Raven's Return - Ruby Dixon Page 0,82

declining. "Already ate. Been up for hours."

"Everything…okay?"

"Is it ever?" She gives me a faint smile, then hugs her knees to her chest, staring at the fire.

Did she…come over here just to feed me? I continue eating, not entirely sure what to say to her. My thoughts wander back to U'dron—they always do—and I hope wherever he is this morning, he's eating well and he's warm. I hope he's not injured or in pain, and the thought of that makes my stomach churn. The gruel loses its taste and I set the bowl aside, unable to stomach more. "Thanks for bringing this stuff by for me. I appreciate it."

"Of course, Raven—" Bridget cuts herself off and looks over at me. "Should I call you 'Louise' instead of Raven?"

I grimace. "Please don't. No one calls me Louise. Raven is just fine." I answer to it easily and I prefer to leave “Louise” behind on Earth. "So what brings you over here?"

Bridget is silent for a long moment, and I wonder if she expects me to pry the information out of her. Eventually she looks over at me, and her expression is miserable. "It's A'tam."

Ah fuck. Did that big idiot mess up already? To think I wasted my time talking to him about how he needed to take a different approach with Bridget—to actually really get to know her—and he already screwed the pooch. Why did I bother? "What did he do now?"

She blinks in surprise at my response. "He…nothing…he didn't do anything. I'm just sad because I feel like I'm losing him."

I want to point out that A'tam was here just yesterday asking about Bridget, but I also promised him I wouldn't say anything. Instead, we talked about ways he could get to know her. To romance her properly if he really wanted her. I'm guessing the plan hasn't been put into action yet. "Can I just say if you lose a man that easily, he wasn't ever really yours?"

"Daisy's just so pretty, you know? And perfect." Her mouth trembles and her eyes grow suspiciously shiny. "He's going to fall in love with her, I know it."

"Have you tried talking to him about this?" I already know the answer, but the common sense in me has to ask it anyhow. And when Bridget shakes her head I'm not surprised. "Talking to one another is one of the big things in a relationship, I hear," I say dryly.

She lifts her hands, staring at them. "We've just…we've always been at angles, you know? Ever since he arrived." She forms a right angle with her hands and clashes them together. "We're like oil and water and yet I can't get him out of my head."

"You weren't always like oil and water," I point out. "You slept with him so he must have done something right."

Bridget lets out a bitter laugh. "I thought it'd just be casual sex. Hook up and have fun while the world is burning down around my ears, you know? Except…I'm still here, nothing's burned down, and it doesn't seem like the sex was all that casual."

"But it sucked, right? The sex?"

She nods.

"Did you tell him it sucked? Did you point out it was awful and you weren't having fun?"

She shakes her head and stares at the fire. "I didn't want to hurt his feelings. Stupid, right? But it also didn't make me want to have sex with him again. His equipment's too big. It's no fun."

"Mmmm." What do I say to that? In my experience, there's no such thing as too big. You can always have SOME fun. But Bridget seems like she has some issues, and I wonder if there's more going on than she lets on. "But you still want him."

With an anxious twisting of her hands, Bridget sighs. "It's just…when there's no sex involved and we talk, he's…nice. Sweet. He makes me laugh. And I can't stop thinking about him, so I wonder if I'm the problem."

What the hell am I supposed to say to that? She's the problem as much as A'tam is. He's overenthusiastic and Bridget doesn't communicate. They're a bad combination and yet they can't seem to get enough of each other. "So…you brought me breakfast because you wanted to talk about A'tam?"

She gives me a sheepish look. "Actually I wanted your help."

My eyebrows go up. "My help?" This is starting to sound suspiciously like A'tam when he showed up yesterday demanding my help, too.

"Yeah." She fiddles with a lock of her hair, uncomfortable. "You're