Still (For The Inkslingers.)

Devon felt the hand on her shoulder as the bus shuddered to a stop, and she slowly raised her head from the window she’d been using as a pillow. She’d been traveling for over twenty-four hours, although she’d checked into a hotel for an hour to take a hot shower after her flight, and this was the first time she’d slept. Her flight from Boston had been delayed, then canceled altogether, and by the time she’d finally landed in London, the last thing she wanted to do was take a train to north fucking Yorkshire, but here she was.

She peered out the window at the rain-slicked sidewalk below and dragged her sleeve across the drool she felt on her cheek. “Wait, this isn’t Doncaster, is it?” She felt panic flutter in her chest as she glanced up at the driver and shoved her hands into her coat pockets for her phone. “I’m supposed to get off in Leeds. That’s miles away.”

“Aye, it’s Donny alright. It’s also the last stop, love.” He nodded toward the front of the bus, and Devon suddenly realized that she was the only person still on it. “This line doesn’t go through to Leeds on Sunday.”

She nodded, shoving the leather strap of her bag over her shoulder as she stood. He stepped aside to let her pass, and her heart sank as she got to the open bus door. The brittle winter air snapped against her skin as she stepped onto the sidewalk, diesel fumes settling around her as she pulled her phone from her coat pocket. The screen was black. She closed her eyes and dropped it back down into her coat. She’d fallen asleep and forgotten to plug it in on the bus.

A jostling group of four teenage boys in stained tracksuits passed her on the sidewalk, and every one of them turned to look at her for a moment too long before shuffling away. Only a couple of shops had enough light to see into them, and Devon pressed her forehead against the icy glass of a jewelry store until she found a clock on the back wall—nearly midnight. Fantastic. That meant the cabs had stopped running an hour ago, and without a phone, finding a place to stay would be almost impossible.

But standing on the street looking like a clueless tourist wasn’t an option either. Doncaster was a typical northern British industrial town, not outstanding in any respect except for the constant spikes in violent crime compared to the quaint villages surrounding it. She knew this because she’d grown up here. Just two streets down and a couple of dark alleys away from where she was standing now. She’d gone to University in Boston, stayed for graduate school, and never left. She had a life there now, such as it was, and the only thing that could bring her back to the dull gray expanse of Doncaster was the funeral that weekend for her grandmother Pearl.

Her plan had been to stay in Leeds, a more upscale city a short drive from Doncaster, then rent a car and drive down for the day. She’d pay her respects, then get the fuck back to Boston before the stench of cheap chip shops and petrol on wet concrete settled into her pores again. It wasn’t that she hated it, sometimes her heart ached to be home, but it was complicated.

She crossed the road to the other side when she saw the lads in tracksuits round the corner. Fucking Chavs. Chav was Doncaster slang for aimless teenagers in sports gear hanging about and smoking, and it sprang to mind immediately even though she hadn’t heard it since she left. She looked straight ahead, ignoring the braver of the group that had stepped into the street toward her, and shouted, “Oi, oi! Ya alreet luv? Lookin’ fer summat?” Grabbing his crotch left no doubt as to the meaning, but she’d gotten that the second he opened his mouth.

The Donny accent had never really left her. She’d worked with an American speech therapist during graduate school to shave the edges of hers to a somewhat posher London lilt which was suggested more than once by her professors during her first year. Nothing shouted working class like a Doncaster accent, and she didn’t slog through eight years of postgraduate study to sound like a Chav slag from the wrong side of the country, so she tried. But something about it never clicked, not really.

A dim light from behind a bar glowed just beyond an icy window to her right, she slowed, and her hand was on the door handle before she thought the better of it. It was open. She took a halting step inside and stopped, listening for any sign of someone there, but everything was dark and silent, except for a few amber lights illuminating the bar shelves along the back wall. She dropped her bag off her shoulder, dug out her charger, and scanned the walls for an outlet. She found one beside the fireplace and plugged in her phone, tucking it just out of sight behind a worn church pew along the wall.

She’d only need about ten minutes of power to charge her phone enough to find a hotel and get walking directions. Devon sank onto the pew, pulling off her gloves and tucking them into a coat pocket. Her eyes slowly adjusted to the light, and a single glance around the room reminded her that she knew this pub. The memories came back in a cold, crowded rush. It was just down from her secondary school, so she’d celebrated getting the results of her A Levels here, made out with a boy in the toilets at some point, and spent countless hours giggling in the corners with her friends, drinking alcopops and flirting. Well, they were flirting. The experience in the toilets when she was too young to be there had taught her it wasn’t the boys she was interested in.

A distant thud from the hallway beyond the bar jolted her back to the present, and she stood, leaving her phone where it was. The least she should do is let the owner know she was there and ask permission to use the outlet she was already plugged into. She walked past the bar and into the hall behind, almost toppling a stack of Walker’s Prawn Cocktail crisps.

Jesus. Who even eats those? She set them back against the wall and heard footsteps that sounded below her, which didn’t make sense because the pub was on the ground floor. She rounded the corner of the hall and saw an open, scarred wood door with antique iron hardware. A look around the doorframe told her it was the rathskeller, the sunken stone room that houses kegs of beer and racks of backup spirits. This one was kitted out more nicely than usual, with a couch in the corner, a cracked fireplace along the back wall, and a desk against the wall. Kegs in various states of disarray littered the floor and she stepped inside, one hand still on the door.

“We’re closed, Max.” Devon turned towards bottles clinking behind one of the storage racks. “Just fuck off home fer once before I slap that Scottish DNA out of ya. You won’t even have an accent left when I’m done with you.”

Devon almost laughed and stopped herself just in time. “Sorry, I just—”

“Mate.” Devon heard a bottle thunk a little too loud onto a shelf, followed by footsteps. “I’m not in the mood for this.”  Someone tall in black jeans and a vintage Oasis t-shirt stepped around the corner, pulling wild waves of hair into a knot at the back of their head. “Oi, ya know I have to get these kegs changed or—”

Devon’s smile faded and her breath shuddered to a stop in her chest.

Flynn Bishop shoved her hands in the back pockets of her jeans and stepped slowly back, eyes burning with intensity. She didn’t speak, and neither touched the history shimmering between them like a mirage.

Devon just managed to draw a breath, but it thickened and wedged into her throat. Flynn looked the same, powerful and brittle around the edges. Broad shoulders, soft eyes, and a stance like a felon. That voice, the one that sounded like the scrape of charred wood, filled the room.
“Did you come back for the knife you left in my back?”

Devon started to speak, her eyes locked onto Flynn’s. She started, stopped, then forced herself to focus. “Bloody hell. Thirteen years.” The words came out in a whisper, and she cleared her throat, wishing she could look elsewhere. Anywhere else. “I—I can’t believe it’s you.”
Flynn said nothing, just stroked one palm with the angular fingers of her other hand, gaze unwavering. Devon turned toward the door, her hand still on the latch when she noticed her sleeve was caught in the hardware. She tried to jerk it out and the door banged shut with a woosh, the force knocking her off balance. The sleeve ripped free, and she fell backward into Flynn’s arms, who carried her down the stairs and told her to sit on one of the empty barrels. Devon did not.

“Devon.” Flynn almost smiled, then shifted her face back into neutral, her voice dropping to a deep rumble Devon remembered like her own heartbeat. “When I tell you to sit, I want you to sit.”

“You’ve forgotten I’m not sixteen anymore.” Devon tucked the torn edge of her sleeve under the cuff of her coat. “I’m just on my way out.” She paused. “I had no idea you were even here. I just came back here because I heard a noise, and I thought—”

Flynn just stepped back, clearing the way for her to reach the stairs. Devon felt her gaze settle on the back of her neck as she tried to turn the latch. Nothing. Just the cold iron lock firmly clicked into place.

“Do you have a key?”

“Sure.” Flynn rubbed her temples with slow fingertips, staring at the lock. “Upstairs. On my keyring.” She shook her head, turning in place, as if looking for the windows that didn’t exist underground. “Please tell me you have a phone on you.”

Devon’s eyes widened, and she heard her voice crack as she turned back around on the steps to face Flynn. “You don’t?”
“If I did, I wouldn’t be interested in yours, would I?”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” Devon squeezed her eyes shut and narrowly resisted the urge to scream. “You not telling me we’re stuck in here?”
Flynn didn’t answer, just picked up the black Adidas track jacket folded over one of the barrels, then sunk into the leather couch along the back stone wall of the room. She leaned back and stared at the ceiling, both fists pressed against her forehead.

“Flynn, I can’t spend the night down here. The funeral is tomorrow at noon, and I have shit to do.” Devon leaned back against the door and unwound the scarf from around her neck. “God knows my sister will be enough to deal with, and mum…”

“Died. I know.” Flynn finally met Devon’s eyes, her voice softer when she spoke again. “I’m so sorry. I heard the funeral was in Derry?”

Devon nodded. She and her sister Emer had been raised only by their mother, and when she died, they’d had the funeral in her hometown of Derry, Northern Ireland. Devon had just graduated from Boston University the day before when she got the call. She’d been packing up her things to move to her first apartment in town. They both knew their mum had been poorly, but no one could have predicted the massive stroke that had killed her in less than a minute. Her sister had called her dorm room that night and told Devon that their mum was dead and she needed to come home in the same flat tone that one might use at a customer service desk. Then she hung up. Devon could still hear the hollow ping of the dial tone and the scrape of cheap carpet on her knees as she sank to the floor and frantically called her sister back. She didn’t pick up.

The funeral was a blur. Emer had ignored her, well, everyone really, busying herself with everything but mourning their mother. They’d been close as kids, but after school, Emer had married into a posh family and moved to London. Her sister had become a liability, a reminder of Doncaster and the shared past she was desperate to erase. Devon left to fly back to Boston an hour after the funeral and they hadn’t spoken since.

“It’s okay.” Devon looked back at the lock to hide the tears burning the fuck out of her eyes. “It’s been a long time now.”

“Yeah.” The silence was dense. Flynn waited until Devon met her gaze. “I don’t think that matters.”

Devon walked over to the couch and sat on the opposite end. Tension hung in the air between them like drifting temple incense. She knew the worse thing she could possibly do in this moment was to bring it up. The thing that never happened. She pressed her fingers to her temples and watched her words scatter across the concrete floor before she could catch them. “I need to see it. I can’t explain why.”

Devon saw that Flynn knew what she meant. She didn’t answer.

“Are you just never going to talk to me about what happened?” Devon turned and stared into the empty, crumbling fireplace on the opposite wall. She was inexplicably frustrated, the red-hot intensity of it suddenly crushing. “That’s your plan?”

Flynn stood, every muscle in her back visibly tensed, and raked a hand through her hair as she walked over to the liquor storage shelves. Devon watched her profile as she turned toward them, the muscles in her jaw clenched like an iron lock against what she wanted to say. She tried again.

“Flynn, you can’t just—”

Flynn picked up a bottle of vodka from the end of the row and swung it like a bat, smashing every other bottle on the shelf into flying shards of glass in a single second. The sound reverberated off the stone walls, then fell sharply to the floor, melting into the river of vapor and alcohol pooling around Flynn’s feet. She placed the remnants of the shattered bottle on the now-empty shelf and turned around, her jaw tight and flexing.

“You don’t get to question how I handled that night.” She scraped the back of her hand across her cheek and locked her gaze on Devon. “You were the only person I wanted to see at the hospital, the only person that could’ve make everything better, and you never came to see me.” She held Devon’s gaze, and silence dropped between them. “You never came.”

Devon’s head sank into her hands and leaned forward, her elbows on her knees. She felt suddenly like she might be sick. The memories rushed around her, as if she were trapped in black water beneath a cracked layer of ice. There was no escape. She’d opened her mouth like an idiot, and now the images she’d steeled herself against since that night were everywhere.

They’d been parked in Flynn’s car behind a pub at the edge of town. The windows were painted with rivulets of steam, her shirt discarded on the back seat. Flynn was bare to the waist, her jeans undone, and the moment before it happened, she’d slid her hand under Devon’s skirt and then inside her. Devon didn’t remember much after that, but her body remembered; being dragged backward out of the car, her shoulder skidding onto the asphalt below, gravel sticking to the blood flowing down her arm…the jarring replays stayed on a loop in her nightmares. The rest was a blur, punctuated over the years with disconnected flashes of clarity. Being yanked to her feet by one arm. Four men in Doncaster Rovers football jerseys, but she couldn’t see their faces. The one gripping her arm had shoved her against the car and sprinted to the driver’s side, where they formed a circle around Flynn, who was bleeding on the asphalt.

“I can’t think about it.” Grief cracked Devon’s voice with the force of thunder, and a tear dripped off her chin before she realized she was crying. “I’ve tried for years, but every time I did—” Her voice shook from a place from still deep inside the moment. “I felt like I didn’t want to live anymore.”

Devon closed her eyes tight against the memory of Flynn’s face. Her breath crystalizing instantly in the winter air and viscous black blood dripping into her eyes from the gash on the side of her head. Flynn held Devon’s gaze long enough to mouth one soundless word. Run.

Devon dropped her head into her hands and sat forward on the couch. An acrid mist of vodka from the shattered bottles hung in the air, settling silently into her skin. The faint wail of a car alarm ricocheted through the alley outside and the realization that Flynn hated her pressed Devon’s shoulders toward the floor like a physical weight. After that night, Devon had never spoken to Flynn, and she’d even completed the last of her exams for that last school term after hours. Two days later, she left for university in the States. She also hadn’t lived a day in the thirteen years since without those images flashing behind her eyes, making every cell in her body long to run again. But there was nowhere to hide.
She flinched when Flynn sat down next to her on the couch. After a moment she pulled Devon into her arms, leaned them both back into the sofa, and held her until her shoulders stopped shaking and there was room in her chest to draw a single breath.

“Why are you comforting me?” Devon whispered the words into the damp shoulder of Flynn’s shirt. She sat up, swiping at her cheek too hard with the heel of her hand. “You’re right to hate me. I should have been there.”

Flynn held her eyes and reached out, tracing a finger down Devon’s jawline, brushing her bottom lip with her thumb before she let her hand drop. “I can’t imagine how hard it was for you, too. Your mum told me years later that you didn’t stop crying for weeks.”

Devon looked down. She’d curled her hand into a fist at some point and the nails had dug into her palm, leaving white welts and a soft smear of blood.

“It happened to both of us. Not just me.” Flynn turned Devon’s hand over and kissed her palm, stopping to make sure the cut didn’t need attention before she stood.

Devon caught the last of her tears with the heel of her hand and looked up. “Where are you going?”

“Not far.” Flynn glanced at the door and winked. “I think we’ve established that.”

Flynn returned with a bottle of water and two shot glasses. “Sorry, the water isn’t cold.” She pulled a bottle of Devon’s favorite single malt from underneath her arm and cracked it open, pouring them both a shot. “But I don’t usually serve down here.”

Devon picked up her shot glass. “What are we drinking to, then?”

“Well, you’re stuck with me this time till morning whether you like it or not.” Flynn smiled, glancing toward the door. “So let’s drink to …karma.”

The scotch went down like amber silk, and Devon clinked her glass down on the bench serving as a coffee table in front of the couch with a wince. She watched Flynn toss hers back with no change of expression, then fill both glasses again.

“Goddamn.” The whisper was out before Devon thought the better of it. Flynn raised an eyebrow and waited. “Sorry. I just forgot how sexy it is when you throw back a shot like its water.”

“Well, I’m not an amateur.” Flynn smiled, pulling the hair tie out of the knot of hair at the back of her head. “Nor am I the Americans you’re used to now, which is much the same, to be fair.” She pulled her hair over one shoulder. It was wild, windblown in a still room, and somehow only made her look more masculine. Devon closed her eyes against the sudden memory of how that hair used to brush her back when Flynn was fucking her from behind, gripping one shoulder and leaning into the back of her neck as she came. Flynn’s voice jerked her back into the present and Devon realized she’d just said something.
“Sorry, say that again?”

“I just said It wouldn’t do to own pubs in Doncaster and not know how to sink a shot.”
“You own this place?”

“Aye, and two more. If there’s one thing we know about people in Donny, it’s that they will spend money at the pub, even if the world is ending. Maybe especially then.” She smiled, handing Devon her glass. “So, I considered it a low-risk investment. And I was correct.”

Devon smiled. She was stuck in a pub with an ex who hated her, yet strangely, a weight was lifting slowly off her heart. Just enough to remind her how heavy it used to be.

“Devon?”

She shook the thought away and looked up.

Flynn smiled, touching her knee to Devon’s. “I asked you what you do. Like for a job.”

“Right.” Devon clinked her glass to Flynn’s and tossed it back, taking a long sip of water afterward to ease the burn. “I’m a psychologist specializing in marriage counseling and conflict resolution.”

Flynn looked at her as if she thought Devon might be kidding, but she met Flynn’s gaze until it was clear she was not.

“Wow.” Flynn shook her head and reached for her bottle of water. She leaned back into the sofa and downed half of it before she went on. “I did not see that coming.”

“I don’t think anyone did. Mum never even finished school.”
“And are you happy?”

“What?” Devon paused. “You mean doing what I do?”

Flynn nodded, crossing one black boot across the opposite knee, a single fingertip tracing the steel rivets along the top.

Devon hesitated. It was one of the moments where you could give the stock answer you’ve always given or tell the truth. She opted for the latter.

“I hate it.” Flynn’s sudden laughter made her laugh too, and she shook her head. “Not the work itself; I love that. It’s more—” She looked at the ceiling, trying to find the words that didn’t sound as bad as the truth. “It’s more the people. Or Boston in general maybe. My practice is in a very affluent area, so my clientele is…challenging. Maybe especially for a Doncaster girl.”

Flynn smiled. “So, out of touch and entitled beyond belief?”
“Exactly.” She smiled, turning the glass in her hand before she tipped it back onto the table. “Most of them have everything. Literally everything. But they’re still so wrapped up in their own egos that they aren’t really living; it’s all going to waste.”

“No similarities between Doncaster and Boston, then?”

“Zero.” She listened to her natural accent claw its way to the surface as she spoke, maybe against her will, maybe not. Or maybe she’d been so busy running from everything that reminded her of home that she’d never considered the alternative.

Flynn walked over to the fireplace and pulled a box of matches off the mantle. “Fancy seeing if we can get this beast fired up? I had the chimneys swept not long ago, and I use this fireplace occasionally to keep the pipes from freezing, so it should be fine. It’ll get colder before morning if we’re stuck here for the night, and my day shift staff don’t get here until about nine in the morning.” She pulled some logs stacked in a wall cubby on one side and laid them by the hearth.

Devon stood and shrugged off her coat, the whiskey beginning to warm her from the inside out. “You want me to do that, don’t you?”
“Listen, my delicate ego is not threatened by the fact that I can’t light a fire in a burning church.” Flynn spun the matchbook through her fingers and tossed it to Devon. “Never could, never will.”

Flynn found some packing blankets in storage to spread out in front of the hearth, and Devon got a roaring fire burning that bathed the stone walls in molten gold light. They dug into the crisp boxes and found Devon’s favorite, Tayto roast beef and mustard, and opened a bottle of wine. Flynn managed to find a single promotional brandy snifter to pour it into and they passed it back and forth between them.

Devon smiled, rubbing her eye with the heel of her hand. “I can still smell the vodka.”

“I think people in Scotland right now can probably smell that vodka.” Flynn laughed, turning the wineglass by the stem in the firelight, watching the flames illuminate the Syrah from deep ruby to sheer red at the edges. “It felt pretty good, though. I probably should have done that years ago.” She paused, her eyes soft, and set the glass on the hearth. She seemed to hesitate, and it was a moment before she turned back to Devon. “Give me your hand.”

Devon let Flynn guide her hand under her shirt and up to the curve of her shoulder. Flynn let her hand drop as Devon’s gentle fingers found the scar. “How did you know I had that scar?”
“I called the hospital. I just told them I was your sister.” Devon’s voice cracked and she let her hand drop to Flynn’s thigh. “I called every day.”

Flynn leaned forward and tossed another log onto the fire, sending a shower of red-gold sparks chasing each other up the blackened chimney. “I never knew that.” She leaned back on one hand and the room suddenly fell still, as if it, too, were listening.

“Flynn,” Devon’s eyes fluttered shut as she tried to wrap words around the truth she’d been avoiding since the day it happened. “I only forced myself to stay away because what happened was my fault. Everything was my fault.” Silence settled between them, and Devon took a long sip of the wine before she handed the glass back to Flynn. “The lads that did it were Rover players, and I’d turned one of the team down at the pub the night before. I told him I was there with my girlfriend, and he didn’t take it well. He and his mates stared at you for the rest of the night.”

“Fucking hell.” Flynn covered Devon’s icy hand with her own. Her long fingers now had random scars that marked them like faded creases and marks on a map. “Did you see him when we were attacked?”

“No. I wasn’t looking at anything but you. But I knew that if any of them saw us together again, it wouldn’t stop. And I couldn’t take that chance.” Her voice caught. “I couldn’t let you get hurt again.”

Flynn stared into the flames. “—And you knew if you told me, I’d go after them, and the same thing would happen.” It wasn’t a question.
Devon topped up the glass and handed it to Flynn. A burning log split and crumbled into radiant orange embers under woodsmoke that drifted up the chimney in wafts of sheer, velvet ash. Devon watched it for a moment before she rolled up her sleeves and opened the first two snaps of her denim shirt. Flynn watched her, the snifter balanced on two fingers. Devon noticed and smiled.

“What? It’s warm in here finally.”

“Nothing.” Flynn raked a hand through her hair and held Devon’s eyes. “You just look good. The same, but maybe with a bit of edge to you now.”

Devon looked her up and down, slowly. “You’re talking to me about ‘edge’? You’ve been dangerous since the minute I met you.”
“Aye, but maybe I’ve mellowed, you don’t know.” The wink she shot Devon suggested the opposite. “And that might just be the Donny accent that you seem to have forgotten, although I can’t say I blame you. It doesn’t exactly scream upper class.” She returned the wine to Devon and got up from the blanket, coming back with the single malt and shot glasses. “Listen, that wine isn’t going to do it for me tonight. Seeing you again has me a little shook, I’m not going to lie.”

“Same.” Devon took the glass from Flynn as she sat down again and held it out. “Hit me.”

“That’s my girl.” Flynn smiled and poured both shots before she clinked her glass to Devon’s. Devon watched her think twice before she spoke again. “Speaking of which, who did you leave in Boston to come back here?”

The single malt sank like blown hellfire, and Devon shook her head as she set the glass on the hearth with a clink. It was a few seconds before the fiery vapor evaporated enough to speak. “No one. I’m too busy to date.”

“Bullshit.” Flynn ripped open a packet of Roast Chicken crisps and set it between them on the blanket. “Tell me the real reason.”

“Jesus. I don’t know.” Devon leaned back on her hands, the scotch loosening the thick ropes of anxiety wrapped around her chest since Flynn stepped out of the shadows. “I’ve gone out with a few people, but they just didn’t do it for me, I guess.”

Flynn raised an eyebrow and looked as if she might say something. She didn’t.

Devon pulled the pins out of the tight twist of blonde hair at the back of her neck and let it fall down her back, then dropped them in her pocket. “I think you probably know what I’m talking about.”

“Of course I do.” Flynn tucked a stray wave of hair behind her ear. “I always have.”

“Americans are too polite, maybe? On the surface, at least. Or too politically correct.” She paused, thinking back through her string of forgettable dates. “I don’t know how to describe it, but it does nothing for me.”

Flynn nodded, then looked up and held her gaze. “I know you need to wake up the next morning and feel where their hands were on your body.” Her voice was a low scrape, as if her words were a secret. They were. “You want to see the marks their mouth made on your inner thigh. For your wrists to be sore where they held them together against the wall while they fucked you.”  She turned the shot glass through her fingers. “To come so hard for them that you feel it with every step the next day.”

“Jesus.” Devon’s breath caught as her body reacted hard to Flynn’s words. Her nipples tensed against the shirt that was suddenly too small, and heat rose from her neck to her face like circling wildfire. When she found the words, they were barely a whisper. “Maybe you were a tough act to follow.”

Flynn almost smiled as she got up to toss another log on the fire. She turned around and draped her arms across the mantle, holding Devon’s gaze until she looked away. “Come here.”

“Things are different, Flynn.” Devon raked a hand through her hair. Her lip was trembling so much she lowered her hand and pressed it her thumb against it. “You can’t just tell me what to do anymore.”

“Devon, I’m not.” Flynn’s voice was as soft as cooled ash. “I’m letting you know it’s okay to touch me.” The sound of her breath hovered between them. “That I want you to touch me.”

Devon dropped her head into her hands and drew the deepest breath she’d taken since that night. Her eyes locked onto Flynn as she closed the steps between them, melting into Flynn’s body as her arms closed around her. They stood there for a moment, the fire popping and crackling behind them, before Devon slipped her hands under Flynn’s shirt and lifted it until it dropped in a black pool at their feet. The firelight cast sheer gold and copper patterns across Flynn’s bare chest as Devon’s fingertip traced a deep scar the color of moonlight, starting at the base of Flynn’s neck and stretching across her shoulder. She felt frozen for a moment, but then leaned into Flynn’s chest, her forehead to the scar, and let herself remember that night. Flynn pulled every inch of her body against her own, and Devon felt the warmth of Flynn’s breath against the top of her head. She settled one strong hand lightly at the back of Devon’s head and let her cry until she finally drew a steady breath.

“Baby. It’s not your fault.” Flynn’s voice caught as she whispered the words. “It was never your fault.”

Flynn’s fingers wove into Devon’s hair as she tilted her head to the side, touching the delicate slope of Devon’s neck with just her breath. She slid her thumb under Devon’s chin to hold her as she kissed her neck, the slick heat of her tongue moving slowly up to her ear. Flynn wrapped a hand around her neck and held Devon’s ear to her lips.

“I’m going to touch you like I do, but I need to know that you’ll tell me if you need me to stop. For any reason.”

Devon bit her lip. “I will.”

“And if you can’t find the words, just—”

“—double tap you?”

Flynn traced the outline of Devon’s lower lip with her tongue. “You remembered.”
The hand still on Devon’s neck tilted her head as Flynn bit the heated slope of her neck hard enough to make Devon’s knees weak. Flynn stopped, her tongue in the hollow at the base of her neck and looked up. “Good girl.”
Those two words made Devon instantly wet, and she let herself remember when Flynn had said them for the first time. Flynn had strapped that night, but Devon had hesitated in the moment. It just all seemed too much. She was in control of everything in her life, at every moment, and this felt like…the opposite of that. She remembered how the moonlight fell across the muscles in Flynn’s shoulders as she ran her fingers through her hair and laid slowly back on the bed. Her eyes were pools of night water; her lips deepened to that dusky hue of sex. Devon faltered as she tried to wrap words around why she couldn’t do it. Flynn listened to everything she said, then held her gaze as she spoke.
 But you want it. She paused.  And you trust me, correct?
Devon hadn’t been able to look away. She finally bit her lip and nodded.
Then that’s enough.
Devon hesitated, then sat across Flynn’s hips and leaned back on the shaft inch by inch as Flynn took her hand and held it over her heart. She’d watched as Devon’s body softened, melted around it, then whispered into the silence between them.
Good girl.

“Give me just a minute.” The warmth of Flynn’s words against her mouth snapped her back to the present. “Stay right where you are.”

She watched as Flynn picked up a knife from a stock shelf and sliced a cloth holiday bunting into even strips. Her face was still the same; angular with a sharp jawline, always more handsome than beautiful. Even her hands were familiar; long fingers and muscles that flexed when she rolled a lighter through her fingers, which Devon had always found sexy, even when she didn’t yet know why.

Flynn wrapped the strips around her wrist and returned to the fireplace where Devon was sitting on the stone hearth. The fireplace was more expansive than usual for an eighteenth-century building, with a raised hearth and a scarred oak mantle almost taller than she was. She watched as Flynn stoked the fire with Scottish pine splits, then nodded toward the hearth, one eyebrow raised.

Devon smiled. She knew, but she asked anyway. “What?”

Flynn held her chin with gentle fingers, turning her face toward the fireplace. The sap in the wood popped and snapped into the silence as the logs caught fire and the sound reverberated around the walls, the firelight illuminating the worn edges of the stones with a sheer gold wash.

Flynn settled a strong hand at the small of her back. “Stand on the hearth, baby.”

Devon stepped onto it and turned around. The flames radiated a slow, gentle warmth, wrapping around the back of her thighs like a heated August wind. Flynn raised one wrist to the underside of the mantle, wrapping it with the cloth strips and slipping them through an iron ring, first one side, then the other. Devon knew enough about Flynn to suspect she’d installed them just for this purpose but remembered similar rings on her grandmother’s stone hearth that she’d used to hang fireplace tools.

When her arms were secured to each side, Flynn looked her up and down slowly, her eyes intense. She freed every snap on Devon’s shirt with one flick of her wrist and watched as it fell to her sides like stage curtains. Devon closed her eyes, her bare nipples tensing into a sharp ache as a shiver moved through her, rising to the surface of her skin. The heat from the flames snaked up her skirt and around her hips, pooling in the small of her back like water. Flynn unzipped her skirt, easing it past her knee-length leather boots and off. She sank to her knees slowly and ran her hands up the insides of Devon’s thighs until she grazed her clit, just beyond the sheer navy panties, and held Devon’s gaze as she slowly took her hands away.

Devon leaned her head back on the mantle, eyes shut hard, her only anchor in the sea of emotions at being in Flynn’s hands again. She’d told herself that someday she’d feel the same about someone else, but it’d felt hollow every time, as if Flynn had kept her heart, leaving only a brittle shell that Devon didn’t recognize without her in it. Flynn leaned past her, sweeping her back into the moment, and blew a long breath of air into the fire. She stayed there for a few seconds, watching the flames rise behind Devon’s legs. Finally, she stepped back, hooked Devon’s panties with her thumbs and scraped them halfway down her thighs. Beyond that sheer scrap of material, she was naked except for the boots and the open shirt, her wrists straining at the iron rings.

“What do you want, Devon?” Flynn’s voice was a low rasp. Devon felt the weight of her answer, the one carrying the memories and the lost years that had slipped silently past them both. She relaxed into the warmth flowing back into the hollow of her chest for the first time since Flynn last asked her that question.

“You.” She paused, watching a single tear fall from her to Flynn’s cheek as she looked down into her eyes. “Just you.”

Flynn stood to kiss her, her hand wrapped around Devon’s neck, then slid slowly back to her knees, her tongue slow and hot as it moved up the inside of her thighs. She was a single breath from her, her hands circling Devon’s ass, when Flynn looked up and slicked her tongue languidly over Devon’s straining clit.

Devon looked to the ceiling, fighting the edge of orgasm from a single touch. She let her breath out slowly, steeling herself. Flynn tightened her grip on Devon’s ass, her shoulders edging Devon’s thighs further apart. The heat from the fire brushed the back of her thighs, flaming unexpectedly until it was almost too much and then fading again, leaving only the insistent stroke of Flynn’s tongue inside her. She still seemed to know the rhythm of Devon’s body; when to take her to the edge and drop her back down again. She knew to amp up the tension by tightening her grip on Devon’s ass until she was so close she shuddered against Flynn’s hands and how intensify her orgasm by biting the inside of her thigh until Deveon couldn’t tell the pain from the pleasure and didn’t want either to ever stop.

“Flynn, you have to let me come.” The last word was just breath, but Flynn knew what she meant. She rose to her feet and stepped up on the hearth.

“Devon,” Flynn circled her neck gently with one hand tipped her face up with her thumb. “Tell me who’s in control.”

A jolt of electricity shot through her and Devon bit her lip. Even when they were teenagers, Flynn had had an edge to her, but now there was a deeply sexy confidence and unwavering gaze that made Devon’s breath catch in her throat.

“Breathe.” Flynn’s other palm unfolded onto Devon’s chest. The copper firelight sparkled in her dark eyes and Flynn arched an eyebrow. “And then answer the question.”

“It’s you.”

Flynn smiled. “Good girl.” As she whispered the words Flynn slipped three fingers inside and stroked her while the heel of her hand slid across Devon’s clit. Her other hand still wrapped around Devon’s neck, thumb in the hollow at the base of her throat.

“Oh my god.” A shudder ran through Devon, and she lost her breath. “I can’t —”

“Don’t think.” Flynn stepped closer, kicking Devon’s feet further apart on the hearth. “Just let me take you.”

The words were almost silent, a single heated breath against Devon’s mouth. Flynn’s hips kept a steady rhythm behind her hand, working the fingers deeper into Devon and her body closer to the fire. The flames were intense. Red gold sparks popped onto the hearth between their feet and woodsmoke the color of doves hovered in the air between them. Devon closed her eyes and leaned back onto the mantle as the heat slid across her clit like silk and wrapped around Flynn’s hand she fucked her.

“I can taste it on your mouth.” Flynn worked her fingers, adding a fourth and going just deep enough to be able to turn her hand so every knuckle stroked Devon inside as she turned her hand. Her thumb slid across her swollen clit with every thrust. “You’ve remembered who you belong to.”

Devon nodded, opening her eyes just long enough to meet Flynn’s gaze. “I never forgot.”

Flynn’s eyes fluttered shut. When she opened them again, Devon saw tears glistening on her lashes. Flynn kissed her, as soft as thought, then leaned into her shoulder slowly and fucked her hard, stealing Devon’s breath. Flynn wrapped her other arm around her waist and pulled Devon into her as she started to come. The intensity was overwhelming, like being rolled into an ocean wave, the pleasure so intense she didn’t feel Flynn pick her up with one arm and wrap her legs around her waist.

Devon opened her eyes as Flynn finally lowered her to the hearth, then released her from the iron rings with two quick swipes of the knife she pulled from her back pocket. She wordlessly swept Devon into her arms again and laid her back on the blanket, the heat from the fire undulating like a mirage in the firelight. Flynn pulled Devon onto her bare chest, whispering for her to settle, then placed Devon’s hand on her heart and covered it with her own until her breathing gradually slowed.

It was a few minutes before Devon stirred. “When did you get this?” Devon propped herself up on one elbow. She traced a single word tattooed over Flynn’s heart with a delicate fingertip then paused, leaning in to look closer. When she finally lifted her head, her words were barely a whisper. “That’s my handwriting, isn’t it?”

Flynn nodded, her fingertips tracing the curve of Devon’s cheek. “I took it from a love letter you wrote to me that summer we were sixteen.”

“And what’s the image under the word?” She leaned close. “It’s almost not there, it’s so sheer. Like a faded grey.” She paused, then looked up at Flynn. “Is it smoke?” Flynn nodded and Devon felt her gaze as the image came into focus. It was a letter D written in wafts of smoke. And one word, inked in black, was over it.

“Why —” She hesitated, wondering for a moment if she really wanted to know. “Did you choose the word still?”

Flynn stared at the cracked plaster ceiling. She started to answer, then stopped and shook her head slightly. Devon watched her heartbeat pulse through the straining vein in her neck.

“You don’t have to tell me.” Devon laid back down, her head on Flynn’s chest. “I shouldn’t have asked.”

“I don’t know how to explain it.” Flynn’s voice was hesitant, as if she were picking up the words and choosing them one by one. “I thought I’d never see you again.” She paused, her thumb light and warm against Devon’s lower lip. “And it’s not that I didn’t try to move on. I did. I even thought I might be in love once. But it wasn’t fair to her, in the end.”

Devon tangled her fingers into Flynn’s. “I thought you hated me.”

“I did.” A tear slipped down the side of her face, catching the light from the fading flames in the hearth. It was a long time before she spoke again. “But I loved you more.”

Devon tasted the salt of their tears in their kiss and the weight of the sadness between them slipped silently away in an ethereal drift, like the smoke tattooed over Flynn’s heart. As if it were never there. Flynn held her, hands sliding over Devon’s body like she needed it to breathe. She kissed hard down her shoulder, the pain swiftly followed by the heat of her tongue over the marks, then paused to pull her belt open and slide out of her jeans, her arms flexing as she sank onto Devon’s body again.

Devon’s wrists landed on the stone floor above her head, Flynn held them there with one hand and slipped her leg between Devon’s naked thighs. Devon’s breath caught as she leaned into her, Flynn’s thigh slick and hard against her clit. Her wrists were trapped against the floor, so Devon arched against it, tongue swirling around the fingers Flynn pushed deep into her mouth. Flynn bit her lip as she watched Devon work them with her tongue, then laid slowly back onto the blanket, abs flexing, and settled Devon across her hips. She slid one hand between their bodies, with her fingers deep inside Devon and the back of her hand pressed against her own clit.

Her eyes were intense as she watched Devon’s shirt fall from her shoulders, leaving her naked except for the leather boots on either side of Flynn’s hips. Flynn’s breath was the only sound in the room until she whispered, “Ride me, baby.”

Devon’s wetness pooled in Flynn’s hand like a sacred offering, and the slick heat between them blurred the line between where her body stopped, and Flynn’s started. She leaned back slowly, bracing her hands behind her on Flynn’s thighs, hair falling like water down her back. The fire crackled behind them and she heard Flynn’s breath quicken as she fucked her, the rawness resonant against the stone walls. As Devon’s clit slid across the Flynn’s hand, she watched a flush of heat rise from Flynn’s chest and wash across her face like wildfire. She leaned down and whispered into her neck, her fingertips brushing Flynn’s abs slowly on the way to her ear.

“You’re already close, aren’t you?”

Flynn nodded, wrapping one hand around the back of her head and pulling Devon close enough to touch her forehead to hers. Flynn raised her hips, fucking her harder, the back of her hand sliding across her own clit with every stroke. She held Devon’s eyes until she started to come, then arched hard and groaned, her chest slick with sweat and firelight. Devon watched the orgasm roll through her body, every muscle tight and glistening as it shook her. It was a minute before her breath slowed, but when it did, she nodded once and Devon moved up from Flynn’s hips to her tongue, thighs pressed to both sides of her face. Flynn had no mercy. Her tongue was hot and insistent, everywhere at once, snaking deep inside, then whipping like night wind across her clit. Devon’s thighs started to shake, and Flynn grabbed her ass with a low growl and took over, pulling Devon down harder into her mouth. When she came it felt like falling from a cliff, and Devon wondered, just for an instant, if her body could even take it all in. She fell forward onto her hands as Flynn drew it out of her, only loosening her grip on Devon’s ass when she started to melt into her arms.

“Jesus Christ.” Devon sank down, then laid next to her on the blanket, her head on Flynn’s chest. Her legs were still trembling, so she slipped one thigh between Flynn’s to ground herself as Flynn tangled her fingers into Devon’s and held her close, her breath deep and rhythmic. The fire was still burning, but lower, just above a shimmering pile of coals. Flynn kissed the top of her head and stared up at the ceiling. “I don’t want it to be morning.”

“Why?” Devon traced over her initial on Flynn’s chest with her fingertip. She didn’t say anything for a moment, then whispered into Flynn’s neck. “I do.”

Flynn looked down at her for a moment, raked her fingers through her damp hair, then went back to staring at the ceiling. Reality rushed in like a sharp, icy wind and filled the corners of the room, rolling closer by the second, taking up more and more space until it was too close to draw a breath. Devon sat up slowly and went to the couch to pick up her coat, wrapping it around her, her mind racing. She was shaking, but it wasn’t because of the cold the dying fire let in. She turned back around to see that Flynn had already pulled on her jeans and had her shirt in her hand.

They walked toward each other slowly, until Devon stopped and met Flynn’s dark gaze. At that moment, she knew.

“Devon, I think I see what this was to you.” Flynn’s voice cracked and she covered her face with her hands for a second, then pulled herself together and straightened her shoulders, taking a single step toward her. “And I know you have a life to go back to in Boston.” She paused. A single tear fell to her cheek and Flynn didn’t wipe it away. She was as still as silence. “I—

“Flynn, this was—”

“Don’t.” The pitch of her voice dropped to gravel and Devon watched every muscle from her shoulders to her abs tense, as if to help steady her. “Don’t say it.”

Devon pulled the coat tighter around her. “I have to.”

Flynn nodded. The only movement in the room was her bare feet on the cold limestone as she took an almost imperceptible step back. They both spun toward the door as footsteps started in the pub overhead. It was morning.

“Of course.” Flynn stroked one palm with the thumb of her other hand, something she’d always done when she was nervous. “I’m listening.”

Devon took the last step and closed the distance between them. She rested her hands on Flynn’s hips, then brushed away the last of trace a tear with her thumb.

“Marry me.”

Silence. The fire finally sputtered and died, and it was a few seconds before Flynn took a breath. “What did you say?”

“I asked you to marry me.” Devon smiled. “I lost you once. I refuse to let it happen again. In fact, if you say no, I’ll just stay in Donny anyway and stalk you, I swear— ”

“Stop.” Flynn cradled Devon’s face in her hands, smiling and shaking her head. “Baby, don’t you know I’ve wanted to marry you since we were sixteen?”

“So that’s a yes?”

Flynn raised her left hand. On her ring finger was a tattoo with the same smoke swirl. Written in the center, where a wedding ring would be, was another single word. Always.

“Still and always.” Flynn held Devon’s hand to her chest and covered it with hers. “It was only ever you.”