Page 3 of Loaded Laces

So, I may have underestimated the all-grown-up-now West Stevenson.

May have underestimated the boy who’d been my first love and how much he’d changed.

Once he’d been devoted to me, would have grown wings and flown to the moon and back, picked his way through the Sahara in soul-crushing sandstorms, crawled for miles over broken glass…he would have done all those cliché idioms about love and devotion for me without a second thought.

Which was why I had to let him go.

But that’s not why I’m here today.

This whole thing is dumb, probably the stupidest thing I’ve ever done.

But…I’m desperate.

And—

I stifle my sigh.

I’mdesperate. I have no other choice and I’m fucking desperate and I had to know that he was still the same West as a decade ago.

“Belle,”he growls, and I jump.

“I—” But I don’t go any further. Because I can’t summon any words, an explanation that makes this make sense—me being here, me starting shit.

Because itdoesn’tmake sense.

Except to say that I’m the aforementioneddesperate.

“Why the fuck are you here?” he snaps. “Or should I say, why the fuck are you here asking that insulting ass question?”

Desperate.

D.E.S.P.E.R.A.T.E.

“Belle!” he growls again and I jump again. But this time, it unsticks the words in my head.

“I wanted to…”

Just as easily as the words came, the rest of my sentence fades out.

Probably because it ends withask you a favor.

Fuck.

My chest goes tight, and I struggle to hold his gaze, guilt rippling through me. I can’t screw up his life like this. Not when I already hurt him so badly all those years ago.

His hands settle onto the outsides of my arms, gripping me firmly. Not painfully.

But firmly.

And as though he wants to shake me until I finish what I was going to say.

“I’m just a bitch,” I say, and it’s not exactly a lie. The last decade hasn’t made me sweet, hasn’t made me pliable and easy-going. It’s made me a fighter.

And increasingly isolated.

His brows flick up in surprise, or maybe in question, but I don’t miss it in his eyes—the concern.

For me.

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