First, Best and Always

Chapter 14 – Open Mouth Insert Foot

Raven braced herself for the interrogation she knew was coming. Vin stood there head cocked to the side, looking at her over his shades. “Who was that?” he said quietly, suspicion and irritation coloring his voice.

“Just and old friend” she said, the hint of a smile crossing her face.

“Yeah, okay, ‘old friend’… got that part, he seems to know you pretty well…”

“Well,” she said moving to cross into the living room, “we grew up together.” Vin eyed her cautiously,

“Grew up together….uh huh….what was that bit about an….‘anniversary’?”

She tried to brush it off as if it was an unimportant piece of information with, “Oh, I guess he’s talking about when we were dating.”

“Oh,” he said nodding his head in an understanding motion, “Dating were you? So the ah…‘old friend’ is really an old boyfriend?”

“I guess you could say that.” she responded sheepishly.

“Guess….you guess? Either he was or he wasn’t which one is it?” he said, his temper just below the surface.

“Well, since you put it that way….yes. He’s an old boyfriend.”

“And he just happened to show up here tonight, right?”

“Actually he did, he’s been away for a while and…” her own temper was starting to come to a head now, “Just what are you implying anyway?”

Calming now he said, “I’m not implying anything babe, just curious is all.” He picked up the flowers and motioning to his bag secretly crossed his fingers and asked her “Where do you want me to put this?”

Still a little miffed at the questioning she folded her arms across her chest and responded coolly, “Craig said you were welcome to sleep in his room if you want….”

Resigned to the fact that it didn’t look like things were going to go as he had hoped, he picked up his bag to start upstairs, handing her the flowers he said softly, “Sorry they’re not your favorites,” and head down, dejected, headed upstairs to put his things in Craig’s room.

Raven watched as he slowly mounted the stairs, and an overwhelming feeling of regret filled her. She’d allowed her temper to get the better of her, and the price she’d pay for that would be to sleep alone tonight, again. The tears began to well up in her eyes and as she looked at the flowers and then at Vin’s retreating back she said under her breath, “….but they are my favorites.”