makes me want to react like he usually does. With unhinged violence.

Would he be that way if I gave over more of the time? If I saw him as a real being with real emotions and feelings instead of a constant source of strife that I have to go to war with? Is it a catch twenty-two bullshit scenario where Raven is violent, so I frustrate him, but he’s only violent because he’s frustrated?

Tarynn must have been listening for the shower to shut off. As soon as I’m done, the door cracks and an arm hovers around the corner with a handful of fresh clothes. Jeans and a t-shirt.

“I’m not looking,” she promises. “I brought you these.”

I step out and get a towel secured around my waist. I leave a wet trail to the door and take the clothes gratefully. I can’t imagine how nasty the ones are from yesterday. “Thank you.”

“Breakfast is here too. And painkillers. Yay! Plus, this.” She shoves a toothbrush through the crack in the door next, along with a tube of toothpaste and a tiny packet with some ibuprofen. “You can just order all this up from the front desk. Isn’t that amazing?”

“Yeah,” I agree. This morning, it is.

I’m so used to shutting out and shutting down, even when it comes to the things that I want, that the kind gesture hits me hard. No one has the opportunity to do things for me because I don’t let them in. It’s the worst part and the best part about her being here now.

“Thanks. I’ll be right out.”

It takes me ten more minutes to feel human again. Tarynn’s brush is on the counter, which I guiltily use, promising to get her another, but I clean out every hair meticulously anyway, then run it under hot water for a few minutes. Not like I have hair cooties or anything, but I didn’t ask her if I could borrow it.

It feels like heaven to have a fresh mouth and clean clothes.

By the time I exit the bathroom, I feel like I really can face this and fix it with the same level of competence and fearlessness that I usually display.

Tarynn is still in the robe. She’s sitting cross legged, looking quite cheerful and chipper for someone who should also probably be hungover as fuck. It’s a problem that I can’t tear my eyes away from her.

She pats the bed beside her. She has two trays laid out. Hers has waffles and fruit and mine has a few pieces of toast, an egg, and a piece of ham. Nothing fried and all of it looks bland. It’s astonishing that my stomach actually cramps with hunger at the sight of it.

“You look like you’re feeling better,” she volunteers. “I want to say that you look so good right now that my ovaries are about to explode, but that’s a little bit much for a morning after a night like the one we just had.”

My jaw practically unhinges. Where did the quiet, shy, meek woman I brought on a plane with me go? Yet, she’s right here. She might be bolder, and freer with what she says, but her sense of humor has probably been struggling to get free all this time. She’s sharp and quick witted. She’s smart, and she’s also just as kind, genuine, and sweet. She’s studying me carefully while trying to pretend that she’s not, asking me silently if I’m going to be okay.

It’s a legit question from someone who just had to scrape my ass off the floor and clean up after me.

I sit down on the bed beside her, sticking out my legs to stretch them and setting the plate in my lap. The toast is good. It’s excellent actually.

Tarynn devours half her waffles while I chew a few bites. She waits all that time and then gets right into it. “This might not be the worst thing in the world.”

I’m glad my mouth is empty, because I was not expecting that. Bless her, I find a mug of creamy coffee on the nightstand that I’d missed before. I sip it, thankful for the padding of the milk so it doesn’t burn my stomach.

“I’d be interested in hearing how you think so.”

“Well…” Her fork hovers above the waffles. “If I’m legally married, my parents can’t find me a husband against my will. It was probably coming down the line, or I’d get shoved one too many times into scenarios conveniently and coincidentally involving a friend of the family’s son or someone promising in the church congregation. Someone my father approves of. They also can’t commit me against my will.”

“Commit you?” My hand curls around my fork. I long to race all the way back to Hart on foot and shove it straight into her father’s fucking face.

At the same time, I have to fight to keep my emotion off my face. I don’t want her to see how any talk like that slams into me and cuts me like a knife driven straight into my side. My parents pulled that shit on me when I was at my lowest point. I thought I could trust them. I was wrong.

“That’s farfetched, but who knows how desperate they would be. They could claim anything. They could say that I’m not in my right mind. You’d think that would reflect poorly on my parents, but they’d probably eat it up, my dad especially. He’d say his faith was being tested, but at such a trying time, he’d stand firm. He’d do anything he could to make me better. He’d have the whole congregation praying for him. Technically me, but also for him. He’d be thrust in the spotlight.”

“That sounds a lot like Munchausen’s by proxy, except with religion rather than medicine.”

She ducks her head, flushing guiltily. “Chances are, I’m being mean. I don’t think any of that would happen, but if we were legally married, they would have no standing or say in just about any scenario I can think of.”

“Good or bad.”

She nods. “But nothing about this has to be bad. Nothing has to change. It could just be fake, but we’re the only ones who have to know that. You can’t tell me you haven’t done crazier things in your life.”

She’s looking at me like this is a done deal and like she’s thankful for it. The hope in her eyes slays me. If she needs me to be her shield and this is the best way to do it, then I’ll let this go on for as long as she needs it.

Even if I can practically hear Raven crowing in my head.

“My parents might never speak to me again, but at least they’ll have to learn to see me as an adult and respect me. I would feel safer,” she admits, but she’s not trying to cajole. She’s not pressing for this. “I know it’s asking a lot. Nothing has to really change, though.”

I haven’t given her an answer out loud. She’s right about a lot of things, but not about that last part. Things have changed. We sort of slept together. She knows my body now, but I have no recollection of it.

“You don’t have to give me an answer now.” She sets her hand on my leg, extremely tentatively. I don’t do anything to remove it. “I don’t think either of us are in any shape to operate anything motorized. I know you’re paying for these rooms, but could we possibly look at bikes tomorrow?”

“Of course. The money isn’t an issue.”

“I just don’t want to presume. That’s not a nice thing to do to someone, ask them to pay.”

“You’re not asking. But don’t worry. I can always find another poker game.”

Even without, it’s not an issue. It does warm me that she worries about things like this. That the material shit in life isn’t what she wants or needs, but she can appreciate every small thing that’s done for her.

“I thought maybe we could find a museum or an aquarium. Maybe a used bookstore. Something quiet and easy.”

This. Woman.

She has my fucking number.

I won’t ever turn down a bookstore, especially a used one. I love everything about the atmosphere of those shops. The smell. The spines all lined up like an endless sea of possibilities. The intrigue and the treasure hunt. But mostly the scent. I wish I could bottle it… old books with a little bit of must and dust.

“Also, can we buy some condoms?”

I just about rear back straight into the wall. I don’t want to reject her. “I—mixing physical with the other stuff—it could make a mess of things.”

She nods, but angles away so I can’t read her face. If she’s disappointed, she doesn’t let me know it. “We’re like, husband and wife with no benefits instead of friends with benefits.”

“Everyone says that’s marriage in a nutshell,” I deadpan before I can stop myself.

She snorts. “That’s incredibly pessimistic.”

I shut it instead of espousing my belief that marriage is like religion. Just another institution that’s full of lies, expectations, let downs, rules and ultimately goes nowhere. I don’t want to hurt her. Besides, this is fake. She’s not trying to cram love language books down my throat, or save your marriage bullshit, or chain me down. In a few weeks, we can probably get an annulment.

I snatch my phone off the nightstand and look up a few bookstores. There are two that are nearby, and both look promising.

I let Tarynn have my phone to look further while I eat.

For now, we’re content to leave things as they are.

Fuck if I know what that even really is.