Page 60 of His Trick

“I’ll try, Baby,” I sighed. “I’ll be there if…you really want me. If I’m not occupied.” My voice felt small at the end, hoping she wouldn’t press.

“Occupied?” She set her jaw. “Or avoiding me.”

“It’s not that.”

I rolled onto my back and looked at the ceiling, fixated on a spiderweb in the corner. It had been there since I came up here to her room.

I’d learned to read these tiny things, found peace in obsessing over the minute details others missed. Like how a hairline fracture widened after a hard winter, or how coffee rings multiplied if you didn’t clean them right away.

It was all small pieces of evidence that time was passing.

Xanthy sighed dramatically, flopping down on my chest.

“If it’s him—” Her fingertips brushed the scar from my father’s knife, from myknife. I shuddered, always feeling ripped open whenever anyone touched there.

Except him.

Weirdly, Carrington had pawed all over me, but my idiot body only felt intense heat shooting everywhere, not the ice I felt from others.

Her fingers were lacing around mine like she was tying a knot, desperate to hold us together. “We’ll get through it, Baby. Together.”

Her words landed like a promise and a warning. Translation for Xanthy: ‘We will get through this, or I will find someone less broken.’

I squeezed her fingers once, then let go.

“Together,” I repeated, though it sounded hollow even to me.

I wanted to be honest with her. I wanted to tell her that I was seeing him, but this felt less like closure and more like stepping into a pattern I’d spent years desperate to forget. I hated the feelings he brought up inside me. I wasn’t going to be that fifteen-year-old kid too stupid to see a snake right in front of him.

Snake. Oh, fucking hell, Carrington. Even during this, you’re on my mind.

Instead of allowing my thoughts to pull me into a void I couldn’t escape, I kissed the back of her hand. “I’ll try, Baby Girl. I’ll try.”

She made a face. “You always try, Shiloh.”

“I need to go somewhere today. I’ll be fine after.”

“Okay, I love you. I’ll be here when you are ready, Shiloh.”

She said it without heat, and somehow that was worse than an accusation in itself. It meant she knew my half-measures too well.

Maybe this was the bad thing about staying with someone beyond the expiration date. A year with her, and despite the long distance, she was starting to understand who I was.

This was dangerous. Maybe she was beginning to see the darkness inside. Perhaps she had stopped believing my promises could change anything.

Maybe I was, too.

We argued about nothing after that, the small, stupid as fuck domestic weapons lovers wield when something bigger is bruising them both.

She asked me to eat before I left. I said no. She packed me a sandwich anyway and shoved it in my backpack like it was a talisman against the cold. She kissed me at the door. Her kisses tasted like lipstick and perfume. Nothing like…

Carrington.

Outside, near my damn car, the asshole was resting on a pillar. The street smelled like the rain from last night and our sins. He was fully dressed for once. Even having sweatpants seemed to take effort.

“What are you doing by my car, Care Bear?”

He didn’t answer. Instead, he opened the door when I clicked the button and slid into my passenger seat. My steps faltered, and I stared at him for a minute.