Page 72 of A Match Made in Error

He’s right. We’re in this together.

Before I can reconsider, again, I open my lips and tilt back my head. Cool, viscous syrup runs down my throat, tasting of unspoken truths and melted strawberry candies. It settles in my stomach, coating the nervous, acrid bile bubbling in there with a blanket of the Moirai’s magic.

Now, we wait.

I sit on the edge of the bed. My fingers swirl together like fish chasing one another, something I can also see happening below me. Through the glass floor, I can see two clownfish tailing one another around the edge of an anemone. I wonder if they’re friends. Or enemies. Or pretending to flirt for the benefit of the onlooking starfish and eels.

Pinpricks begin at the tips of my fingers. Is this the potion? Or am I just nervous? Though I’ve made it, believe it or not, I’ve never dosed myself with truth serum, so I have no idea what the effects of it feel like.

Riven is sitting on the floor, playing catch with himself by throwing a wadded-up pair of socks in the air. He looks unaffected.

Until he doesn’t.

He stands, and his posture stiffens, spine snapping ramrod straight like he’s physically fighting the effects of the potion. A crack sounds out as he aggressively rolls his neck, and the sock ball falls untended to the floor as his hands clench into fists at his side. The skin of his cheeks and ears flush with a pink hue, and I watch with my own breath caught in my chest as his pupils dilate and a look of shock contorts his features.

“Oh,” he breathes, hand clutching the fabric over his chest. “That’s…unpleasant.” Riven grits his teeth and sucks in a sharp breath. “I can feel my thoughts trying to escape.” He presses his palms against his temples, shadows crowding around them like they are trying to aid him in keeping his thoughts trapped. “Or maybe they’re rallying against me.” What could he have trapped in his head that he’s so afraid of letting out? I try not to take it personally. I want to be his safe person, and I am; he just doesn’t like to be known. Not wholly.

“Well,” he rasps, a humorless laugh just behind it. “If there is anything you’ve ever wanted to ask me, now is the time. I won’t be able to lie.” I stand, walking gently to him until his hand is in mine and I can lead him to the deck so we both can sit down. A gentle sea breeze ruffles the baby hairs at the nape of my neck, and the salt lingering in the air stings a little when I inhale deeply.

“Fate, help us both,” Riven barks out, shattering the silence between us, looking like discomfort made mortal. “Let’s get this over with already.” He can’t hide right now, and he hates it. For a man who has always been at home in the shadows, being stripped bare in front of another was the worst thing that could happen to him.

I feel the effects of the potion taking over, though I’m not as physically afflicted as Riven is. A warmth starts in my chest and fans out, washing me in a languid state of disarm that begs my tongue to speak of my growing affection for Riven. The thought of it is as scary as it is freeing. Maybe truth wouldn’t be so bad. No, I don’t want to lose him, but, in this moment, harboring that secret for a couple of centuries feels like a sin.

I glance back up and find Riven looking like he’s about to crawl out of his skin. “You can ask the first question.” Maybe that will take the edge off him a little bit.

At this offer, he seems to lock in. His mouth moves without time for much thought. Like the question had already been poised on his lips. “How was your bombshell date?”

A moment of delusional hope that he could have been jealous has my lips tugging up on the left side. “Fine.” I wait a beat, and he literally leans forward in his chair, fingers white-knuckling the edges. He wants to know more. Truth begins to pile up, burning the tip of my tongue in desperation to get out. “Rodrick is more the man for me now than he was all those years ago.” Riven’s Adam’s apple bobs. “Well-traveled, financially stable, done chasing any female who winks at him.” His lips pinch together, and I linger in the warm fantasy that these words are eating him alive before I land the final blow. “And I couldn’t be less interested in him if I tried.” Riven exhales and releases his hold on the chaise. I’m sure he’s just glad I’m not taking that knob back. He’s heard enough stories about that time of my life to know Rodrick was never good for me.

“How was your time with Angora?” Now it’s me who holds their breath.

Luckily, Riven isn’t feeling cruel. His words are swift and final. “I don’t like her.” Immediate. Clean. “I never did, and now, I don’t even want her, and I’m happy she has someone else.”

“No shit.” Even though I knew this, it’s good to hear him say it. I want to be done, but more words are coming. Please stop. But I can’t. “You never fall in love. You fall in lust.”

He winces and then claps his mouth shut, but his lips purse, like the truth is trying to claw out of him and he’s desperate to stop it.

But a word slips out. “Wrong.” His eyes blow out in shock, casting to the side as he tries to unpack whatever truth is coming to him, seemingly for the first time. After a quiet moment of contemplation, he sighs and shakes his head, shaggy locks ruffling in the breeze. His eyes cast up to the heavens, and an exasperated smile graces his lips. “Fuck it.” His chin drops, and once more his piercing gaze is on me. “I think I have been in love before.”

My mouth is dry. He’s never told me this. Maybe he didn’t know until now. Is this why he plays with love and lust? Because he’s already had a great love and now nothing else will even compare?

“I was afraid and stupid, so of course I messed it up.”

The ocean is loud tonight. Not crashing, just…breathing. Long, slow pulls against the coral beneath the bungalow, the tide sliding in and out like the island itself is trying to listen.

Riven’s words still hang between us. I stare at him across the small space between our two chairs and knees, waiting for him to laugh it off. Waiting for that crooked grin that means he’s joking.

But it doesn’t come.

The lantern on the exterior wall flickers in the salt wind, gold light catching in the darker strands of his hair. His elbows rest on his knees, shoulders curved forward, gaze fixed somewhere past the railing where the ocean melts into the dusk.

Like he regrets saying it already. Admittedly, I’ve never seen Riven serious for this long.

My fingers tighten around the stem of the glass I conjure from inside. I need a drink. Something to do with my hands and something to moisten my lips. The condensation is cool and damp against my skin, and as I take a drink, I can feel my pulse in my wrist. In my throat. Everywhere.

Say something. Tease him. Laugh. Break the tension with an irreverent joke at someone else’s expense. That’s how this works between us.

I open my mouth, but nothing comes out.