My frustration awakens a shiver of that caustic vibration in my chest. I close my eyes and then stand up to walk back to the car.
Maybe they need me to give them a little space—and maybe I could use some too.
I slide into the back seat, leaving the door open so the mildly warm air can flow through, and peel off my hoodie since I’m starting to sweat in it. I’m about halfway through my sandwich when Andreas ambles over, a couple of macaroons in his hand.
“Mind if I join you?”
The tightness inside me eases. I have made progress withoneof my guys.
“Of course not,” I say, offering him a smile I don’t need to force at all.
He drops into the seat by the open door and holds out one of the macaroons. “I thought you might like one too. We can’t let Dom eatallof them. It’d be unhealthy or something. We’re saving him from himself.”
I laugh and take the lumpy cookie. My first bite dissolves on my tongue with a mix of sticky sugar and creamy coconut, and just for a moment, everything feels like it could be okay after all.
Andreas considers me as I alternate between the cookie and the rest of my sandwich, his own dessert polished off in a matter of seconds.
“Are you nervous about what’s up ahead?” he asks when I’m licking the last crumbs of coconut off my fingers.
Is that why he thinks I went off to eat on my own?
I swallow thickly, the sweetness that lingered on my tongue turning sour. I’m not sure I want to have this conversation.
But if I can’t talk to even him, then what am I doing here?
“A little,” I say. “But I know we can handle a lot. We’ll figure out what we have to do when we get there.”
“You just seem kind of tense.”
I look down at my hands and then at him. Andreas gazes back at me with his usual warm, open expression.
Just the sight of that handsome face with his dark eyes so focused on me makes my pulse flutter, butthat’snot what my issue is really about either.
I wet my lips and make myself say it. “Everything’s all messed up. Between the five of us, I mean. Between you guys and me.”
Andreas’s smile falters with concern. “Riva, it’s not—it’s complicated. And you can’t let Jake get you down. He’s got his own stuff that he’s working through.”
I duck my head again. “It’s not just Jacob, and you know that. And I could tell things were wrong when I first got you guys out, I saw that you didn’t trust me, I just— I didn’t know it would last this long.” The last words catch at the back of my mouth, but I push them out. “I miss you.”
I missed them so much, for all those years, and now they feel farther away than ever. But saying that much only feels pathetic.
Andreas reaches over to grasp my hand. “I’m here. The others will come around.”
I clutch his fingers and speak past the lump in my throat. “I just thought you all knewme, that you would know I’d never have done anything I thought would hurt Griffin on purpose. It was a stupid mistake.”
I stop there with a flush of shame and embarrassment. I hadn’t meant to say that part.
Andreas studies me. “What mistake?”
Every particle in my body recoils from the idea of telling him about the silly, careless kiss. “Not paying enough attention to what was going on around us,” I say vaguely. “Not catching on that we were in trouble soon enough to prevent it.”
Andreas frowns as if he can tell I meant more than that, but Ireallydon’t want to continue the conversation in that direction.
I grope for a change of subject, lifting my gaze to fully meet his eyes again. “That thing last night where you were… fading—has that happened before?”
It’s Andreas’s turn to hesitate. His gaze drops to our linked hands.
“Not like that. Sometimes using the power makes me feel a little strange, but it hasn’t had an obvious physical effect before. But then, in the past I’ve never gone back and forth between the two states so many times that close together either.”