Page 70 of An Oath at Midnight

“Nice.” She grinned, then her gaze slid over my face and her grin vanished. “What the fuck is up with you?”

“Nothing. I’m fine.”

“Don’t give me that shit, you’re on the verge of tears. You didn’t even cry when I dislocated your shoulder that time. Something’s fucking with you, and despite what I said back at your place, I am a good sounding board, so fucking talk, feisty. Or I’ll pull this car over and we won’t move until you do.”

I stared out the windshield, my fingers curling and twining together. The look in Bram’s eyes, the way he held my chin with his blood-stained fingers, the way he’d leaned in… “Bram almost…he almost kissed me.” My breath hitched just saying it out loud.

Ash was quiet several beats, her gaze going from me to the road, then back. “Okay…so what’s the problem?”

I curled my fingers into tight fists because my hands were shaking. “Bram’s my best friend. He’s my familiar.”

“Right.”

“I knew you wouldn’t understand,” I said, wishing I hadn’t said anything. Talking about this was too damn painful.

“What did you do when he tried to kiss you?” she asked.

Squeezing my eyes closed, I tried to flush the memory from my mind. “I pushed him away. I said…I said, no.”

She nodded. “And you said no because?”

“Because he’s my best friend.”

“You said that already. Tell me what you were feeling in that moment?”

I rubbed my now sweaty palms on my thighs. “I don’t know.”

“Yes, you do. Was your heart racing?”

My mouth went dry. “Well, yes—”

“Belly all flippy?”

Yes, it had been. There were serious flips. I didn’t reply, but the look on her face said I didn’t need to.

She glanced at me again. “You ever thought about kissing him? Looked at him and thought, damn, he’s fine? You ever imagined what it would be like to get naked and let loose on each other?”

Yes, yes, and yes. Suddenly, I was struggling to breathe. “Don’t…I can’t…I can’t do this—”

Ash pulled the truck off the road suddenly, stopping in the middle of nowhere. “Look at me.”

“Ash—”

“Look at me, feisty.”

I turned in my seat and forced myself to look at her, because I knew that tone. We were staying right here until I did what she wanted.

“You’re scared. I get that,” she said. “Fear is a powerful thing. It makes us think we can’t have the things we desperately fucking want. It lies to us, it makes us think we can’t, when we sure as fuck can.” She took my hand in a tight grip, forcing me to keep looking at her when I tried to look away. “He’s in love with you, Mags. We all see it. He’s so in love with you that being close to you is Heaven and Hell for him, all rolled into one.”

My mouth opened, closed. I tried to pull my hand from hers, to retreat, to not freak the fuck out at her words.

She held tight, but her gaze softened, something I’d never seen before. “You had to know that.”

Yeah, I was definitely struggling to breathe normally now. Because, goddess, I did. Didn’t I? I’d tried to tell myself that wasn’t what I saw in his eyes. I tried to pretend that wasn’t what I felt from him when we were together, that the tension between us wasn’t so thick sometimes, I found it hard to draw breath. A couple of years ago, things between us had started to change. I’d started seeing him…differently. There’d been several times when I thought he was going to kiss me.

Then Clayton happened, and I’d shoved it down. I’d pretended I’d never felt the thing inside me slowly unfurling, desperate to bloom.

“I’m scared,” I choked out. “I’m so fucking scared, Ash.”