Raze (Riven 3)

He asked it so simply it broke me open.

When I lived at my mom’s, I’d always run from school to work to home so I could cook dinner. There was always someone’s homework to check, shoe to find, scrape to bandage, and argument to referee. Then, as we got older, there were tryouts to help them practice for and elections to help them win. I’d worked more than full-time for Sofia’s senior year so she could ace her classes and fill out college applications.

Dane’s warm hands ran up and down my back, through my hair. I didn’t have to say anything. He nodded.

“There was always so much to do, to take care of. I liked fixing everyone else’s problems. Helping them achieve their goals.”

“Less scary than figuring out what you want for yourself, hmm?”

That shook me, but it was true; I knew it as soon as he said it.

By the time Sofia and I got to New York, it was such an ingrained habit that I’d slid right into that role all over again. Not only had I never figured out what I wanted—other than to have enough money to make rent and buy groceries—it had never really occurred to me that I should.

“I…I guess I’ve just never been a dreamer like Sof.”

“You’ve never been in the position to let yourself, sounds like.” Dane’s fingers were gentle at the nape of my neck. “But I don’t believe you’re not a dreamer.”

I made a sound of tentative agreement and pressed closer to him.

“Guy I saw talking all about dinosaur bones and mummy displays has plenty of dreams in him,” he said.

I remembered what it felt like standing in the lobby of the Museum of Natural History and looking up through the skeletons of creatures that inhabited a world so ancient and so lost to our own that past and present collided. I remembered how it felt the first time I saw them. The thrill that had run through me. The way the world outside had looked different to me when I’d left.

And vaguely I remembered wanting. Wanting to be a part of bringing worlds of the past alive for others the way they’d been brought alive for me.

“Saw Riven’s announcement about your sister,” Dane said calmly. “Think maybe that’s what caused the panic attack?”

“I don’t know, maybe.” He rubbed calming circles on my back. “Things are all different now.”

And it really sank in. Even if Sofia hated touring and came home not wanting to be in the industry anymore—even if she never sang again—having her back wouldn’t change the fact that now I knew that something was missing for me.

Dane said, “Once you look a truth in the face, you can’t shove it away again. But change isn’t necessarily bad.”

I concentrated on his big, strong hand on my back, the steady solidity of his thigh between mine, the kindness in his voice. Having him in my life was a change, and it was anything but bad. Dane was used to telling hard truths, and it made me feel good that he respected me enough to tell them to me.

I pressed a kiss to his shoulder. “No, not all bad.”

“You’ll figure it out,” he said. “I’ll help you. If you want.”

I finally looked up at him, and the tenderness in his expression bowled me over. It washed away my uncertainties about how he felt about me because here, in this moment, he was right there with me. I ran my fingertips over his lips and he pressed a kiss to them.

“You’re wonderful,” I said. “Sorry I went all to pieces on you. And what the hell are we doing here, anyway?”

Dane ran his fingers over my cheek, expression calm.

“You still wanna go?”

“Go do what?” I wheedled.

“Come on,” he said, and tugged my hand.

“Wait, wait. Do I…uh. Do I look okay?”

His eyes glowed.

“You look gorgeous.”

I could feel myself flush.

“I meant, uh, does it look like I’ve been…Am I all snotty and gross?”

Dane wiped the last bit of moisture from my eyelashes with a gentle thumb. He grasped my chin and turned my face this way and that, like he was checking me over. Then he kissed my lips and ran a hand over my hair.

“You look fine. It’s dim in there, anyway.” Then he made a face. “Though I think you have gum in your hair.”

“Perfect.”

I reached back to find it and he caught my hand. He turned me around and touched my hair.

“Is it awful?”

“No.”

I could feel him messing with my hair, then there was a single instant of pain, and Dane held up three strands of my hair with a bit of gum clinging to them.

“Ow. Thanks.”

He dropped the gum to the ground and held out his hand for me.

“If I become the victim of sympathetic magic from that hair, I know who to blame,” I grumbled. I slid my hand into his and we went inside.