Page 183 of Devious Lies (Cruel Crown)
I stepped back from her. “Sober up, Tiger. It’s damn near freezing, and we’ll get sick if we stay long. You have twenty minutes before I’m taking us to the nearest hotel.”
She didn’t budge. “Is it about Hank?” Finally, she got it right, and I wanted her to think it was about our ages again. “You know he’d want you happy, right? Life is fucked up. It’s a roller coaster ride without an exit, and you’re smushed into the same tiny cart with eight billion other people. You can either push everyone off, throw up until you’re miserable, or enjoy the ride. Let’s enjoy the fucking ride, Nash.”
I swallowed, rounded the car, and sat on the driver’s seat. “Eighteen minutes. You should probably start baltering.”
Her disappointment filled the space between us.
She exhaled. It was loud and long and made me uncomfortable in a place that had laid dormant for a while now. When I thought she’d return to the car, she skipped across the mud and twisted to a pattern only she knew.
“Thirty seconds,” I called out after her twenty minutes had been up ten minutes ago.
She ambled over and rested her forearms on the door. “Thanks for letting me balter.”
I nodded, wrung out her wet sweats, and handed them to her. “You’ll get sick.”
They made flapping noises when she slid them on. “This is why I like you.”
“Why?” I humored her.
“I don’t want someone who holds an umbrella over my head when it rains. I want someone who doesn't even own an umbrella. Someone who watches me balter in the rain when they don’t know the word exists. Someone who stares at me instead of the stars in the sky.”
“Sounds like a fantasy.”
Fuck, I need Gideon’s location, especially if she’s gonna keep talking like we’re already together.
“Think what you want.”
After she shut the door, I blasted the heater. I tore through the road, hoping we’d find someplace to stop soon. The heat gave us seconds of relief before it escaped into the air. I shut it off to save gas and ripped off my shirt instead.
“Put this on.”
Her hungry eyes ate up my scars. One of her fingers reached out and traced one. “I liked you today.” She slipped the Henley over her head and dipped her nose down to inhale it. “You are phosphenes, Nash. You are the stars and colors I see when I rub my eyes. You feel real in the moment, but you fade away. Don't fade away this time.”
What does that even mean?
“And you speak like you’re a walking, talking dictionary twenty-four seven, and especially when you're drunk.”
“I’m not drunk.”
I rolled my eyes and pulled over when I realized I’d missed an exit with a motel. Emery unbuckled her seatbelt.
“Put on your seatbelt. We’re not stopping. I’m making sure there are no cars here before I drive the opposite direction on a one-way road.”
She ignored me, wearing a content smile on her face. I considered that maybe I hadn’t been watching her break tonight. I’d been watching her heal herself.
“I know your secret,” she whispered, climbing onto my lap. “You’re my Ben.”
And then she kissed me. Hard. On the mouth. And I realized I wanted to own all her kisses. But she’d been drinking, and I was reeling. Spiraling into disbelief.
Ben.
As in, Benkinersophobia.
As in, Emery Winthrop was my Durga.
What were the odds?
Fucking tell me Fate didn’t exist.
