Page 105 of Lyrical

I pushed away so I could see his face. “Try? Chase, you’re leaving tomorrow for a week and after everything—”

“Don’t you think I hate knowing I’m going away and leaving you right now?” He stood, hauling me up with him. I must have felt like a lump of dead weight. “It’s fucking ripping me apart.”

“Chase, I need your word. I need your promise that you and me, we’re good.”

He hooked his fingers in mine, bringing one hand to his lips, then to his heart. “Baby, we’re good. Rock solid. I give you my vow.”

I inhaled deeply, exhaling slowly. We were good. His eyes showed the truth. Nothing had changed between us. Whatever Cassie had hoped to accomplish didn’t work.

So why did I feel that vise grip in my chest, that guttural fear gnawing in my stomach when he kissed me goodbye and walked out the door?

Nothing had changed, but nothing felt the same either.

“Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my Goooooood.”

“Perry, deep breath. Please.” I was freaking out by her freaking out. She was going to hyperventilate. She was hopping around my office, taking rapid, short breaths, and I was starting to feel guilty for telling her. “You’d think you were pregnant from how you’re acting right now,” I said, trying to inject a little levity.

“No, Jills. That’d be something positive. New life and all that shit. Not like the hell I brought to yours.”

She finally flopped down on the chair after wearing herself out. Then her eyes misted over, ready to go to another extreme. She was all over the place, even more intense than usual, and I attributed it to pre-wedding jitters and nerves over all the last-minute stuff that had to get done.

I crouched in front of her, placing my hands on her knees. “None of this is your fault. Not one little bit. Got it, woman?”

“All that crap I spewed about being nice to her and keeping her close. What the fuck is wrong with me? I was basically pimping out your soul, encouraging you to be friends with the Devil.”

I laughed. “Perry, don’t you think you’re being just a tiny bit too hard on yourself?”

“No. I wasn’t even there for you last night.”

“You were sick!”

That morning at the hotel I had filled her in on everything that had happened during her comatose period. While she thought it was whacked, it was nothing compared to how she reacted when she heard the most recent events. Now she blamed herself.

“Oh my God, I was the one who invited her too. None of this would’ve happened if I’d just been the best friend I’m supposed to be.” She dropped her chin to her chest.

“You don’t think she would’ve found another way to hurt me? It would’ve happened regardless if she was invited or not. You don’t think the Devil is sneaky and resourceful?”

That earned me a slight curve of her lips. It was a start. “I was only trying to make your life better. I never intended it to backfire like that.”

“Of course you didn’t, Perry. That goes without saying.”

“I just thought you needed to redirect your focus to Chase and happier things because of… well, just because. You deserve that, Jills.”

“You can’t forget that she didn’t win. Her plan failed. That’s the important thing here, right?”Sneaky and resourceful.Those words popped back into my head, and I bolted up. “Holy fuck, Perry. You said you’re feeling completely better today. Don’t you think that’s odd?”

“Um, not really. I did sleep a lot. I got whatever out of me.”

“That’s just it—you slept a lot and really hard. Oh my God, do you think she drugged you to get you out of the way?”

She stood up and steeled her hands on my shoulders. “Jills, that’d sound a little nutballish even coming from me. She wasn’t even next to me to slip anything into my food.”

“Maybe she convinced the waiter to do it. You know, offered him a favor in return. I wouldn’t put it past that tramp.”

Perry rolled her eyes. If nothing else, I was getting her to come back. “Then what? Blow the maintenance guy so he’d screw up the temperature, have a threesome with the strippers so they’d kick it up a notch? All for what, a picture? Look, I know she’s an evil cunt and all, but you’re giving her too much power here.”

Yeah, I couldn’t let her do this to me, make me so crazy. But I also couldn’t stop obsessing about her endgame. Maybe it didn’t stop at Chase; maybe she wanted to declare me certifiable and send me to the loony bin. Really take over my life, and then she could have it all. Chase, Daniel, house, car, soft robes, delicious beer and food she’d touch and then carelessly toss aside—

“Stop obsessing, Jills.”

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