Page 49 of Crow

My head hurts too much to keep not asking the one thing Ineedto know. “Did we…” I can’t do it. I can’t get the words out.

She shakes her head. “No. We didn’t have a condom. I do remember that part, where we went out to get some, but everything around here was closed.” She flushes, but she smiles so shyly and bright that she’s fairlyglowing. “I did ride yourface.” She finally sets her hand on my arm. “I’d like to do that again, when you’re feeling better.”

The lights in the bathroom glint off metal on her hand. A ring.

A gold. Fucking. Band.

On her left hand, on her ring finger.

I reel around, gagging, getting to the toilet this time. I throw myself over it retch until I’m soaked in sweat and utterly wretched. It’s worse that Tarynn is right behind me, kneeling, rubbing my back, asking me what she can do for a hangover.

It’s a hot minute before I can wipe my mouth, flush the mess away, and gather up enough courage to look at my left hand.

When I catch sight of that matching gold band, I start shaking. The tremors hit and hit hard, shivers wracking my body so hard that my teeth shake. Tarynn has no sense of self-preservation. She should be appalled by this, by me, but she wraps her arms around me, pulls me to the wall, and holds me like I’m a child, not a grown man twice her size.

No one has held me since I was a kid.

I can’t let her do this. Any of this.

“Fuck, Tarynn,” I curse, but that’s all I can get out.

“Shhh.” She pulls my sweat soaked hair back from my face.

“I’m sorry,” I rasp, but I’m not able to tug away from her yet. How can someone so small have so much strength? She’s like a magnet, pulling me to her with forces I can’t see. Her arms don’t even wrap around me entirely, but I don’t want to leavethem. “I’ll fix this. However it happened,I’ll fix it. It’s Vegas. It was probably all for show. It likely wasn’t even ordained. If we didn’t get any paperwork, then it’s doubtful that it’s legit.”

She shifts so she can see my face. “What are you talking about?”

She doesn’t know.

She doesn’t remember.

She hasn’t even seen that ring on her finger or its mate on mine, a series of gold manacles.

How the fuck could we have become the ultimate Vegas cliché?

Right.Raven, the fucking bastard. He didn’t want to leave. He didn’t want it to end. He didn’t want to give Tarynn up. He did this. Purposefully. Gleefully. And now he’s refusing to explain. He’s left me alone with the aftermath.

What the fuck else is new?

I should have known I couldn’t trust him. He promised to look after Tarynn, that he’d never hurt her, and he didthis.

I take her hand in mine, holding it up so she can see the rings. She gasps, the sound burrowing down into the soft parts of me that I thought had hardened over with scar tissue by now.

“Oh. I see what you mean now.”

She doesn’t rip away. Doesn’t scramble back and start hurling obscenities at me. She actually leans in closer, her arm tightening around my shoulders like she can’t bear to be parted. Like we got into this mess together, and we’ll see it out as a team.

Unbelievably, she brushes back my damp hair and kisses my temple. Even on my best day, I wouldn’t have deserved her kindness. My heart is a stone in my chest, dragging down, down, trying and failing to beat. Rocks don’t pulse. They don’t bleed

I guess it’s not a stone because I feel like that’s exactly what I’m doing. Bleeding out.

Raven has fucked with me in the past, but this time, ithurts. I realize how perilously close I am to coming unraveled.

I think Tarynn must sense it too. She moves a fraction, speaking softly right near my ear. “Have a shower. I’ll order something solid and bland up here. If they have ibuprofen, I’ll get that too. I’ll finish mopping up the bathroom, and I’ll go get you fresh clothes from your room. We’ll eat and we’ll figure out what we’re going to do about this.”

How is she so unfazed? I’m literally in here, ejecting everything out of my body, losing my mind, freaking the fuck out and she’s so dead calm. Out of the two of us, I’m supposed to be the experienced, worldly one.

“What happens in Vegas could stay in Vegas,” she whispers, in deference to my splitting headache and shot nerves. “We don’t have to tell anyone. We’ll get it undone. Let’s just get you cleaned up and get some food in you. Things will look better then.” She pauses and then covers up a laugh with the back of her hand. I fail to see what’s funny, and my face must show it. “I’m so sorry,” she nearly bursts out with laughter. She has to bite her knuckle. “Here I was swearing to myself that I’d never eat oatmeal or drink orange juice again, but that’s the best thing I can think or order right now.”

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