Page 40 of Gravehouse

There’s no escaping. Even if I could run, I don’t want to. “I have to go home for a family tradition.”

Asher looks to the side, chuckling. “Not happening.”

My chest caves in, strangling my reply. “Asher…”

The magazine slips out of the chamber, landing in the palm of my hand.

I replace it without breaking eye contact. “It’s my…”

How am I going to explain this? He and I have never talked about our families, never shared a single detail personal enough to go deeper than the surface of who we were to each other. It’s why I fell for him, and why I was probably so easily tricked by him. And vice versa.

Wait…

I straighten, pointing at his chest. “You should come. It’s not like we wouldn’t be seen with each other anyway?”

His features don’t give any of his thoughts away as he moves further into the room.

Atlas shrieks, lunging for the weapon in my hand, but my arm snaps back before he can take it.

“You are not touching my gun!”

Fingers close around my elbow from behind. Asher covers the hand that’s holding the gun. I still haven’t worked out which one he’s trying to claim, the weapon or me.

He takes it, clicks the safety, and locks it away.

Guess that answers that…

Footsteps sound outside my door before Daniel appears, his attention bouncing between the three of us.

Asher angles his body to stand in front of mine as if on instinct.

I try to shove him out of the way. “Well, this is the start to every pornever.”

No one laughs.

Daniel looks between my bag and my face. “La Journée du Nous, I didn’t realize it was so soon.”

You and me both, friend.

I glance up at Asher, expecting to read one hundred silent questions, but his expression is flat. It’s like rereading your favorite book, one you’ve read so often that you can recite every line, when all of a sudden the words don’t make sense. I can’t read him like I used to. He’s built a wall around the parts of himself that felt like home.

Asher ignores Daniel. “You ain’t going, Venom.”

He’s going to make this difficult for me. Everything is always going to be difficult.

“I don’t care if you kill me. You can. I don’t care. I earned it, whatever. Death? Death is simple to me. It’s something I made peace with a long time ago. You don’t do what I do and expect not to die, Asher.”

I fight with everything inside of me to not touch him, to not show any kind of weakness that he can use to destroy me, but my body vibrates with every passing second, nausea flipping my stomach upside down.

Fuck it.

I slide my hands up the side of his neck and rest them on his cheeks. “But I need you to do it after we’re back.”

I’ve already said too much, felt way more, and the longer I’m around him the worse it gets, so I brace myself for the rejection. For him to push me away, probably into Atlas to deal with me, if I had to guess the vibe of what his duty is.

His finger hooks beneath my chin, killing every thought in my head. He tips my face toward his, and the panic clawing at my ribs eases.

Blue eyes hold me there. For a single, stupid moment we’re back to how we used to be.