Dale looks down, his throat works a deep swallow, and the same feeling I’ve been wrestling with for the longest time fights to push its way up again. I know I’m hurting Dale. I know he loves me. I can see it every time we’re together. Whether it’s when we’re fucking or watching movies or skipping stones over the creek. I see it in his eyes, feel it in his touch. I know it because it’s the same way I feel about him. In fact, we all love each other. It’s a love born from mutual need, a depraved instinct that brought us all together. But it’s different with Asher, and I can’t explain it. I know my heart is safe with him because I don’t love him the same way as I love Dale.
But nothing can ever come of this. The last person I loved was Samuel, and it has taken me two years of living with the Stinsons—my foster family—and having extensive therapy to show me that was wrong.
Love is wrong. I learned that the hard way. And I don’t want anything with Dale to be wrong.
Asher breaks the silence. “D’you wanna tell us about it? Your time at the farm?”
Do I? Do I really want them to know how depraved my life on the farm was? Can I stand it if they look at me the way everyone else here does? With pity?
“If it helps, you know what we went through as kids, and it can’t be more fucked up than that.”
I squeeze Asher’s hand. What Asher and Dale went through as children was the stuff of most people’s worst nightmares. When Asher’s parents died in a plane crash on their way back from a medical conference, his aunt and uncle had taken him into their home. They’d been expecting Asher’s inheritance along with him, but were told it was in a trust. Instead of offering Asher a place of comfort and love, they’d decided to find other ways to make up for the lost money. They’d started pimping Dale and Asher out to their friends and sold the sex tapes to fund their lily farm. The boys were forced to have sex with Dale’s father’s friends, as well as each other. It was only when Asher had propositioned a teacher at ten in exchange for a better grade, did the authorities step in and take the boys away. They’d been with the Stinsons ever since.
I inhale a shaky breath at the memory, but Dale must take it as me being nervous. “It’s okay, Raine. You don’t have to share.”
I shake my head. “No, it’s okay. I loved it on the farm. I’ve never felt safer or more cherished than when I was there.” I feel Dale stiffen for a brief second, and then it’s as though he forces himself to relax. I feel bad about saying that, but it’s true. I spill it all. About how my mother ran away from home and joined the farm when she was pregnant with me. How when she died when I was a baby the wives all looked after me as if I was their own. How I was groomed to be Samuel’s wife from when I was first able to talk. I tell them about marrying Samuel at fifteen and how treasured he and his other wives made me feel. But right after that, a concerned neighbor reported him to the authorities, resulting in him being arrested for bigamy and having underage sex. The words all run out of my mouth in a long string of sentences until I can barely catch my breath.
I stop and realize that both guys have sat silently, letting me talk the entire time, their faces impassive masks.
“Can I have a moment alone with Raine, please?” Dale asks when it’s clear I’m not going to add anything else.
Asher leans forward and kisses me on my head. “Nothing changes. I still feel the same way about you as I did when we first came into this barn.”
I feel the lump sting my throat and blink back the tears. Once Asher is out of earshot, Dale tilts my face to meet his. “I wish I could say the same, Raine.”
My stomach sinks to my toes, and regret hits me hard as I scramble to get off his lap. But his hands tighten around my waist, preventing me from moving.
“Raine, hear me out. I still feel exactly the same way about you as I always have, but things have to change. We can’t keep doing this.” Dale pulls me tight against him, and at first, I resist, but when I feel him trembling against my skin, I stop and hug him tight. “You know what we’re doing is wrong. We’re both fucked up and have been using each other as an outlet since you got here. That’s not okay. It’s not how we should be dealing with our pasts. And it’s not how we should be together. You mean more than that.”
I start crying against his chest. “Don’t leave me. I can’t lose you too.”
“I will always be here for you. Whenever you need me. I’m not going anywhere. But we can’t do this anymore.”
I nuzzle in tighter. “Hold me for five minutes before you let me go.”
“I’ll hold you for as long as you need. I’m not leaving you, Raine.”
Chapter One
Raine – Age 24
When my body feels too stiff from lying awake all night, I lift Asher’s arm from around my waist and place it gently next to his side. The moon streams in the window, highlighting the collage of tattoos on his arm. As always, my eyes fall to the tattoo of the lily that seems to stand out from all the rest. The flower is deep maroon and nestled on a delicate dew-dropped spiderweb. It’s stunning and similar to the one I have on my right hand. He got the tattoo on my birthday last
