Page 11 of To Regret a Raven

The ticking grew louder in his mind. His gaze flicked to the clock that hung beside the television, and he wondered when the device had become so damn loud.

He set the mug down on the living room table and wiped his sweaty palms on his knees, turning to face her fully.

Just say you need time to figure things out. Say you’re confused. Just saysomethingalready.

“I-I have to—well, I need to tell you something,” he finished in a rush. His hands stretched forward to grab hers, and he squeezed them gently.

This is wrong. It’s wrong. She’s perfect. Worthless shit. It’s all fucking wrong.

Fisher couldn’t make sense of a single thought. He couldn’t break things off. He couldn’t keep pretending.But what if she tells me to get out? What if she doesn’t want to see me again?He couldn’t risk it. Not until he’d thought it through. They had a date tomorrow. Fisher would make a plan, and he would tell her then.

But she was staring at him. Her hands gripped his gently in return, her brilliant blue eyes wide and trusting. It was worse than being broken apart, having her right there and not being able to respond in kind. With every smile, every touch, every lingering look, she’d chipped away pieces of him until he was left with nothing but the loneliest, weakest parts of his being.

He had to tell her something.

Just tell her something true.

Fisher swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat as he ran his thumb over the back of her hand. “You’re my best friend, Drie,” he said, the words ringing with the simplest but greatest truth of them all. “Do you know that? You’re the very best person in my life, and I genuinely don’t think I can live without you. Do you understand?”

Her lips pressed together as one corner of her mouth curved up in a shy smile, her eyes softening at his words. Her gaze lowered to his mouth, and she moved to draw closer, but he jolted to his feet, scrambling back out of reach. He couldn’t.

This is wrong.

“I’m not feeling well. I-I need to go.”

Fisher didn’t wait for her to respond, to ask him to stay so that she could nurse him to health as she would undoubtedly want to do. He simply pressed a kiss to the top of her head, turned on his heel, and fled.

Ticktock.

5

THE POTENTIAL

PRESENT DAY

The ancient lamp flickered to life, casting a melancholic glow across the hood of his truck as Fisher sat, his grip a vice around the wheel. He’d arrived early, wanting to have plenty of time for the discussion that he’d sat up all night trying to plan for.

But after many hours of watching the trees sway in the park outside his bedroom window, and a long day of throwing himself into his work, he was no closer to figuring out what to say than he’d been when he’d walked out of her apartment the night prior. And now he lingered, torn between his desperation and his indecision.

He knew that once he walked into her apartment, all bets would be off. But even in the unpredictability of the night ahead, he instinctively knew that the odds were not in his favor.

The passenger door opening startled him out of his thoughts, and he turned, eyes wide, to find Drie climbing into the truck, a curious smile stretching her lips.

“Hey, I saw you sitting down here and thought I’d surprise you. You know you can come up early, right?” She leanedsideways, stretching over the console, her eyes lowering to his mouth.

And Fisherpanicked. The moment her lips met his in a simple kiss they’d shared a hundred times over, his mind fractured. He jerked away, the back of his head colliding with the window as the words sprang forward unbidden.

“We should break up,” he blurted. His eyes flared at the crassness in his tone, watching as she froze in place, unblinking.

“No. Fuck, I’m sorry. That came out so wrong,” he stammered. “I-I didn’t mean it like that. I just—I think we need to slow down. I was, uh, in a bad relationship for a while, and I think it may have screwed me up a bit. We’re just moving too fast, and it’s making me?—”

“I’m sorry,” Drie interrupted, her voice distant as she slowly pulled back, putting distance between them in the tight cabin. “I nee—can you just repeat that?”

He stared, his mind blanking. “Which, uh…part?”

Her lips thinned as she rolled them inward. “The first bit.”

Right. Of course.He nodded, steeling his spine.