Page 101 of Raine

In all my haziness when I’d told him what happened with Avernus, I forgot to mention that I, had in fact, bought the little bungalow.

I’m silent for a few moments, and he looks over at me briefly before his eyes move back to the road. “Well?”

“I bought it.”

His face snaps to the side, and his eyes go wide. It’d be comical if I wasn’t feeling drained and jaded in every capacity.

“Really?” he queries before turning his eyes back to the road.

“Yeah.”

“Can I ask why?”

Sighing, I let out a leaden breath and think of the best way to explain the purchase. Leaning my head on the cool window pane, I play with the bracelet my wrist and kick myself for forgetting to use it on Avernus.

“Serenity gave me a sense of peace and tranquility, but more importantly, it helped me through the early days of fighting off my addiction and dealing with the pain of losing someone close to me.”

“Serenity? And did this person die?”

I laugh sadly and wonder if it would have made it easier if Arrow was dead to deal with the affliction of losing his friendship. However, that thought has my chest caving in, and I fight the urge to succumb to the pressure of a panic attack at imagining him dead.

Shaking my head, I reply, “He’s not dead, and Serenity is what Sandra named the beach house.”

“Who’s not dead?” he asks, and I hear the jealousy in his voice, which makes me smile.

Lifting my head off the window to look at him, the fogginess from the heroin still lingers, and I rake a hand down my face in hopes of eradicating some of its hold. When my hand disappears from my face and I see Gabe and the scowl on his handsome face as he drives my pink Porsche in his tight jeans and long-sleeved shirt, it makes me smile. It looks a little funny the longer I look at him, this big ass man dwarfed by my girly car.

“Jealous, Gabe?”

He side-eyes me. “Maybe.”

I think about teasing him some more, but a somberness sets in, and I realize I don’t have it in me because Arrow isn’t someone he’ll ever need to worry about again. The thought makes the melancholy inside of me flow through me like icy water slamming against the arctic shores.

“There was a time you would have had to worry about him, but not anymore.”

He’s quiet for a couple minutes, and I welcome the silence, too lost with my thoughts and feelings anyway, but when he speaks again, everything resurfaces.

“Who is it?”

There’s no use hiding it because, the reality is, I don’t want to. “Arrow.”

“Arrow, as in one of the Tartarus Mafia members?”

“The one and only.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“Not really. All you need to know is that I hurt him.”

He doesn’t budge. “Hurt him how?” he asks, taking a right turn into a parking lot that houses a little diner.

He parks the car and turns to me, giving me his undivided attention. “I will never judge you, Raine; surely you must know that?”

“Like you didn’t judge me back at Serenity when you figured out that I had used again?”

He winces and scratches the back of his neck. “That was different, and you know it.”

“Can we just go in and eat?”