Page 60 of Quiver

She rolled her eyes. “You’re so juvenile sometimes.”

Kylie grinned. “Come on. This didn’t make you feel a little bit like a teenager again?”

It had. In those moments when Kylie clutched her skin, mouth wet on her shoulder, breath hot in her ear, she’d felt every bit like the seventeen-year-old who learned to love while wrapped in those arms, blissfully unaware of the havoc her naïveté would wreak on her sense of self. That’s what terrified her. She’d sworn she’d never let herself feel such abandon or leave herself so vulnerable with anyone ever again. Especially not this woman. Fletcher was almost desperate now to remind them both of the consequences of their actions and the expiration date on all of them. “Call your director woman.”

Kylie blinked a few times and tilted her head to the side as if she couldn’t make the words compute. “Sophia LeBlanc?”

“Yes.”

She laughed. “I’m honored you have such a high estimation of my social circles, but I don’t exactly have her in my contacts.”

“Then call someone else, an agent or a manager or whatever, but tell her to come to Showcase Day. You’ll graduate with this lesson group.”

“Graduate? Will you parade me across the stage in a little cap and gown? I’m sure she’ll be impressed.”

“Six more weeks, Kylie. I need an end date. No, I need to set it myself. This is my life, my business, my barn. I get to decide, and I say it’s Showcase Day.”

“You’re being silly.”

“No, I’m dead serious. This is your chance. We’re having a competition for you to show off your skills.” She planted her feet as if bracing for the blowback. “We’re putting on a show. That’s your forte. If you want this role, you need to make the most of what you have available, and if you don’t, it’s on you. I’m washing my hands of the whole thing six weeks from today.”

Kylie stared at her, jaw tight, eyes piercing, as if trying to work out a more favorable timetable or option, but she clearly didn’t see one. She walked over and picked up the shirt she’d tossed in the hay, as if finally aware of her own vulnerability. She took her time putting it back on, and then picked a few bits of hay from her arms, presumably while she ran through possibilities in her mind.

Fletcher should’ve known bringing up work would offer the only distraction worthy of holding her attention, and she kicked down a rising tide of disappointment that it had succeeded.

“The timing is close to when Talia expected Sophia to be back in New York, but I can’t just command an audience with one of the most sought-after directors in the world.”

“Then force her hand. Make the offer or ask her to name another time and place. Go back to New York for all I care, but I’m not going with you.”

Kylie scoffed. “No, I know better than to expect any such concession from you.”

She bit her tongue to keep from taking the bait, and Kylie shifted uneasily in the silence.

“I’ll propose it.” She shrugged. “It doesn’t sound like I have much choice in the matter.”

“I know the feeling.”

“I do, too.” The sharp edge returned to Kylie’s voice. “It’s been my constant companion for quite some time. You clearly have a story in your head about what happened between us, and some lofty image of my life since then, but you’re wrong.”

“Whatever.” She didn’t want to hear any more and started for the ladder.

Only Kylie didn’t intend to stop until she’d had her say. “You’re wrong about all of it, Fletcher, and what happened here today, whatever narrative you’re writing right now, you’re wrong about that, too.”

She wasn’t. She couldn’t be, and what’s more, she couldn’t let Kylie turn her around again, so she started working her way back down to solid ground one rung at a time. “You can think what you want. I don’t care. I learned my lessons.”

Kylie stayed up top, staring down at her until her boots hit the dirt before calling down. “We learned a lot of things together, Fletch. What if you’re clinging to the wrong ones?”

She walked away. She couldn’t be pulled back, not now, not ever again, but that didn’t keep her from worrying that if there was more to learn from Kylie, she might not survive this time around.

Kylie sat in her car around the corner from her childhood home, watching fat snowflakes fall on the windshield. She didn’t want to see anyone right now, especially her parents. Not with her clothes rumpled, her body languid and freshly sated, but her mind jumbled discordantly. She wasn’t even sure she could make sense of everything that’d happened, much less form sentences coherent enough for someone else to comprehend.

She’d have to wait here until her family went out for their usual Saturday evening cocktails with the Collinses, or sneak into the house. She’d done so plenty of times as a teenager, but no matter how she’d behaved in the hayloft this afternoon, she didn’t have it in her to crawl through her bedroom window anymore.

Her hands trembled as memories rose to haunt her, ones from the days she didn’t want to repeat, and the nights she just had.

“Damn it.” She slammed her palm onto the steering wheel. It wasn’t that she regretted what’d happened or her role in it so much as she wanted to scream at Fletcher’s reaction. The ultimate power play was to remain unaffected. No matter what Kylie had done or reduced her to, nothing changed. How could that be? After ravishing each other to the point where the earth seemed to tilt on its axis for a few breathtaking minutes, all Fletcher could think about in the end was, well, the end.

As she stared out the increasingly snow-covered windows, she tried to hold the tide of emotions at bay. She’d never gotten better at facing rejection, not the ones from years ago or the one from earlier this afternoon. She had to look ahead, no matter how many things threatened to pull her back. Back to Fletcher’s mouth on hers, back to days when what they’d done came easy and without consequences, back to the moment when Fletcher had pulled away—or rather all moments, because it had happened so many times.