“Don’t yell.”
“I’m not yelling.”
“I mean when I tell you. You have to let me tell you the whole thing before you yell. And also, I’m blocked in. I can’t leave.”
“Lana. Where. The ever-lovingfuck. Is Simon?”
She purses her lips together for a hot second, glances at the screen, and then she answers me.
And she’s right.
I want to yell.
Howl, in fact. And then I want to go save Simon.
But first—first, I need to save myself, and I finally—finally—know how.
“Why are you smiling like that?” Lana asks me.
Oh my god.
I am.
I’m smiling.
“Because I’m going to take down Jake Camille. And then I’m going to save Simon too. And then we’re going to live happily ever after.” I wince. “If he still wants me.”
Her own smile grows. “He still wants you.”
Gah, my heart.
It’s beating in anticipation and hesitant joy.
Running to Simon right now—it’s everything I want to do.
But I told him I needed to find myself. To figure out what I want to do with my life. To not ride his coattails or just follow him around in his own career.
I can’t tell you what I want to do six months from now.
But I can tell you what I need to do today so that I can be free to find what I want to do six months from now.
And before I can go to Simon, I need to put it in motion.
For me.
And for our future as a couple without anything holding us back.
39
FUCK THIS SHIT
Simon
It’s likelya good thing my security team is here.
They’ll prevent me from killing my dinner companions so that I may continue to see my children grow up without finding myself in the exact situation that I put Bea in just before I met her.
And now I’m thinking about Bea.
