Total pages in book: 135
Estimated words: 139088 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 695(@200wpm)___ 556(@250wpm)___ 464(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 139088 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 695(@200wpm)___ 556(@250wpm)___ 464(@300wpm)
No.
He'd come here knowing we were done and wanting to be friends.
“I want you in my life too, so I guess that’s where we’re going,” I mumbled.
He smiled, and this one was relieved. He then reached out to grab my hand.
His was bigger than mine. Stronger. He had calluses that felt good when they were scraping over my skin, but now, they were a form of torture as he stroked the palm of my hand with his thumb.
“We’ll work this out, Loon,” he whispered. “We mean too much to each other not to.”
“You’re right.”
And he was.
That was the kicker.
He’d find somebody, for sure, and I’d have to watch that shit.
I’d find somebody, maybe, and would he care?
A couple of weeks, he’d moved on.
It was over.
I was eating donuts with the man I loved but I’d never have.
“And we were right to make that time just ours,” he continued. “Now, no one knows, and no one needs to know.”
I wasn’t so sure about that.
I mean, could I go the rest of my bestie eternity with Raye never telling her I had a thing with her man’s best friend?
I didn’t think so.
I didn’t even want to.
“Promise, Luna,” he said in his soft, sweet voice. “We need to make a pact right now to keep that just ours so that’s all it’ll ever be. Ours.”
Ours.
Well, since he put it like that.
“Promise,” I muttered.
He smiled and gave my hand a squeeze.
I let that happen before I pulled free and grabbed my buttermilk.
“Eat up, bud,” I invited.
He gave me another smile.
We ate and drank coffee and chatted, just like friends.
For my part I did it not because I wanted to.
But because I had no choice.
I came to work the next morning twenty minutes late on purpose, just to be a bitch.
I was at the register, clocking in, when Raye was on me like a rash.
“Back off,” I said to the register.
“Can we go to the staff room and talk?” she requested.
I turned my head to look at her.
She recoiled when I did.
I knew why.
My eyes were puffy and bloodshot from practically zero sleep and a whole lot of crying.
“Luna,” she whispered.
I turned fully to her. “You know, I’ve tried to be a good sister to Dream.”
“Honey.” She was still whispering.
I could see the mortification in her face, and I knew how bad she felt about what she’d said.
Even so, I kept talking.
“I did my best. Recently, as I’ve already told you, I’ve been trying something new. And it’s coming to me that I was doing what I thought she needed, but she might need something else, and I have to figure out what that is. I think I’m actually making headway. I’m not sure we’ll ever be best buds. What I am sure of is that I went to her after Knox got shot, and she didn’t shovel even the minutest amount of shit. She took care of me. It didn’t last long, but she has sister in her. I just have to find out how to dig it out.”
“Okay,” she replied.
“I know you never got that chance with Macy.” Macy, not incidentally, was Raye’s sister who’d been kidnapped and murdered. “There’s no debate what you lost and what I’ve struggled to have are two entirely different things. But that was tremendously uncool, you threw that in my face.”
“It was. Totally. I’m so sorry. I don’t—”
“I know Knox gave his version of events to Cap.”
She shut her mouth.
“And Cap gave them to you.”
She didn’t confirm or deny verbally, but I saw the confirmation in her eyes.
Right.
“You are absolutely correct. It was not okay I lied to your face for so long. But I did it because Knox asked me to. I’m in love with him, it was the last thing I could give him, that last thing we could share, so I agreed. Maybe you don’t think that’s right. I don’t even know if it was right. But even if I had it to live again, I’d probably do the same damned thing.”
Her eyes were full of hurt for me, and that was somewhere I couldn’t go because I felt it a hundred-fold, and I wasn’t about to burst into tears at the SC register, so I just kept talking.
“I’m not going to give you shit about how entirely fucked up it is you didn’t ask me where I was at before you let what you were feeling guide your mouth. I’m gonna let you sit with that. The other thing I’m not going to do is tell you my version. Knox clearly doesn’t feel this same way, but I actually give a shit what you all think of him. So even if he is what he is, we’ve become what we’ve become, and I already know I’m all kinds of stupid, I’m still going to keep being that and protect him from anyone knowing. Protect him from the peanut gallery having their takes on something that’s none of their business. I might someday change my mind, when it doesn’t hurt so damned much, but now, that’s where I’m sticking.”