Page 30 of Quiver

Gabrielle startled, kicking into a high step and tossing her mane. Fletcher wheeled her around and leveled that intense focus on Kylie. Her dark eyes had gone wide with surprise, but still blazed with intensity. “What are you doing here?”

She didn’t know the answer to the question any longer. She remembered vaguely why she’d come early and what she’d intended to do, but now something deeper and stronger rose up to suggest there might be more. Maybe there’d always been more. “I’m not sure.”

Fletcher lowered her bow enough to take up the reins, and gently guided Gabrielle to a stop, so that she towered over Kylie. “I told you not to come before nine.”

“I know.”

She waited as if wanting more, but ‘more’ was too big a concept for Kylie to process, much less articulate now. Her body still overpowered her brain, heightened from the prowess of the performance and complicated by Fletcher’s powerful proximity.

“You can’t show up here whenever you want.”

She nodded, agreeing for the first time. “No more surprises.”

Fletcher’s brow furrowed.

“It’s not good for either of us,” Kylie said, more for herself. “We have to do better.”

“I’m doing fine.”

“We’re not,” she said without any force. “It’s been a week and we’re still playing games.”

“I have a method.”

“And you’re wielding it like an electric shock collar, but it’s not who you are.”

“You don’t know who I am anymore, and the fact that you keep making these assertions based on data you collected when we were barely more than kids—”

“Fair.” Kylie cut her off before her anger picked up steam. “We’re not teenagers, but we’re acting like them, only with bigger vocabularies and shittier attitudes.”

The corner of Fletcher’s lips twitched up. “I don’t know. You had a pretty shitty attitude back then.”

“Also fair. And maybe I’ve reverted to that because sometimes when you look at me, I still feel like I’m seventeen.”

Fletcher shifted in the saddle, causing it to creak. “I may’ve felt twenty-two a couple times.”

The age difference wasn’t lost on her. She’d chosen the age when they were closest, and Fletcher had picked the one where they’d fallen apart.

“We have to do better, and believe me, I know a huge part of that work is on me. I’ve had my guard up every bit as much as you. Honestly, I came here to undercut your authority today, and it’s not a helpful impulse, but you haven’t exactly been forthright or magnanimous in your teaching style.”

Fletcher shrugged. “There’s a process, and you haven’t exactly hopped on board.”

“Fine, but I’ve also seen you move along seven-year-olds faster than me.”

She nodded, a grudging sort of admission. “Seven-year-olds don’t usually get under my skin as much as you, and don’t pretend you haven’t been trying to.”

“I can’t seem to help myself,” she admitted with only a hint of chagrin. “I don’t know any other way to be with you, but we to have to learn. We need the same thing here.”

“I don’t need anything.”

“You need me to be successful for a myriad of reasons, maybe not as badly as I do, but if this doesn’t work, we might end up strangling each other, if not in the moment, in the long run.”

Fletcher glanced at the rafters for a long second before she sighed. “I’m not going to roll over for you.”

“I’m not asking you to. Seriously, all the other stuff aside, what I just saw you do, you’re … I respect that so much. More than respect, I’m in awe. I’m asking you to work with me.”

“Then you have to work with me.”

“I want to try.”