Page 58 of Love's Hot

Being shot might have been a whole lot easier.

Lilly

I can hardly see the numbers in the elevator. My brain is trying to remember the number of Xavier’s floor.

Shit, what if they aren’t here?

I can’t breathe.

I just bend over trying to suck in the air. What the hell just happened?

The elevator doors open, and I run down the hall to Xavier’s door, banging like a crazy woman. That’s because I am. Please, god, let Lesh be here. I need her.

“Shit, Lilly. What happened?” Xavier says as I fall into his arms as soon as the door opens. His shoulders sag like he just worked out what’s going on. I’m sure he knows about Kane and me. “It’s okay, hun, it’ll all be okay. Come on.” He pulls me inside and walks me to the couch as Lesh comes staggering out of the bedroom, robe wrapped around her.

“Sorry,” I sob into his shoulder.

“Shhh, it’s okay.” I feel him pull away and Alesha wraps her arms around me, and we curl into each other on the couch as I sob. I can’t talk, I just need to let it all out.

I don’t know how long we stay there while I cry like my world has just ended. I know it’s ridiculous, but to me it’s like I lost my world that I had only just found. After sitting in silence for a while, all the tears dry up. Xavier gets me to sit up a little and places a cup of tea in my hands.

“Here, drink this, it’ll help,” he softly says.

“Unless it’s straight alcohol, then I doubt it,” I grumble.

He laughs a little. “There she is, our snarky Lilly is still in there.” Xavier hands a cup to Alesha and then leaves us to it, commenting he’s going for a run. No guesses with who.

As he goes to walk out the door, I yell to him, “Hope he trips in front of a bus.”

“Lilly,” Alesha yells. “You can’t say that,” she scolds me. “That’s awful.”

“What?” I shrug. “He’s an asshole and hopefully the Karma bus mows him down. I didn’t mean a literal bus, just the karma bus.”

Alesha gasps at me.

Xavier’s laughing. “I’ll make sure I pass on your well wishes, Lil. Now try to keep calm and no touching any knives while I’m gone.” You can always count on Xavier to bring humor to any situation.

“Yeah, whatever. Just don’t bring him back here otherwise all bets are off.”

He leaves, laughing to himself.

I turn back to Alesha and she looks at me with sisterly love. It’s just enough to start me off again.

“I love him, Lesh. I didn’t know what love was, but he showed me. I thought he loved me too. He never said it, but he didn’t need to. It was in his eyes, his touch, in everything we did. I’m so stupid. I thought I could show him he could have his job and love me too. But I’m not enough, I just wasn’t enough.” I suck in a breath between sobs. “My love just isn’t enough.” Tears still stream down my cheeks.

“He did what he told me he would do. No matter what, he was always going to walk away. He followed the rules. I’m the one who broke them, I let feelings in. There’s no way I can be his friend. I just can’t love him this hard and ignore it to be friend-zoned.

“What am I going to do, Lesh? How am I going to survive this?”

“The same way we’ve always gotten through life. We will get through this together. You can do this. It’ll just take time and a whole lot of alcohol and chocolate. That I’m certain of. Now keep drinking that tea so I can open the first bottle. It’s going to be a long day.”

“I love you, Lesh.” I close my eyes and let the rest of the tears fall. I need to get them all out so I can work on moving on.

She squeezes me.

“Love you too, Lil.” Alesha sniffles. I guess she’s crying for me too.

23

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