Page 33 of The Influencer

Or am I?

“I wish you’d come see Father Paul with me. He makes so much sense, and I feel like it might really help you find some peace. Align our goals.”

“Right. Yeah.” I drop my napkin on my barely touched plate, itching to get out of the apartment but lacking a place to go. Adam and Sawyer are in Seattle. I have zero other friends, and there’s only one person I want to see anyway, but I don’t trust myself anymore. And frankly—I can’t afford him.

I wonder if a priest could help me work that out.

“I promised you I would wait for you, Asher. For you to be ready,” Olivia says as I rise from my chair.

“And what if I’m never ready?”

“I don’t believe that.” She stands with me, closing in, her breasts pressing against me and her arms wrapping around my waist. “I believe in you. In us. No one could love you as much as I do, baby. What we have is so much deeper than sex. We have love and trust and respect. We belong together.”

I can’t fucking breathe.

“I think I know what’s bothering you.”

“Yeah, I?—”

“Adam’s getting married. You feel like I’m pressuring you, but I’m not. It’s what I want, of course, I know you know that, but it’s not a rush. Take your time. I’m not going anywhere. Ever.”

“She’s fucking gaslighting you, dude.”

I’m at the shop, first thing in the morning, with Adam on speaker while I do some online banking. “I don’t know if I’d go that far,” I say.

“I would. Did she really say no one could love you as much as she does?”

“Yeah,” I sigh, hitting send on the utilities bill.

“That’s fucked up,” he says.

“You’ve never liked her.” In fact, I don’t even know why I bothered bringing this to Adam. But it’s not like I can talk to Mom about it. She fucking adores Olivia, and she’s dying for grandbabies.

“Have you?” he asks.

“I love her,” I say, but it feels more like a reflex than the truth. At least today. I don’t feel much of anything today except a clawing need to get out of my own skin.

“Why, though? Because she’s there?”

It’s more than I can say for some people. “She’s been here, yeah. And she’s supported me through everything.” Adam’s exploding success, his headline-making relationship, becoming a tattoo artist, opening this shop, reclaiming my health. Basically, she’s done everything for me that Sawyer’s done for him, minus the mind-blowing sex.

“I’m not arguing she hasn’t been semi-supportive on occasion, or that having sex is the most important thing in a relationship, but it is a thing that you want to have, and she’s using it to control you.”

Is she, though? Because apparently, if I don’t mind being a complete sleaze, I can do whatever the fuck I want.

I put my head in my hands and shut my eyes, letting the new wave of guilt collapse the remains of my self-esteem.

“Because of Jesus,” Adam adds.

I press the heels of my hands into my eyes. “Yes. Because of Jesus.”

“And you’re gonna marry her?”

“Who said anything about marrying her?”

“Fuck, Asher. Why are you doing this to yourself?”

The answer screams through my mind so loudly, I’m surprised Adam can’t hear it. Because I don’t want to be alone.

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