Because not all of this is full-on post-coital glow.
There’s some panic.
Panic, and?—
A siren blares in the stillness, cutting off all thoughts and sending me scrambling off her and away from the bed.
“What the hell?” I yell over the noise that probably should’ve come a few minutes ago.
She blinks at me like she’s forgotten what reality is, and then she cracks up.
“Fire alarm,” she yells back. “This wouldneverhappen in an Aurora Gardens brand hotel.”
I stare at her a moment longer while the blaring continues murdering my eardrums.
She grins while she throws my shirt at me. “So much more exciting here, isn’t it? If it doesn’t stop in the next minute, we have to go outside.”
Or the world is telling me that we made a mistake.
A horrific mistake that we can’t take back.
Daph has her back to me while she hops into her shorts and pulls her shirt on, but I can see her in the foggy mirror over the wobbly desk, and her grin isn’t without regrets too.
Awesome.
This is gonna get awkward.
22
I SHOULD PROBABLY DAPHNE LESS
Daphne
Ooooooh,shit.
I have a crush on my sister’s ex-fiancé.
She’s going to murder me.
Or maybe she won’t.
Maybe she’ll smile and be like,well, Daphne, if you’re happy, I’m happy, but then she’ll go home and cry about it and pretend she’s not upset and she won’t want to see me ever again, which sucks because she’s the only blood relative I have left who’ll talk to me.
And she matters.
When I was cut off, long-time friends abandoned me. My parents abandoned me. My living grandparents abandoned me.
Even my dog abandoned me—not truly her fault, she was super old—but she did. She died right when I needed her most.
Everyone but Margot abandoned me.
You can tell me until you’re blue in the face that I chose being abandoned when I went no-contact, but they didn’t make anyeffort to find my new number—which Margot has—and get in touch with me either.
They showed me in no uncertain terms that they were done with me.
And now I’ve gone and done something I can’t take back, and if Oliver weren’t Margot’s ex, I wouldn’t have a single regret.
I like him.
