Page 133 of Crucible
I’d lain awake most of the night, staring out the window the loft shares with the living room, crying inside like a winner. I’d even woken up an hour before Thorin to do more brooding andnotcrying.
It’s not that I particularly aspire to be some weepy girl who is easily driven to tears and hysterics, but to never cry? It’s just not normal. I can’t even pinpoint when it even began.
“Last night, after you went to bed.”
“Oh. Right.” Remembering how my uncle despised it whenever I pouted or felt any emotion that kept me from putting on a perfect performance, on and off the stage, I feel panic welling up in my chest. “I, uh, I’m sorry about that, Thorin. It won’t happen again,” I swear.
I’m watching Thorin’s face, so I see the moment his brows dip in confusion, and he stops mid-chew to glance down at me. I’m practically in his lap with how close I’ve burrowed into his side for his body heat—and okay, yes, the security too—so I can see the minute shift in his striking blue eyes. He wasn’t angry before, even when we spoke of his mom, but whatever I said chased away the smidgen of warmth I’d found as the chill in his eyes grows colder.
“Let me guess,” he says with a curl of his lips. “Your uncle?”
“He didn’t like it when I complained,” I explain, knowing it doesn’t even scratch the surface. Even now, far out of his reach, I’m still following my uncle’s rules. I’m still afraid of him.
I read a thousand responses across Thorin’s visage before he settles on the one I don’t see coming.
“Come here.”
“Thorin, if I come any closer, I’ll be in your lap.”
“Thenget in my lap.” I almost forget to look unhappy about it when I stand and take a seat on his hard thigh. Once I’m settled, he says, “Baby, never forget. Even wolves howl at the moon.”
I stare down at my stew as his words sink in. “I don’t cry, Thorin. Ever.”
“I know.”
It should surprise me that Thorin’s noticed that, too, but it doesn’t. There isn’t much about me he doesn’t seem to already have a vested interest in. “I don’t think I even know how anymore.”
“I’m not particularly keen on seeing you cry, but it does worry me that you think you can’t.”
“I know I can’t.”
“Maybe you just haven’t had the right motivation.”
I lift a brow. “Are you saying you want to make me cry, Thorin?”
“We could try a few things guaranteed to make you weep,” he suggests in a low voice that makes my toes curl, “but I have a feeling it won’t be your eyes.” Suddenly, it feels like I can’t catch my breath, so I pinch my inner thigh to snap myself out of this Thorin haze I’ve fallen in. “Have I kissed you today, Aurelia George?”
“No. You know, I was wondering about that. I was thinking, ‘What is Thorin Thayer’s problem? All day, I put on the best performance of my life, playing the clueless female and letting him mansplain all the things to me, and still no kiss?’ What gives?”
“Perhaps if you use that mouth for something other than being a smart-ass, it would have occurred to you to kiss me.”
“Meh.”
The grin he flashes is slightly feral before he helps himself to a tight fistful of my curls. “Very well then.”
His lips are poised right above mine when the sudden crackling of the radio startles us both. The garbled voices speaking back and forth interrupt the moment and keep us both frozen like deer in headlights.
“Fuck.”
“What?”
Thorin doesn’t answer me as he tosses the rest of his stew into the snow before snatching mine out of my hand and doing the same. “I’ll have to take a raincheck on that kiss, baby.”
Grabbing my waist, he lifts me off his lap and onto my feet before standing himself and throwing everything back into his pack.
I just stand there in bewilderment and watch him scramble uncharacteristically to erase our presence from the clearing before grabbing both bows and his pack from the ground.
“Come on.” He wraps his hand around my arm as if he’s expecting me to fight him.
