Angelica: it’s a long shot, but it’s your best long shot if you’ve got your heart set on doing this.
I did. I couldn’t deny it, Ididhave my heart set on doing this. Nothing else was going to work, and I couldn’t just change it. It wasn’t that simple.
Even if ithadbeen, I didn’twantto change it. I didn’t want to let down every reader who needed this.
What exactly would it take to convince them?
I almost didn’t want to know the answer. Whatever it was, it was probably out of my reach anyway.
But if itwasn’t…
Angelica: uh, I guess some cute photos, mention how great he is… bring him to the launch, that’ll be the big thing
Shit. I’d forgotten about the book launch. I’d been so caught up writing book seven that book six was a distant memory—as far as I was concerned, that was over and done with six months ago.
Fuck,Colin. He’d be there. He’d be there and I’d have to face him alone and I couldn’t even latch onto someone to take home with me.
… unless…
I don’t need to blow him in public or anything, then
Angelica: please don’t, I don’t need to see that
I chuckled, turning what Angelica had said over in my head. I could convince Kieran to take a couple of photos and come to one event with me, couldn’t I?
After all, hewasa model. Plus, if he was anything like I remembered, the lure of free food would be enough to get him to go to the launch. I vaguely remembered Angelica mentioning a cake, too.
When she put it like that, it all seemed sopossible.
If getting my best friend to do me a couple of favors was all that stood between me and doing the right thing, whywouldn’tI do it?
Angelica: are you seriously considering this?
I’m seriously considering it
More than seriously considering it, I was already planning out how to ask Kieran. Maybe I could find him in town tomorrow, offer to buy him lunch, ease into it over orgasmically good cheese fries.
Yeah. That felt like it’d work.
And then… and then Colin would see me with someone new, too. Someone stable. Someone kind and good andhot, who smiled at me all the time and hadn’tevermade me feel like I didn’t deserve everything I had.
Angelica: good luck
Luck is literally my name
I’dbeenlucky, too. So lucky. Now, I needed to push that luck to help people who really needed it.
That was the right thing to do, and if I had to tell one teeny white lie to make it happen, so be it.
Kieran would agree. He had to.
6
Kieran
Nothing,nothingfelt better than the spray of hot water in the locker room showers after a hot yoga class. I was almost glad I had to pick up that particular part of the slack with Marnie on maternity leave, just for the bliss of showering off afterward.
“Kieran,” Max called from the doorway. “You in here?”
