Page 70 of The Rut in the Road

“Do you want me to leave you alone tonight?” Raj asked, not looking at me. I knew what he wanted me to say. I didn’t know if it was also what I wanted.

I thought about him leaving. About spending the night alone.

I wasn’t sure I wanted him to stay, but Idefinitelydidn’t want him to leave.

I shook my head.

The tension immediately went out of his body. “Okay.” He nodded. “Okay,” he repeated. Then he drew in a long breath. “Can I sit down here by you?”

I nodded again. I didn’t need him to sit close to me, but I thought maybe he needed me to let him. Needed to think that I wanted him here.

I suppressed a wince as I realized that I’d basically told him that he didn’t make me happy. Fortunately, he’d moved to get his bowl, so his back was to me. The last thing I wanted him thinking was that I didn’t want him near me.

He settled on the floor, leaning his weight into the side of the beanbag, his shoulder brushing mine. A slight tingle of warmth slid through me at the contact. Maybe I needed him close to me more than I’d realized.

Guilt punched through my gut. “Closer?” I asked him.

He snuggled closer, and I shifted so that I could lean into his shoulder, feeling my own muscles ease a little at the slightvibration in his chest as he let out a soft hum. “Better?” he asked, and there was warmth in his voice.

I nodded, my head against his shoulder.

“Good,” he murmured softly. “Now eat.”

12

He was worried.Not just about the immediate threat that was the hit-and-run killer, or the MFM protestors who might target Beyond the Veil, although he was definitely worried about those, too.

He was worried that he wasn’t what Rayn wanted.

Because Rayn was definitely what he wanted.

Sometimes it scared him how much.

I pulledmy thoughts back from Raj’s, feeling mingled guilt, discomfort, and pleasure. The first two were because I wasn’t sure I wanted him as much as he wanted me—at least emotionally. I wasn’t very good at emotional connections to other people. Not only was it not encouraged at Tranquil Brook, but it was activelydiscouraged. Particularly in the last handful—I thought it was a handful, although it could have been either more or less—of years that I’d been there. I’d barely known the names of the doctors, nurses, and orderlies, much less the other patients. You just didn’t get attached, because there wasn’t a point.

I’d grown attached to Melissa and Sam, to Ward and Mason and Hart, and even Beck, although less so. I liked Jackson and Fiona, although I spent much less time with them. I was definitely attached to Violette, even though I’d known her—the adult version of her—less than a year. But she was my sister. There was something more there. Something automatic and irresistible.

And I was definitely getting attached to Raj.

I wanted to spend time with him. To hear his thoughts—at least most of the time—and to share meals and movies and books with him. I wanted him to meet Sam and Melissa and Vi, although we hadn’t really gotten there yet. I wanted to see him smile, hear him laugh, and feel the heat of his body under my hands and against my skin.

It was why I’d picked up the tie he’d been wearing yesterday, and had undone and put on the kitchen table while making dinner.

Although he’d spent the night, his arms holding me against his warmth, I hadn’t really slept, although I’d been able, at least, to relax, even if I couldn’t actually make myself close my eyes, afraid of what might find me behind my lids.

I found myself missing him, needing reassurance, even though I’d resisted his presence and been, in Hart’s terms, a complete dick about it last night.

It was the last Friday—or Saturday or Sunday—night in the month of October that we didn’t have a séance.

On the table, Victor let out a warbling squeak. His voice-box didn’t work terribly well—at least not yet. Mason had taken a look at him earlier, taken copious notes, and said that hethoughtit did, in fact, seem like Victor was looking more alive than he had been four days ago when I’d inadvertently resurrected him.

But he could squeak now. This was the third time he’d done it.

“I know,” I said to the rat, although what, exactly, I thought I knew wasn’t clear to me, or, probably, to Victor. I got up and went to pull some leftovers out of the fridge, scooping some of Raj’s modified mac and cheese into a tiny bowl that Sam had given me, calling it a ‘ramekin.’ I used them to measure out snacks.

And now, apparently, to feed Victor, who immediately set upon the noodles when I pushed the ramekin over to him.

And then I jumped when my phone buzzed on the table.