Under an Endless Moon: Chapter 12

You never knew when a day was going to alter your fabric. The framework of your life. I’d carefully built mine around the person that I’d become. Made boundaries that I’d driven like rebar into concrete to shore up the treasonous greed that I’d felt for my best friend’s sister for too many years.

Maybe I knew in that moment that I was getting ready to cross a line because I hesitated for a beat where I stood on River’s porch before I tugged my phone out of my pocket and shot him a text.

Dude should expect I was going to drag him through the mud on this one. I mean, seriously, didn’t he realize Raven would likely be home soon? And where the hell was Nolan?

I tucked my phone back into my pocket, jogged to my truck, and hopped in. I had it started and was taking the circular drive back out to the main road before I finally glanced in Raven’s direction.

As pretty as could fuckin’ be and as fuckin’ red as a beet. She was still scrubbing at her eyes as she looked toward the ceiling of my truck.

“You okay?”

She spun on me with those eyes wide. “Am I okay? No, I am not okay. I just walked in on my brother and Charleigh going at it. It’s bad enough I have to hear them from the end of the hall. But to see it? Do you have any idea how disturbing that is?” She flapped her hands like she might manage to shake off the memory. “Gah…I’m scarred for life.”

A rough chuckle skated out of me. It was a good thing that for the most part River had kept her from the club back when we’d ridden with Iron Owls MC. That kind of shit went down in broad daylight all the damned time. “Think he wasn’t expecting you.”

She groaned. “Obviously. I mean, I was supposed to text him to come pick me up. He probably thought I was still busy, so he decided to get busy.”

She said the last like she was testing out her first curse word.

My brow arched as I took the left onto Vista View, glancing both ways before I pulled out. “Busy?”

“Um, yeah. Busy. Knocking boots. Doing the dirty deed.” She said it all kinds of exasperated.

“What, are you eighty?”

“What do you want me to call it?”

For someone who was full of sass and snark and tossing out claims that she was on the prowl for someone dirty all over the place, she sure dipped into shyness an awful lot. Never fuckin’ knew what to make of her, even though I felt like I knew her better than anyone else.

The woman a dichotomy.

One moment this seductive siren and the next blushing all over the place.

“I usually call it fuckin’, but feel free to call it whatever you want. You know, something along the lines of taking a roll in the hay. Shagging. Bonin’, baby.” I deepened my voice on the last.

She choked over a laugh.

There. That’s what I was looking for.

Her amusement. Couldn’t stand for her to be upset.

I took a left onto Culberry Street and headed back toward town. “And where exactly are we going?”

She sighed. “Just take me back to my shop. I’ll spend the night in the back.”

“Have you lost your mind?” The words whipped out of my mouth.

“What?” she defended.

“You’re not going to spend the night at your shop.”

“And why not?”

“For starters, there is not a bed.”

For second…just fuckin’ no.

“Well, it’s a whole lot better than having to walk back into that house. Talk about awkward.”

“It’s not that big of a deal. You think kids don’t walk in on their parents going at it all the time?”

A sigh pilfered from her lips, and she stared out the side window as we hit the main part of town. “I know. It’s just…I think it’s time I find my own place. So much has changed since Charleigh came into the picture.”

Surprise tore through my consciousness.

“I thought you loved Charleigh?”

Raven turned toward me. Sincerity was written in every line of her face. “I adore her. She’s the best thing that ever could have happened to River and Nolan. The best friend and sister I ever could have asked for. But they’re a family and they need their space, and I need to be able to walk into my house without being worried I’m walking in on them. It isn’t fair to any of us.”

River wasn’t gonna fucking have it. Wasn’t sure I could stomach it, either. The idea of Raven out on her own. Living by herself. Vulnerable.

But shit. She was right. She wasn’t a kid any longer.

“How about you come stay at my place for a while before you make any big decisions?”

The reckless idea was out of my mouth before I could think through the repercussions.

Raven at my house. Under my roof. What kind of idiot was I?

“Hello, Otto, but you don’t have an extra bed, either.”

“I can sleep on the couch.” I kept right along like this might actually be a prudent idea.

She sighed when her phone rang from her purse, and she undid the zipper and pulled it out. I peeked that way, able to see it was River. She rejected the call, and instead, she tapped out a text that I didn’t even bother trying to stop myself from reading because I was a nosy fucker like that.

Amusement rolled out of me. “You’re really going to bust his balls over this, aren’t you?”

She pitched me a disgusted look. “Can we please not talk about my brother’s balls?”

I cracked up. “Fine. Fine.”

Then she sobered and whispered, “It really is time for this girl to spread her wings, Otto.”

Emotion gathered heavy in my chest. I got it, her need to break free of the boundaries it’d felt like a duty for us to keep her under.

“Well, I guess you can start stretching them at my place until you figure out exactly what you want to do.”

It was a terrible fuckin’ idea, and maybe I should have known it was the moment that my framework was going to shift. Should have known that things would start to bend, giving way to the breaking. That the second Raven stepped through my door, everything was going to change. Every oath I’d ever made obliterated.

But there seemed to be no stopping myself right then.