This could've been ours years ago, I thought, but I nodded again.
His kiss was hard, almost biting, and far too brief, drawing away at the same moment that the organ fell into a gentle parting echo and the spotlight faded. Warm fabric wrapped around my shoulders, Nireas's jacket that I'd set aside, massive on me, shrouding me from anyone's gaze even in the dark.
Nireas lifted me off his cock, our foreheads pressing together as we both hissed at the oversensitive drag of separation. He started to stand as he set me on my feet, and I pressed my palm into his shoulder.
"You have to stay," I whispered.
Nireas frowned, barely visible, but he nodded. I pressed my thighs together, wincing at the hollowed-out sensation left in me, and darted for the curtains, slipping in through the side and ducking my head to avoid anyone's gaze.
Mr. Reddy would have words about the performance, although even I knew they might be approving. And Nireas wanted to talk. After one little kiss and eight years, now Nireas wanted to talk. Bastard. I swiped my cheeks with the sleeves of his coat and then breathed in the scent of him at the cuff, relieved that Ronan was busy on stage and unable to fill my head all over again.
What could Nireas say after years of silence? What did I want to hear?
My head didn't want to provide answers to either question.
A rough hand caught my arm as I reached the stairs, and my feet slipped beneath me.
"You all right, Haze?" Eston asked, stepping in close.
"Fine," I snapped, tearing my arm free from his grasp. "You can't just go around grabbing us girls, Eston. We're not on stage."
"I was just being nice," he snarled, stomping off across the backstage.
I righted my footing and hurried down the stairs and into my dressing room, over to the table where a small wash basin waited. The water was cold, stinging against my tender flesh as I scrubbed myself clean.
My heart was starting to pound in my chest again, and my little room was shrinking around me, the weight of the ceiling pressing at my back. There was no reason to be so affected, no reason the stretch of eight years was suddenly so tangible, as if I'd been dragging my heart around on the ground all that time, the tether growing so long I wasn't sure I would be able to reel it back in again.
I didn't want to speak with Nireas, didn't want the answers to my question or his weak explanation for shutting me out, only to suddenly demolish those walls. Those walls had protected me too, and I'd had no say in their ruin.
You'll leave. It's what your lot do, isn't it?
For once, my father's refrain, the words an anvil on my chest for more than half my life, made a kind of sense. I'd been fighting those words, rooting myself into the little apartment and defying my mother's blood by staying with my father when she would not. But I didn't need to stay to hear Nireas speak. I would be trapped on the stage with him tomorrow night and the night after, but I didn't need to wait for him to fill up this little room and suffocate me with confessions.
I shucked off Nireas's jacket, setting it on the chaise, and dressed quickly, yanking on my boots and grabbing my cloak.