Page 27 of November Reign
Concessions
Thyme
My words hung betweenus, creating a gulf I wasn’t sure it was possible to bridge. Everything Oak had shared buzzed through my mind, clicking into place scenes that had been off before. The strange way he looked at me, the polite rebuff after my flirting. Even the antagonism we started with, all made sense now.
Dozens of other interactions just whizzed by in my brain. Each one now with that “ah-ha!” moment in them. I felt like I finally understood Oak.
Didn’t mean it didn’t hurt. I’d been pushed aside because of Basil once again. If it wasn’t my family, it was the people I had crushes on. Friends always flocked to Basil, he had the charisma, after all.
I curled my legs up under me, feeling a bone-deep chill that came from shock rather than the environment. I pulled the blanket tighter around me, as if it would protect me from everything. All the emotions running through me were too difficult tounderstand.
How was I supposed to deal with Oak, the man I had feelings for, deep, real feelings, who saw my big brother when he looked at me?
If anything did happen between us, like we both clearly wanted, would I be comparing myself to my brother? Would Oak be comparing me to Basil?
I guess I should be used to it. I’d always been compared to my brother. It was worse after my transition. My family saw me as lesser after that. Not because of my true gender, but because of the power I sacrificed to be my authentic self. They couldn’t understand why it was so important to me, or important enough to give up my magic.
It was all too much on a personal level, so I spun my thoughts away from that and focused on the other problem: the coven.
From experience, I knew the coven had to be told about Oak’s relationship with Basil before my brother took that away from him. Controlling the narrative was the only power Oak had in this situation.
The longer things went on, the harder it would be for the coven to trust Oak, especially once they found out about Basil.
Trust was already in short supply, with several traitors already being weeded out. Seemed we had another, if Oak’s number was being passed back to Basil. It meant someone knew Oak was something toBasil, even if they didn’t know the full story. That itself was a problem.
They either knew it was a toxic romantic thing, or they thought Oak was a key player in Basil’s schemes. His inside man. Neither scenario was good.
I closed my eyes against the brewing headache. The buzz of the alcohol was long since gone. All I wanted to do was find another drink and wash away the memory of this evening. I should have just had one drink with Oak and then gone to bed, happy with the memory of him in that sexy costume.
Now all I could see was his face as I put the pieces together.
“Thyme?”
When I opened my eyes again, I let out a little gasp against my will. Oak was right in front of me, kneeling on the hard tile floor. He was braced against the bench, boxing me in.
“I see you, I swear it,” he whispered, so close the words puffed against my face, smelling slightly of everything we had drunk through the night.
He leaned in and must have caught my hesitation, because he pressed his warm lips against my cool cheek.
“You know where I am if you want to talk.”
In a fluid movement, he stood, then sort of staggered.
“Maybe we should wait until we’re both completely sober. We’ve got a few days to work things out.”
“Do you think we can?” He was so hopeful, I couldn’t bear to crush him.
“Who knows?”
Without Oak in the kitchen, the room felt empty.
At a loss about what to do, I slipped into the comfortable routine of cleaning up. I scooped up the glasses and loaded them into the dishwasher. The empty bottles, I put in the recycling. The smell of alcohol was making me feel queasy, so I poured what remained in a couple of bottles away before adding that to the stuff to be collected.
We’d barely eaten, but I gathered up the trash then wiped down the table. There was a puddle on the floor to clean up and the blanket to fold and put away.
I knew I was focusing on the mundane tasks just to distract myself. I wanted to cry, to scream at the unfairness of it all.
Why was Basil always there first?
