Page 37 of Seizing Control: Part One

“Yeah, I know.”

“And how does that make you feel?”

Her dead tone is a knife to the heart. I run my fingers through my hair as I try to find the words to truly convey how aware I am that I’ve fucked up, multiple times, since I enacted my hare-brained scheme to fake our break-up to smoke out Brutus and his faction. Time after time, I delve into the depths of my brain, and I come up empty, bar for one simple admission.

“I feel stupid.”

“You’re not stupid.”

“Sweet thing, I’m?—”

In a voice that could cut glass, Lily interjects, “Making mistakes doesn’t make you stupid, Zeke, it makes you human.”

“Beg to differ on that one, I guess.”

“We’ll do no such thing,” she replies with vehemence. Ever the protector, she defends me from myself, even though my idiocy has caused her nothing but pain and suffering. “You’re not stupid.”

I curl my fingers into fists to stop myself from pushing back to my feet, stalking around to Lily’s side of the table, and pulling her into my arms. For months, I’ve denied myself her love. Told myself that I was okay without her sweet to offset my bitterness. All it took was one touch last night, to make a liar of me.

She’s mine.

I’m hers.

We’re cosmic.

Bound together, no matter the time and space between us.

“I mean it,” Lily states. A frown wrinkles the skin between her eyes as her blue orbs bore into mine with an intensity I can feel in my bones. “You. Are. Not. Stupid.”

“None of your pretty words change the facts, sweet thing. Stupid or not, I’m a fuckin’ loser… my mistakes span the continent, at this point. From Perth to Sydney, and back again.” Something in my statement makes my woman stiffen. Her shoulders lift and she infuses her spine with steel. Lips pressed together in a thin line, Lily’s posture is ramrod straight as she arches an eyebrow in a silent request for me to elaborate. “Some’a the things I’ve done fill me with shame. Every move I’ve made came with good intentions, but all I’ve managed to do is fuck things up… with you. With the old-timers. With my dad.”

“What about Slash?”

With a one-shouldered shrug, I tell her, “What about Slash? That fuckin’ whiny arsehole doesn’t even make the top ten right now.”

“Yeah,” Lily murmurs. She exhales loudly, then drops her gaze to the table. Shaking her head, my sweet thing sounds heartbroken when she tells me, “I figured that.”

My sometimes-best friend’s behaviour from last night slams back into my consciousness. He’s a mess. And, since Lily lives with him, she likely has a front seat to his spiralling dysfunction. A situation I put her in. Another misstep that’s heaped more worry on her head. As the knowledge that I need to add another error to my growing tally, I find myself caught between the urge to placate my woman with lies and ask her for more of the brutal honesty she hit me with last night.

When I lean forward, bracing my head on my elbows, my sweet thing recoils. For a second, I spy panic in Lily’s expression, then the shutters come down, and the space between us grows thick with tension. Her mental retreat makes my gut churn. I swallow hard, unsure why my flippant comment about Slash caused a reaction of this magnitude.

The confusion forces me to choose the second option.

I need to know the truth so we can move past the hurt.

“Lily,” I venture slowly. It takes more strength than it should to verbalise the question that kept me awake all night. “How do I fix things between us?”

The beautiful woman opposite me sucks her bottom lip into her mouth and sinks her teeth into the plump flesh. I shift in my seat, ready to stop her from hurting herself, only to freeze in place with she lifts her gaze to mine. In the normally bright depths, I discover a level of disenchantment that steals the oxygen from my lungs. Her clouded expression holds no hope for us. Lily’s written me off. Scratched a line through our love. Relegated me to the scrapheap of betrayers.

In her eyes, I’m as bad as Brutus.

Probably worse since she always expected him to disappoint her.

We peer at each other in silence.

Words unsaid.

Promises disbelieved.

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