Hold Me Close - Talia Hibbert Page 0,66

you what was going on, and you very helpfully told them to fuck off.”

“Something like that.”

Ruth still remembered the raw panic of waking to find Mum pacing the room, biting her nails, looking worried for the first time in her life. Still remembered the words, “Your sister has been arrested”. Still remembered the acidic fear, the cotton-thick confusion, the regret. The guilt.

“My sisters was arrested and all anyone could ask me about was Daniel,” she growled, that memory still sour. “I didn’t give a fuck about him or about petty gossip. Then Hayley called and accused me of all this shit so I just… I just said, ‘Yeah, sure. That sounds right.’ And I put the phone down.”

Evan was quiet for a moment, and she waited, enjoying the way he held her. Casually, thoughtlessly, his fingers still tracing over her back. Like this kind of intimacy was normal.

“So,” he said, “that’s where all these rumours come from? About you sleeping with half the town?”

“Oh, no,” she said. “I actually did that.”

“What?!” he spluttered. Then he laughed. “Are you serious?”

“I mean… I did tell you upfront.”

“I thought you were just being weird!”

She raised her brows at him. “Why would you think that?”

“Well, based on how long it took us to get here…” His smile was rueful.

“It wasn’t like this,” she admitted. “It was more like, everyone assumed I was easy because of the thing with Daniel, so guys started asking me out. And I…” She sighed. “I’d only ever been with him. And I hadn’t enjoyed it, and he made me feel weird and fucked up and kind of gross, so I thought, I’ll sleep with someone else and that will fix it, but it didn’t, exactly—so I kept going. And by the time I realised nothing would fix it—well. This is a small town.”

Evan rose up on his elbows, bent to press a kiss against her hair. “I’m sorry, love.”

It was sounding too much like a tragedy for Ruth’s liking, so she added, “People do exaggerate, though. It was only, like, fifteen guys.”

“That’s disappointing,” Evan said dryly. “People act like you slept with a Roman legion. You act like you slept with a Roman legion.”

Ruth sighed. “Okay. You caught me. I have not slept with 5000 men. Yet.”

“Shocker.”

“Rude!”

“I’m sure you could,” he said, his voice teasing. “If you really wanted to. Live your dreams, and all that.”

“I appreciate the support.”

“You’re welcome. But, while we’re on the subject, I’d actually rather you stuck with me.”

She smiled. It was an involuntary smile, an overflowing of the steady warmth that his presence sparked inside her chest. “Oh, you would?”

“Yeah. What do you think about that?”

“I think that sounds just fine.” She pressed a kiss to his chest and was momentarily embarrassed by the hint of affection. Then she decided that revelling in mushy feelings was much more fun than being embarrassed and kissed his chest again.

And then, because her orgasm had clearly fried her brain, she murmured, “Does that mean you’re my boyfriend, or…?”

He burst out laughing. “Yes, Ruth. Just so we’re very, very clear—” He wrapped an arm around her waist, dragging her up his body until they were nose to nose. “I’m your boyfriend.” He kissed her gently, and she felt a flicker of warmth in her heart that was as soft as his lips.

“Good,” she whispered. She felt slightly conscious of the fact that all her weight was on him now, but when she tried to move, he held her tighter.

Then he said, “Does it upset you?”

He could’ve been talking about anything, considering the conversation they’d just had. But she knew, because she knew him, that all he really wanted was to make her talk. And recently, she’d been feeling the urge to do so more and more.

“Lots of things upset me,” she said slowly. “Like the fact that Hannah made a bad decision on my behalf, and she’s the one who has to deal with it. The fact that people I grew up with won’t even speak to me anymore. Mostly, what upsets me is the fact that… So many people mistreated me, still mistreat me, and I didn’t feel like it was worth fighting back.”

Ruth’s words sped up as she spoke, thoughts and feelings she’d been struggling to identify suddenly seeming obvious. It was as if the act of speech cleared the murky waters of her mind, finally allowed her to see herself.

“I felt like I should be punished,” she admitted. “For everything. So I stayed inside instead