Page 55 of Riot Reunion
“Pax—”
He stalks forward, ignoring me. “Did you think I’d just go away? If you’dthoughtabout your actions for even one second, you’d have realized that there isn’t a place on this earth you could go where I wouldn’t follow.”
Oh, Jesus. I’ve never seen such anger on his face. I step back again, panic coursing through me, even though I know he’s not going to hurt me. He would never. But that doesn’t mean that he won’t yell at me until his voice gives out, especially after the short text I sent him, letting him know I was leaving Alaska and coming to stay with Dad.
“Pax,please—” My plea is only half out when he rushes for me, taking me firmly by the arms…
…and drawing me into a tight hug.
“You still haven’t fucking figured it out yet, have you,” he growls into my hair. “When are you going to accept that you’re stuck with me? You waged the dumbest, most persistent war of attrition against my heart. You fuckingwon. This is your prize now, Chase: my undivided attention. You are my whole fucking world. You are my heart. My fucking obsession. There’s no walking away from it. No return to fucking sender. Youmademe love you. Now deal with the fucking consequences.
He brims over with anger, but the way he tentatively runs his hand up and down my back, soothing me, says he isn’t as mad as he’s pretending to be. He’sscared. He’s waiting for me to push him away, to scream at him and tell him to get out…and I almost do. Almost. Being here, suddenly in the circle of his arms, affects me in a way I can’t comprehend.
I break. Shatter. Fall apart. Without meaning to, I sink into him, burying my face into his chest. In the time it takes for my heart to shudder in my chest, I’ve wrapped my arms around his waist, and I’ve burst into a hail of tears.
Pax lets out a long, unsteady breath—relief, I think—and tightens his hold on me, drawing me even closer. It’s only when our chests are totally flush that I feel the wild, unchecked thunder of his heart, pounding fretfully behind his ribcage.
“Why are you so dead set onkillingme?” he whispers. “Why d’you have to make it hurt so bad?”
Such an abundance of pain. I honestly don’t think I was supposed to hear him ask that question. He spoke so softly that I think he was talking to himself. Regret daggers me through the heart. I’ve been so selfish. Ishouldhave told him about the baby the moment I realized I was pregnant, but the news was so overwhelming that I couldn’t wrap my head around the conversation. Was I supposed to tell him something that life-changing over FaceTime? The prospect of getting on a plane and showing up at his mentor’s farm in Virginia, when he was supposed to be there to focus and learn? God, there’s no way I could have done it.
Pax pulls back, cupping my face in his hands. His eyes might be the color of a frozen winter blizzard, but they burn with heat. “I need you to get all of your shit and put it in a bag for me. Right now, Chase.”
“I can’t. My dad—he’ll be worried. I can’t just—”
“Fuck your father. We’ll leave him a note.”
“He’ll be worried about me. He’ll—”
“Be just fine.”
No excuse I can think of will be good enough. Pax will have an answer for all of them. And I’m sotiredof making excuses. Every part of me wants to give in to him. I need him more than I’ve ever needed anything.
“Okay. But…I can’t face traveling far right now. We can just get a hotel if you don’t want to stay here—”
“We’re not traveling anywhere, Chase. And we’re not going to a hotel,” he says resolutely. “We’re going home. Back to Riot House.”
19
WREN
The key turnsin the lock.
So surreal.
When we closed up the house and drove away at the end of summer, I didn’t think we’d be back here for a long time. Long enough to forget how the place smells. How normal it feels to walk through the giant front door, like it’s only been a matter of hours since we were here, not a couple of months.
We’ve already missed a week of college. Harvard isn’t the type of school you can just no-show, but we had our assignments sent to us, crying illness. Thanksgiving is right on top of us anyway, so here we are, back at Riot House. I dump our bags just inside the door, a complicated tangle of emotions pulling taut in my chest. My relationship with this house is difficult. My father never wanted me to buy the place. I made mention of the fact that I wanted it in passing, and he’d informed me in no uncertain terms that I wouldn’t be buying it. I was underage, and he was my guardian. My grandfather had only just died and left me my inheritance. General Jacobi had assumed that he could torment me, lording over me the fact that he would have control of my money until I came of age. It had come as a rude awakening to him when my grandfather’s estate had named someone else the executor of my inheritance. A lawyer ofmychoosing. That had been easily dealt with. Fifty thousand a year to let me do whatever the hell I wanted with my own money. A private agreement, made in confidence between myself and my legal counsel. Nothing on paper.
So, I’d bought the house. I don’t think the General even knew I’d done it until a year later, when Wolf Hall Academy’s board had written me up for throwing parties and leading my fellow students astray. They’d recommended to my father that I move back into dorms, where the beadiest of eyes could be kept on me. He’d been livid, naturally. He’d given up trying to control me by then, though. So long as I wasn’t underhisroof, it didn’t matter to him which roof I was under.
Elodie sighs dreamily as she follows me inside. Her eyes rove over the familiar hallway, drinking everything in, a thoughtful look on her face.
“Weird?”
“Weird.” She agrees. “Feels like we never left.”
I neglect to say that it feelsright, being back here. Our new home in Cambridge is an empty shell. No furniture. No artwork. No personality. No memories. Little E and I haven’t had a chance to make it our own yet. There are so many memories absorbed into the very walls of Riot House. My own art hangs on the walls. There isn’t a surface within this building that I haven’t fucked Elodie Stillwater on.
