Chapter 7: She Had A Rough Night

Iris's POV

"Dad? Iris?"

Her footsteps crossed the marble entrance hall, getting closer.

"Fuck," Rafael said under his breath, and he was already pulling himself out of the pool, water streaming off him, reaching for the towel on the lounger.

I scrambled after him, grabbing the pool steps, hauling myself out. I grabbed my soaked shorts from the concrete, yanked them up my legs with hands that were shaking so badly I nearly fell over. My tank top was beside the lounger. I snatched it, pulled it over my head, the wet fabric plastering itself to my skin immediately.

No bra. No underwear. Soaking wet from the pool and flushed from everything that wasn't the pool.

Rafael had already wrapped the towel around his waist. He ran one hand through his wet hair, exhaled once through his nose, and his shoulders dropped into that easy, composed posture like he'd just flipped a switch. The composure came back so fast it was almost frightening, like watching a door close on a fire.

I couldn't keep my face normal. I couldn't be as composed as him.

"Iris." His voice was quiet. His eyes were steady on mine. "Calm down."

"I'm trying to." My voice cracked.

"Iris, breathe."

I breathed.

Chloe's footsteps crossed the marble entrance, her voice moving through the house. "Dad? Hello?"

The patio door slid open.

Chloe stepped out.

Her eyes went to her father first, towel around his waist, shirt in hand, hair wet, then to me, soaking, no shoes, hair dripping, standing three feet from the pool edge like I'd just climbed out of it.

Her brows pulled together. "What happened?"

"She came back from the bar, went for the pool, lost her footing on the edge." Rafael glanced at me, the look saying nothing that could be read. "Went in fully dressed."

Chloe stared at me. "Are you serious?"

"I'm fine," I said.

"You're soaking." She said.

"I know." My voice came out rough.

"Iris." She crossed to me, dropped her overnight bag on the lounger, and grabbed my face in both hands the way she'd been doing since we were teenagers. Her eyes moved over me, checking for damage. "Are you hurt?"

"I'm fine, Chloe, I just.."

"She's had a few drinks," Rafael said from behind me, calmly. "And a rough night, from what I can tell."

Chloe's eyes sharpened.

"Rough night how?" she said.

I opened my mouth.

Nothing came out, and then, because my body had apparently decided it was finished cooperating with me tonight, my face crumpled and I started crying.

Real tears. The kind that come from somewhere low in the chest and bring everything with them on the way up, Tristan's voice, his words, the eight months of lying in the dark wondering what was wrong with me, the thirty seconds that had proved nothing was wrong with me at all and everything that came with that, all of it surfacing at once, and I had absolutely no way to stop it.

Chloe made a sound and pulled me into her arms and I sobbed into her shoulder.

"Hey." Her hand moved in circles on my back. "Hey, I've got you. What happened?"

I couldn't speak for a moment. Just shook in her arms and let her hold me.

"Is it Tristan?" she asked.

I nodded against her shoulder.

Which was true. It was Tristan. It was his words sitting in my chest like splinters. It was also what had just happened, the guilt and excitement all mixed together.

"What did he do?" Chloe asked, and her voice had gone flat in the way that meant she was furious and managing it.

"We're done," I managed. "He said...the things he said, Chloe, I can't even..."

"Okay." She held me tighter. "Okay, you're okay. He's an idiot and you're okay."

I cried harder.

I felt Rafael's eyes on my back.

I didn't look at him. I pressed my face into Chloe's shoulder and let her think everything she was thinking and told myself that wasn't entirely dishonest, Tristan was real, the pain was real, the breaking open of tonight was real. That I was also crying about her father was a detail I was going to have to carry alone.

"Come inside," Chloe said, pulling back to look at my face, wiping my cheek with her thumb. "You need dry clothes and something hot and you're going to tell me every single word he said."

She steered me toward the door, her arm around my shoulders.

I looked back.

Rafael was standing at the edge of the pool, towel at his waist, shirt still in his hand. His grey eyes were on me. Unreadable to anyone who didn't know to look at the jaw, the set of the shoulders, the thing underneath the composure that wasn't composure at all.

He held my gaze for one second.

"Get some rest," he said quietly.

Chloe raised a hand behind her. "Good night, Dad."

I held his eyes one beat longer than I should have.

Then I let Chloe take me inside.

She made tea and sat across from me at the kitchen counter and listened with the specific, focused fury she reserved for people who hurt the people she loved.

"Corpse," she repeated.

"Yeah, he said that." I said quietly.

"And he said this to his packmates?" She asked.

"Apparently." I said.

She set her mug down. "Iris, that is not.."

"I know."

"That's not you." She said quietly. "You know that."

I looked at my tea.

"Do you know that?" she pressed.

I thought about the pool, his hands. The sound he'd made when he found out how wet I was and how long I'd been that way. My whole body shaking before he'd barely touched me.

"Yeah," I said quietly. "I'm starting to."

Chloe watched my face for a moment. Something moved through her expression.

I kept my eyes on my mug.

"Okay," she said finally. "You're sleeping in the guest room."

"I was already in the guest room."

"Then you're staying in it." She reached across and grabbed my hand and squeezed once. "He was wrong, don't listen to what he says."

I nodded.

Somewhere above us, a door closed.

His door.

I wrapped both hands around my mug and stared at the steam rising off it and breathed through the ache that hadn't gone anywhere.