I don’t want to get out of the shower.
The water is tepid—too many Rephaim beat me in here this morning—and there’s barely enough pressure to rinse my hair, but there’s something calming about our cramped bathroom. The powder blue tiles and the shower screen with the hairline crack in the middle panel. The smell of Maggie’s cherry blossom shampoo and my pink grapefruit shower gel. The ceramic soap dish shaped like a giant shell.
It’s home. It’s safe.
If I try hard enough, I can pretend I’m still a backpacker sharing a cheap bungalow with my best friend, working a few shifts at the library to pay my bills. Not have to think about my mistakes. Or how many people I’ve let down in this long life of mine. Or the fact an army of demons is coming to terrorise my town.
I finally turn off the tap but I don’t get out. Water drips from the showerhead and hits the floor in fat splashes. I feel myself start to air dry. Absently, I trace the collections of scars puckering my skin. Wounds on my legs from knives and swords and claws. Old and new. Gouges across my side from my cage match at the Sanctuary last week. Claw marks on my chest from last night. I feel for the hellion bite on my collarbone and then my fingers search under my hair to the thick scar on my neck.
Who am I kidding? I wear the body of a one-hundred-and-thirty-nine-year-old warrior, not a teenage library assistant. The time for that fantasy has passed.
I towel-dry my hair and put on undies and a t-shirt—the only clean clothes I brought in with me. I listen at the door. The house is silent, but just in case I’m not alone, I shift into my room—and freeze.
Rafa is sitting on the edge of my desk.
His eyes drop to my bare legs and then lift to meet mine. ‘Hey.’
I’m acutely aware that I’m not wearing a bra. So is Rafa, even if he’s trying to keep his attention on my face. It wasn’t so many hours ago we were naked, entangled, breathing each other’s air. But now our history has loomed up between us.
‘Where’s Jude?’ I ask.
‘He was still up the mountain talking to the Butlers when I left.’ Another quick glance at my legs. I should get dressed. But there’s a part of me that likes having Rafa off balance. It reminds me I’m not the only one whose edges are a little softer now. I walk over to the pile of clothes on my desk. ‘Let’s hear it then.’
‘Hear what?’
‘What you’ve got to say about last year. What Jude and I did.’
‘That can wait. I want to sort this out first.’ He gestures to himself and me. ‘I gave you a chance to punish me—’
‘Punish you for what?’
‘You know what.’
‘What’s the point? We both know what happened between us at the Sanctuary was a total fucking disaster.’
His gaze slides away but not before I see the injury there. The capitulation.
‘Not last night,’ I say, frustrated he could even think that’s what I meant. ‘The first time. We stuffed that up from start to finish. That fight…You tried to tell me how bad it was, but bloody hell, the things I said—’
‘You weren’t alone.’
I don’t want to pick apart that decade-old slanging match. I find a mark on my t-shirt near the hem, probably chocolate. Spend a few seconds rubbing at it but all it does is smear.
‘What about the past week?’ Rafa pushes. ‘How I’ve handled things.’
He’s talking about stalking me in the rainforest. His impatience. His avoidance of questions about our past. And the lies: that he and I never slept together. That I stayed at the Sanctuary to be with Daniel.
I sigh, give up on the stain. ‘I get why you didn’t want to tell me the truth. If our situations were reversed—if it was you who didn’t remember—I wouldn’t have told you either.’ I glance at him sideways. ‘But I probably would’ve got more mileage out of it.’
‘More mileage than licking your neck in public?’
I feel the slow spread of heat, surprised that after everything that’s happened between us, that memory still affects me. I pick up a pair of jeans. ‘I can’t believe you had the balls to come to Rick’s.’
A guarded smile. ‘Now you understand why I was surprised you let me close enough to touch you. Then you kissed me and I kind of forgot myself for a second, especially when you seemed so into it.’
And I was. It was so unlike me—either version. But my body remembered Rafa, just like it remembered how to fight. Muscle memory of a different kind.
‘What’s it all mean, then? Are you back to being who you were a year ago?’
I drop the jeans back on the washing pile. ‘Are you?’
‘No.’
‘Me neither. I’ve been someone else for a whole year and I can’t undo that—I don’t want to. It’s who I am now. I just happen to remember another life as well. I’m still figuring out how it all fits.’
Green eyes search mine. ‘Gaby, I know I’ve fucked up—’
‘We both made this mess and we’ve both suffered for it.’ I glance at his chest. ‘Things are different now.’
His mood shifts. ‘Don’t go easy on me because you feel pity.’
‘It’s not pity—’
‘Then don’t tell me this past week undoes the last ten years. I knew what I was doing back then—that you wouldn’t have touched me if you’d known about Mya. But I wanted you so badly I didn’t care. I’m the reason you and Jude were apart—’
‘I made my own choices—’
‘I’m the reason you hooked up with Daniel—don’t think the irony of that was lost on me all those years—and I lied to my best friend, never told him why you stayed behind.’
Frustration radiates from Rafa. I give him space. ‘Jude knows.’
He falters. ‘Since when?’
‘Since Patmos, last year. After our little run-in, he pushed me for the truth, so I told him.’
Rafa laces his fingers behind his head. ‘Ah, shit.’
What I didn’t tell Jude was what I couldn’t even admit to myself back then: that it took a near-death experience for me to drop my guard with Rafa because I’d always needed to be better than the girls he hooked up with. And then I’d needed to despise him, so I could live with the choices that followed.
‘Rafa…’ The truth gnaws at me. I have to say it out loud to him before I bury it again. ‘You and I fucked up monumentally, but I could’ve left with the rest of you, even after our brawl. I chose my reputation—my fear of humiliation—over my brother. Over the truth.’
He drops his arms but doesn’t respond. He’s too busy feeding his own guilt.
‘Do you want me to hurt you, Rafa? Is that what it’s going to take for us to move on—me taking you through another window?’
He meets my eyes. ‘What else is there?’
‘How about forgiveness?’
His chest rises and falls. ‘Too easy.’
‘Too easy? More like we haven’t had enough practice.’ I splay my bare toes against the hardwood floor, try to control my breathing. ‘Does that mean you can’t forgive me?’
‘I didn’t say that.’
‘Oh, so you’re capable of forgiveness, but I’m not?’
‘Gaby—’
‘I’m not going to hit you or kick you or run your head through a wall, Rafa, so either you can accept I’m dealing with our past or you can’t. And believe me, forgiveness isn’t the easy option. It takes a hell of a lot more effort than breaking bones.’
He’s still propped against the desk, arms folded, grinding his jaw. ‘How can you forgive what I did?’
‘Because I know you. Because I’ve seen the best and the worst of you. Because of everything we’ve been through in the last hundred and thirty-nine years and what we’ve been through since you found me in the bar. God, because I want to move forward.’
‘Yeah, but—’
‘Because I love you, you idiot!’
The sentence hangs in the air. It’s taken us both by surprise. We blink at each other, take a breath. I feel the flush climb my neck, check that I mean it.
I do.
Not just for who he’s been for the past two weeks, but for our friendship before that. Before we screwed everything up.
‘No you don’t,’ Rafa says. But the guilt and frustration are gone, replaced by something more fragile.
‘Don’t tell me what I do and don’t feel, Rafa.’
He watches me, unreadable. The seconds stretch out.
‘Then say it again.’
I look him the eye. They’re difficult words because they strip me bare. ‘I love you. You idiot.’
Rafa doesn’t speak and I can’t tell what he’s thinking. This quiet intensity is something new. I close the distance until I’m standing between his legs. I don’t touch him.
‘That’s not easy for me to say.’
‘Because it’s me?’
‘Because I’ve never said it before, and because I mean it. Rafa, the way I felt about you a few hours ago…that hasn’t changed. If I’d told you then, would you have believed it?’
His eyes soften at the memory.
‘Then believe it now.’ I press my hand to his chest, feel his heart thump against my palm through his t-shirt. ‘Do you want to add anything, or am I out on this limb alone?’
He guides me closer, his fingers light on my hips. ‘How I feel about you scares the hell out of me. I’ve got no counter-moves. No defence. And now you remember everything, I’ve lost the upper hand.’
‘You had the upper hand?’
A short laugh. ‘Apparently not.’
We watch each other. See each other. I feel him inhale and exhale under my hand. He touches my jaw, featherlight, and then slides his fingers into my wet hair.
‘I’m sorry.’ He says it simply, quietly.
‘Me too.’ I swallow. ‘I’m sorry too.’
He brings his face closer. When he hesitates, I meet him halfway. The kiss is slow, tender. I slide my hands under his t-shirt, needing to touch him. He makes that low sound in the back of his throat and heat spikes through me. I love the way our lips fit together, the taste of him. The way he uses his tongue…
I break contact first, but only to drag his t-shirt over his head and toss it on the floor. I step back so I can see him, and I can’t help but falter. His torso really is a disaster. The crescent moon Bel carved into his flesh and the violent slash through the middle of it. I brush my fingers over the puckered scar tissue, over other fresh scars, all the work of demon blades. Rage, deep and dark, stirs in the pit of my stomach but I push it aside, focus on the heat of Rafa’s skin instead. I kiss the point of the crescent near his collarbone.
Rafa’s fingers tighten on my hips. ‘What did I say about pity?’ His voice is rough.
I straighten and meet his gaze, trail my fingers down his chest and over his abdomen.
‘Trust me, Rafa, this isn’t pity.’ I hook my fingers into the top of his jeans and walk backwards to the bed, tugging at him to follow. His eyes don’t leave mine.
I find the button on his pants, slide down his zip.
He lifts my t-shirt over my head. I finish helping him out of his jeans and low-rise boxers. He peels down my underwear slowly, still not shifting his gaze from my face. And then we stand before each other, naked. It’s not like we weren’t together a few hours ago, but this feels different. More exposed.
My mouth finds his again, and now there’s no hesitation. His response is all heat and wanting, arms circling my waist, lifting me onto the bed. My skin is alight, my breathing already ragged. The fire between us, this urgency…it’s not about teasing, or pleasure, or even desire. It’s about need. For connection. For forgiveness. I wrap my legs around him, pull him down until he’s a part of me. His breath catches and his eyes find mine.
‘God, Gaby…’ he rasps, and I love that he still uses that name. That he can see me for who I am now: more Gaby than Gabe.
We move together, watching each other with an intensity that unravels me so totally I can’t tell where I end and he begins.
We lose ourselves too quickly.
Afterwards we lie tangled together, pillows scattered around us, catching our breath. I’m warm all over, waiting for the feeling to come back into my legs.
‘Unfair,’ Rafa says into my hair. ‘You’re turning me into a seventeen-year-old with no self-control.’ His stubble scratches my shoulder. I kiss his ear. He takes his weight on his elbow so he can look at me. ‘Give me time to recover and we can go again. Maybe a little slower this time…’
I laugh—he’s got more stamina than me—and then my stomach rumbles. Way too loud.
‘Gaby, when did you last eat?’
I absently trace a circle on his thigh with my thumb while I try to remember. ‘I don’t know, a few hours before I went to Iowa? Unless beer counts.’
He sits up, draws me with him. ‘I can’t compete with an empty stomach. Let’s get some food into you.’
I laugh and push him away, reach for my clothes with jelly arms. There’s a demon army marching on Pan Beach and the Rephaim are more fragmented than ever. But right now, in this moment, Rafa and I are okay.
Maybe there’s hope for all of us yet.