Raid - By Kristen Ashley Page 0,42

that led you to being that despite having a massive dick for a Dad.”

I made my stupid speech and shut up.

Only then did I feel the room and fully take in the look on his face.

Both made me take a step back, because the former was pressing on me like a weight I instinctively felt I had to escape, and the latter was reeling me in on a lure so strong it was a wonder I didn’t fly across the room and into his arms.

The intensity of both scared the heck out of me.

“You need, right now, to walk down to your car, Hanna,” he told me.

That was so weird, I stammered, “I… sorry?”

“I’ll be there in a minute.”

“But—”

The air in the room got heavier right before he ordered, “Go, Hanna. You don’t, we won’t. Do you understand me?”

I didn’t, not fully.

What I did understand was that I needed to walk down to my car.

So I gave him one long, last look, memorizing the look he was giving me and the way it made me feel: terrified, but at the same time warm and happy.

Then I walked across his crazy pad and unlocked the door, moved through it and descended the steps to get to my car.

* * * * *

Two hours later…

I woke up when my pillow started shaking.

When I did, I saw I was in church and had my head on the navy blue fabric of Raiden’s suit-jacketed shoulder.

A Raiden who was silently laughing.

I bolted straight.

“Sweet Jesus, forgive her,” Grams, who was sitting on the other side of me, murmured to the ceiling. “Pastor Wright’s sermon is far from inspiring, you hear that, Lord, but still. My precious girl’s got better manners.”

At this point Raiden’s body started shaking so hard the pew started shaking and people started staring.

I turned to him and hissed under my breath, “Stop laughing,” to which he kept shaking but raised his brows at me.

I gave up on him and turned to Grams.

“We went to the double feature last night, Grams,” I explained on a semi-fib in a low voice, doing this out of the corner of my mouth.

“My recollection, it was a triple,” Raiden muttered. I turned to him and shouted, Shut up! But did it just with my eyes.

Raiden took this in, and of course it made him swallow down an audible grunt of hilarity.

I rolled my eyes to the ceiling and asked for forgiveness for a variety of things.

“Mm-hmm,” Grams mumbled noncommittally.

“Shh!” Mrs. McGuillicutty, sitting down from Raiden, shushed us.

Loudly.

So loudly, Pastor Wright’s eyes came to our pew and narrowed, though he didn’t miss a word of his sermon.

I looked at my hands that I was folding in my lap and felt about eight years old.

“Shush yourself, Margaret,” Grams shot back. A Grams, I’ll add, who often acted eight years old, and now was clearly going to be one of those times. “God likes laughter,” she finished.

“Grams, let it go,” I told my lap.

“Some of us are trying to listen,” Mrs. McGuillicutty snapped.

“Then listen and keep your nose outta other people’s business,” Grams returned.

I turned my head and bent into her. “Please, Grams, just let it go.”

Grams settled back on a wiggle, grumbling, “Shushing my granddaughter. Who does she think she is?”

Not one ever to leave the last word, or in all honesty to be nice most of the time, Margaret McGuillicutty didn’t let it go either.

“I’m a churchgoing woman who wants to listen to the sermon,” she retorted to Grams.

I was too exhausted and riding a high of being with Raiden to do anything about it, but I just knew when Grams chose that pew and Mrs. McGuillicutty was in it that we should have found an alternate seating arrangement.

I was right.

Grams leaned across me to say to Mrs. McGuillicutty, “No one’s stopping you but you.”

“And perhaps our choir can have all of your attention as they sing their next hymn,” Pastor Wright suggested into his microphone, but the comment was clearly directed at us since he was staring straight at us. I knew he loved Grams and me (Mrs. McGuillicutty was up for debate), but he didn’t look all that happy.

Raiden lifted an arm and wrapped it around my shoulders. He tucked me tight to his side and dropped his lips to my ear.

“Let ‘em battle it out. You’re just makin’ it worse.”

I clamped my mouth shut and my eyes on the choir.

Grams and Mrs. McGuillicutty exchanged a few more barbs before Grams sat back, muttering, “I love this