The Boy and His Ribbon (The Ribbon Duet, #1)(84)

It was like asking a bear to leave his comfortable den and enter a world full of chaos and calamity.

His eyes never stopped darting. His ears never stopped twitching. His body always on high alert and ready to maul an enemy or protect a friend.

But he did it.

For me.

He happily drove me there, took me out for a burger and fries just like our first official birthday together, and sat beside me while we watched some animated cartoon that I caught him rolling his eyes at but gushed about afterward for my benefit.

He even refused to hang out with Cassie’s entourage even though she practically begged him to go clubbing with them once I’d been deposited back home. She claimed he needed a birthday night too; her voice syrupy sweet with that hateful twinkle in her eye that reeked of sex.

She had no right to look at Ren that way, especially as she’d been dating some guy called Chip for six months, and Ren was far too good to be sloppy seconds.

The familiar wrath suffocated me, and it didn’t fully go away even as Ren shook his head, escorted me back to the Land Rover, and drove home with me.

I didn’t sleep that night, constantly checking his single bed was lumpy with him beneath the covers and not smooth with his absence.

During the midst of winter, we hired movies that we both enjoyed and held book discussions over reading material I brought home from the school library.

For three years, life didn’t change too much.

We focused on learning, farming, and family.

And all the while, my girlhood slowly slipped away beneath teenage hormones. I forgot how to be innocent Della Ribbon. I forgot how to be anything, if I’m honest. I didn’t know if I wanted to be sweet or sour or kind or cruel. I didn’t know if I wanted my handwriting to be cursive or block. I didn’t know if I wanted to be a rebel like Cassie or stay true to Ren and his many morals.

The constant war inside stripped me of my childhood values, and that was when the true sins began.

After pride came envy and my complex relationship with Cassie was no longer just black and white. I no longer just liked or hated her. I was twisted with awe and wanting to be her and dirtied with spite with wanting to be what Ren sought.

Over the years, Cassie finished high school and attended a local university. She was a middle-of-the-line student, but thanks to her background in horses and farming, she landed a full scholarship for Equine Science and Stable Management degree.

Her dream job was to event and scoop up the mega prize pools. In the meantime, she was wise enough to know she needed pieces of paper to her name to ensure a paid gig while she schooled herself and her horses to greatness.

Liam started high school in a county over being a year older than me, and I was left in the past, just waiting for my life to begin.

It also didn’t help that my choices in TV shows and movies switched from feel good Disney to romantic comedies and everything in-between. Soap operas with brooding men and hurting socialites. Dirty kisses and naughty groping…anything to do with sex and connection was my kryptonite, and Ren often caught me starry-eyed and obsessed with a terrible show, crushing on the hero, my mouth tingling for kisses like they indulged in and wondering what it would feel like to have a boy touch me in places like the girls on the screen permitted.

The more I watched, the more envious I became and not just of Cassie.

I became envious of anyone with a boyfriend.

I tried to coax Liam into kissing me again, but he turned me down. I wasn’t interested in him as anything more than a river-swimming, meadow-exploring friend, but it still hurt for him to wrinkle his nose and laugh about kissing me.

I wanted to shout that I was sure his worm hadn’t grown any, but I was still nice enough to hold my tongue on hurtful things. Just because my tits hadn’t grown past tiny bee stings didn’t mean I should tear into his self-consciousness like mine chewed me every day.

My malice made me teeter on a knife-edge of tears whenever I caught Cassie flirting with Ren. Especially as he reshod her horse in the stable on a hot afternoon, bent over and shirtless, his torso glistening with sweat from hammering nails with harsh clangs into her latest warmblood cross.

He was so damn beautiful.

All muscle and masculinity, moving in that effortless way that used to make me feel safe but now just made me lick my lips and hide my gathering confusion.

Watching him was torture. Not because he made me feel things I’d only felt for movie heroes but because my mouth dried up, my heart pounded, and I hurt so much because I wanted something.

Something that made me itch and yearn. Something that made me snappy and hot-tempered whenever Ren gave me the smile reserved just for me and tried to gather me close to his sweaty bare chest in a joke.

Instead of slotting into his side where I belonged, I pushed him away because something inside no longer wanted innocent, carefree hugs.

It wanted what Cassie got.

It wanted more.

But how could I want it from Ren?

He was Ren!

Why suddenly did my eyes see him differently, my nose smell him differently, and my heart act like a cracked out raccoon whenever he came close?

I was thirteen and more confused than I’d ever been in my life.

The pain and hunger were excruciating when Cassie dragged a fingertip along Ren’s back and rubbed her pads together, smearing his sweat and smiling that secret adult smile, making me want to tear her pretty brown hair out.

I hated this new vibrant painful world my emotions had thrust me into. I missed the simple days of girlhood where happiness came from riding Domino, doing well on a test, then hitching a ride with Ren on the tractor while he baled.