We continue eating, talking, and cracking jokes at each other’s expense. She drove herself to the restaurant tonight because she needed to spend tonight alone (and we all know I would havefollowed her inside whichever place we ended up at if we would have ridden together), so when it’s time to go, I hold her outside her car for a little bit longer than I normally do. The seafood smell of the restaurant lingers in her hair, and while it isn’t a pleasant scent, I can still pick up the undertones of her spicy vanilla perfume. She’s warm in my arms, and I wish I had comforting words for her before she drives back to her apartment where she’ll spend another night alone, lost in her dark thoughts.
“Are you sure you don’t want me to come over and stay with you tonight?” I play with her hair as she sighs deeply, her chest rising and falling against me.
“I don’t know, Stone.” She pulls back, her hands sliding from my back to my stomach. “I’m just… sad. I don’t want to bring you into my mournful midnight.”
Her eyes are round and pleading, begging for me to see something. To say something. But I don’t know what she needs. Does she even know what she needs?
After a moment, she sighs deeply again, turning away from me and getting into her car.
Maybe I should go over anyway. Just to be sure she’s okay…
Is that what she truly wants? I don’t know. She said she wants to be alone, but it sounds like the aloneness is self-induced because she doesn’t want her sadness rubbing off on me.
Frustrated that I don’t know how to make this better and I want to respect her wishes to be alone tonight, I get into my truck and slam the door, beginning the short drive to my house.
From the small bit she’s told me tonight and the little comments she makes in a humorous manner though the content is black,Lucy was right that one day when she told me that I might run screaming if I knew what went on inside her head.
Key word: might.
Because instead of scaring me off, I think she’s creating a black hole around me that’s continually sucking me in deeper and deeper.
Chapter 13
Lucy
Ilock eyes with Stella as we circle each other in lithe squats with our arms at the ready. Her husband pulled me aside earlier and informed me that her tell was when she slightly rocked back onto her heels, so I break eye contact occasionally to sneak a glance at her feet.
It may be her birthday, but I’ll be danged if I don’t fight to the finish to beat her in this wrestling match. My competitive streak knows no boundaries.
She rocks back, and I prepare to shift to the left side like Stone taught me when he told me Stella’s birthday celebration would most likely end up in a wrestling match. Fresh memories of us rolling across the center's matted floors as Stone taught me to wrestle days ago superimpose with the lingering remnants of wicked memories of what happenedafter,gluing me in place and allowing Stella to pounce and easily swipe my feet out from under me. I fall onto the black mats of the makeshift rink in their house. “Oof.”
I go ahead and tap out, knowing it’s a lost cause with the NR movie starring me and Stone playing in my head right now. Looks like my competitive streak’s boundary is a mere memory of a breathless and sweaty Stone Harper rolling on the floor with me.
The small crowd consisting of Stone’s family and a few close friends erupts in applause for the birthday girl. I bow out gracefully, meet Stone’s heated gaze, and feel my soul tremble when he licks his lips.
Lord, help me…
“Excuse me. I’m going to sneak off to the restroom,” I mention to Stella after I give her a victory hug. She has quickly become a good friend, and whenever Stone decides he’s had enough of me, I think she might be as heartbroken as I will be.
The Harper family holds a special place in my heart.
Would I really have to lose them?
My heart whispers yes.
Fear over Stone leaving me grows louder every day. Even in the dead of night when he brings my body to life and makes me forget I was ever dead inside, I’m scared he’ll leave when the morning comes. It’s like I’m preparing for his eventual departure while simultaneously clawing at the walls inside my glass cage to keep his attention on me.
Walking through Stella and Lucas’s house, I make my way to the guest bathroom and am met with a certified wild woman staring back at me in the mirror. My hair, which was up in a high ponytail, now frizzes and sticks out in every direction. Black smudges coat the underneath of my eyes and the sage green halter top I’m wearinglooks boxy and baggy on me now instead of fitted like it was at the start of this day.
How could I have been thinking of Stone likethatwhen I’m looking likethis?
As if he’s having any thoughts of me.Pft.That heated gaze from earlier is my brain short-circuiting, thinking I’m starring in my own rom-com. It was probably an examinatorial look that meant,huh, maybe I should call things off with her. She’s a mess.
I sit down on the lid of the toilet and pull out my phone to distract myself from thinking. At least thinking about my oh so attractive and hot and flirty-but-kind boyfriend that I fear is on a countdown to letting me go.
We’ve been datingfor realfor almost two months. I think his longest fling lasted right at three months. I feel like a ticking time bomb is stationed above my head.
Opening social media, I check messages from readers and then click on a post I was tagged in. My heart rate quickens when I notice it’s a review for the last rom-com release I published to close out my second series. A smile spreads across my face, however, as I read the caption. Pride swells as I bask in the glowing, positive review. The reader said I was now an auto-buy author for her, complimented my author’s voice, and mentioned how she loved that I wrote clean romance from a Christian perspective.
