Visions of him reaching for the vase traipse through my mind uninvited. His body heat wrapping me up like a blanket. His virile scent invading my senses. The twinkle in his eye when he realized how he was affecting me.Someone’spheromones were unleashed, all right. And he knew exactly what he was doing.
Reed’s always had the upper hand.
Who am I kidding? I’llneverbe able to seduce that man.
He knows exactly what to do to make me weak in the knees and open in the thighs. Just like when we were young, when he’d walk around in his trampy sweatpants, sans shirt. And that was well beforegray sweatpants seasonwas a thing. Perhaps he’s the one who started it. I wouldn’t doubt it. He paraded through the house like he was the only model in an Adonis Belt fashion show. If I close my eyes, I can still see those deepVlines leading down to the promised land. I wanted nothing more than to run my tongue along them.
Years later, he still had the upper hand on the night we finally came together—repeatedly and in more ways than one. Much like he used his dashing good looks to make me salivate when wewere younger, he used his sadness to manipulate me into giving him my body.
Nothing’s changed since then. Not really.
Considering how good he is at exploiting my lust for him, this plan is over before it’s even begun. He’ll have me spilling my secrets. Not the other way around.
I should bail now while I still have fragments of my heart left. It’s the only sensible thing to do.
Me:
ABORT! ABORT! I can’t do this. Switching to Plan B.
My phone rings two seconds later. It’s Kenzie.
“Listen to me right now,” she starts the very moment I answer, her tone already bleeding with tough love.
“What?”
“First, there is no Plan B, and you damn well know it.”
Although she can’t see it, my face screws into a scowl in response to her accuracy. “Curse those pesky facts.”
“Second, we are absolutelynotgoing to the cops to turn in those fuck face monsters until we have their blackmail material. Your freedom is priority one. Do you hear me?”
I don’t answer.
She doubles down, her voice vibrating with conviction. “Not until you are free from this, Lila. I feel like a broken record, but you didnothingwrong, and I refuse to let you suffer for those shit-ass cunt weasels. Innocent people donotbelong in prison.”
My reluctant exhale turns into a quiet whimper that’s on brand for my pathetic existence. She’s so much stronger than me. All that determination and grit, even though she’s still healing from trauma.
How I lost one powerful sister only to find another to take her place is a baffling mystery. I can only imagine how much worse life would be without her lifting me up.
Argh. There I go again, making it all about me. Even internally, I’m the worst.
My parents were so right about me. I’m too sensitive. Too needy. Too selfish.
Some things never change, no matter how much I wish they would.
She jerks me out of my self-loathing spiral. “Lila, did you hear me?”
I nod pointlessly, eventually adding a verbal agreement.“Yeah.”
“Good. Say it back to me.”
“Say what?”
“That you did nothing wrong.”
Dutifully, I mutter, “I did nothing wrong.”
“With some feeling this time, for fuck’s sake. You infuriate me when you get like this, woman. When will you ever realize all the horrible things that happened to you arenotyour fault? It’s like you can’t wait to suffer. You’re innocent in this.Innocent!”
