Page 488 of Lessons in Cruelty

Her lips thin. “You were too busy calling me a slut.”

“Yeah, fine, I’ll stop.” I bury my head in her damp hair, chuckling. “Guess it doesn’t matter how many guys you’ve slept with. It’s not like we were exclusive or anything.”

“Exclusive?” She shoves me so hard, she almost hits the floor when she loses her balance.

I’m on my feet as quickly as she is, because I assume she’s headed for the ice pick.

But she just stands there, hands balled into fists, looking so fucking gorgeous with her mussed up hair, her bare tits heaving.

She stabs a finger toward me. “Fuck you!”

I make a grab for her. She tries to fend me off, but I drag her closer despite her protests, forcing her down on the sofa with me.

“I’m not a slut! What’s it going to take to get that into your thick skull?”

“Calm down,” I murmur against her hair, inhaling the perfume of us.

“I don’t know what you heard, but it’s a lie!” Her voice chokes up. “I never fucked anyone!”

“Okay, okay.” I rock her in my lap. “Bad intel, then.”

“Fucking ‘course it is,” she mutters. “He put a lot of shit inside me, but never his dick.”

She squeaks at how hard my grip gets.

I can barely form words, and even then, I barely get them past my clenched jaw.

“He…what? Who?”

I feel her shaking her head against my chest. “Nothing. Forget I said anything.”

“Jesus, Haven.” I drag her away, hands on either side of her head. “You don’t get to trauma dump on me like that without giving me details.”

Her lip curls into a sneer. “You’re fucking sick.”

“Not those details.” I shake her, but gently this time, because she suddenly feels fragile as a butterfly’s wing.

How the fuck could she withstand all the shit I’ve put her through the past few weeks after…after whatever the hell happened?

“Who. Hurt. You.” It’s not a question. It’s a pronouncement. And she knows, whoever it is, I’m going to kill them with my bare hands.

I see the struggle on her face, even in the dim light.

“Lenny.”

I know the name, but there’s no face to put to it, even after rousing up every memory of Haven’s uncle in my head. Haven only started coming to the woods after her mother died, and I only saw glimpses of her father. Even the time I went to confront him, he was alone.

“You don’t know him,” she says quietly, like she sees the struggle on my face. “He only came by a couple times after my mom died.”

“And that’s when he—“ I cut off at a shake of her head.

“After I met you at the maple tree, Dad shoved me in the car and told me we were going on holiday.” She lets out a bitter laugh. “Didn’t believe him for shit, but what choice did I have? You weren’t around anymore. I didn’t have anywhere else to go.”

Guilt is burning a hole through my chest, making my mouth dry and my heart hammer painfully inside my chest. I had just as little choice as Haven when my parents moved out of the trailer park.

“We ended up at my uncle’s apartment in Ashwood Crossing. Shit was okay for a few weeks, but all it took was Dad passing out one night before Lenny⁠—“

She inhales a shuddering breath. “He said I had to pay rent, since my dad couldn’t. Else he’d put us out on the street.”