“You wanna sit by me?” she asks, sounding shocked.

“Sure. I mean, we can be friends, right?” Just friends, I have to remind myself. Because, if she’s going to be friends with Harlow, too, I can’t ruin that by … well, being myself. Harlow hasn’t had any good friends for a long time, and she’s the most important person in my life.

“Friends.” She says the word funnily.

“What’s so funny about that?” I wonder amusedly.

She gives a shrug. “I just haven’t had a lot of those in my life. And now, suddenly, I have two people offering to be my friend … It’s a little weird.”

The way she says it, as if it’s so surprising that someone would want to be her friend, makes my chest tightens a bit. I’ve been lucky in my life to have two best friends since I was in grade school. I’ve seen Harlow struggle to make friends though, so I’ve seen how hard it is to go through life friendless.

“Well, welcome to the land of weird, then,” I tell her with a grin.

She traces her lips with the tip of her tongue, appearing amused by something. “You say that like I already accepted your offer of friendship,” she teases.

My grin widens, but then I jut out my bottom lip. “So, you’re saying you don’t wanna be my friend? Way to break my heart.”

She bites back a smile. “Fine. I’ll be your friend. Just stop pouting.”

I only pout more, and she playfully pinches my side.

I laugh, gripping my side. “So vicious.” I lower my hand then, grinning, I pinch her back on the side.

Instead of laughing, she winces, her face contorting with pain.

I jerk back. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s nothing,” she mumbles shakily.

It’s clearly not nothing, and I’m about to attempt to get the truth out of her, but Harlow returns to the car.

“Please tell me the waitress took our order already,” she says as she climbs into the driver’s seat and shuts the door.

“She did,” Raven tells her, wiping her expression clean of all signs that she was in pain. But just because she erased the look, doesn’t mean I’m going to forget it. No, the look is branded in my mind.

I want to know what caused it. Want to know all about the girl with hair like raven feathers and eyes so hauntingly beautiful. The girl I just told I want to be her friend.

Just her friend.

Just friends.

The thing is …

That might be a lie.

Shit, I’m so fucked.

10

RAVEN

Everything was going great until Hunter pinched my side. Then it all came rushing back to me, every horrible moment, every scar. Everything he’s done to me. But I do my best to play it off, hoping to God that he doesn’t ask questions. Luckily, Harlow shows up and offers a fantastic distraction.

“That was the longest piss ever,” Hunter remarks after his sister has climbed back in. His brow arches upward in accusation, perplexing the hell out of me.