Page 18 of To Regret a Raven

He didn’t wait to see if the kid accepted his half-assed apology before he turned and strode off jerkily toward the breakroom. He wasn’t surprised, however, when Pat yanked him to a stop in the hall.

“So, uh, what the hell was that?” he asked, his naturally jovial expression traded for lofted brows and pinched lips.

Fisher shook his head. “It’s this mess with Drie, man. It’s just—it’s messing with my head. I can’t think straight. I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.

“You’re right. It won’t,” Pat answered, his mouth pulled into a tight frown. “We’ve got a good thing going here with this shop. And you’re my friend, Fisher, but this is not where you work out your shit. Go home, take a day, and come back with your head on right.”

Fisher averted his eyes, nodding stiffly. Pat was right; the situation had moved beyond the point of being pathetic. And it was only getting worse with every day that passed, just waiting for her to reach out. It had been three straight weeks of radio silence since the weekend he’d seen her in the library.

He stalked to his truck and pulled out his phone to check for messages, not surprised in the least at the utter lack of notifications.Without work to distract me, what the hell am I supposed to do?

On a whim, Fisher pulled out in the opposite direction from home and pressed the accelerator. He didn’t have any specific destination in mind, and when he parked in front of his cousin’s house an hour later, he still wasn’t even sure what he’d set out to achieve.

Connor eventually poked his head out of the screen door, a look of confusion on his pretty boy face, and a sleeping baby with a head of dark curls draped over his shoulder. His eyes widened in recognition, and he disappeared for a beat before reappearing, sans baby, as he jogged barefoot to the truck. He held out a fist for a bump as he slid into the passenger seat, hisother hand wrapped securely around a monitor that broadcast a feed of the nursery.

“Good to see ya, cuz,” Connor drawled, scanning Fisher quickly with familiar blue eyes. All the cousins carried on the famous Bree blue from their fathers, but the genetic similarities ended there. Where Fisher was tall and lean, with dark hair and skin that burned in the sun, Connor was short and stocky. Despite living five hours from the coast, he’d embraced the freckly, tanned surfer-boy look with gusto, even going as far as to grow out his curly blonde hair and wear it in a man-bun.

“You too,” Fisher answered gruffly, sparing his cousin a short glance before looking back out the window, his fingers tapping an anxious rhythm on the steering wheel. The silence grew palpable as it stretched between them.

“So…” Connor began, scratching the early-morning scruff on his cheek. “Something wrong?”

He nodded jerkily.

“With, uh, mystery girl?”

His second nod was just a bob of the head, the muscle in his cheek flexing.

“So do you, uh, want to…talk about it? I doubt it’s as bad as you’re acting. Or did you just want some company while you, uh, process whatever you got going on in…there?” Connor asked, fluttering a hand in the general direction of his head.

Fisher rolled his eyes as he forced the words into the air between them. “I ended things a few weeks ago.”

“Noo.” Connor groaned. “You dumbass. Why would you do that? She was perfect for you. Maybe there’s time for you to tell her it was a mistake, and she’ll take you back?”

“You don’t think I tried? She doesn’twantme back. I just wanted to slow down, but now she won’t even talk to me. She avoids me everywhere. Changed libraries and gyms. Deleted me from social media. I’m pretty sure she’s even blocked mynumber.” Fisher scrubbed a hand down his face before turning in his seat, his eyes wide. “Wait. Why would you think she was perfect for me? You never even met her.”

“Dude.” Connor rolled his eyes. “Oh. You’re serious?” He cleared his throat. “Man, it was pretty obvious. You were happy as fuck. Way happier than when you were pretending to date Rena.”

“I was notpretendingto date Rena.”

“Could’ve fooled me,” Connor said. “So why did you end things, then? Big fight?”

“Nah. The opposite, actually. We never fought.”

“Oh-kay…So then why did you want to slow down? Was she talking marriage and shit?”

“God no. She’s in nursing school and told me before we even began dating that she wasn’t in the market”—he held up air-quotes—“for a MRS. until after she’d gotten her BSN.”

Connor chuckled. “Sounds like a boss. Alright. Then I still don’t get it. Did you want to date other people?”

“Not at all.” Fisher choked.

“Then you’re going to have to spell it out for me, man, because I’m at a loss here.”

He shrugged. “She loved me.”

The silence stretched once more, filled only with the muffled sounds of traffic on the nearby highway and the steady cadence of white noise from the baby monitor, until it became borderline oppressive.

“And?” Connor finally prompted.