Page 74 of I'm Not in Love (I Promise)

BLAKE

I wakeand find Falin passed out, ass up on the couch with Jasper on the floor beside her. There’s a story here… One that I’ll need copious amounts of coffee and carbs to pry out of her. They look so peaceful. One conversation when they wake up will change all that. I’m sick to my stomach thinking about sweet Mrs. Langston. Sicker still, knowing how poorly Jasper will take the news.

“Leon’s still asleep,” Damon says, coming from Leon’s room. “I’m going to shower then run out and grab some food. You want to try waking these jokers up? I don’t want to leave you here without protection.”

He pulls me in for a kiss and I nod against him. “I’ll do my best.”

It takes some coercing but Falin and Jasper wake up, groaning and shuffling to the bathroom. I meet Falin outside the door with a mug of hot coffee. “I always knew you were my favorite person.”

Jasper passes us in the hallway and grabs for Falin’s cup. “Coffee, I need.”

She scowls and smacks his hand away. “Hell, no. Go make your own cup, you meathead.”

“But yours will taste better.” He smirks and pulls the cup from her hand, taking a long sip. “So good.”

“I hope you know, you just started the apocalypse,” I warn Jasper. Falin shoots daggers at him as she stomps out of the hallway.

“She’s such a peach,” he says, scratching his wild head of hair.

“What happened last night?” Falin’s in the kitchen aggressively opening cabinets in search of another mug. She’s going to hate finding out the guys only own two.

“Too much to talk about when I just woke up.” I follow him into his room, trying to fish something out of him. He grabs an unlabeled pill bottle from his dresser drawer and turns, realizing I’m behind him. “You want something, sweetheart?”

I wrap my arms around him, squeezing tight. “No, just this.” His bear paw hands glide up and down my back, soothing me as I suppress a sob.

“Interrupting something?” Falin says, leaning against the doorframe with a hand on her hip. I pull away and run my palm over my face.

“We need to talk when Damon gets back.” I try to keep my tone neutral but am afraid I’m failing miserably.

“What happened?” Falin asks, her entire demeanor shifting.

I focus my gaze on the floor. There’s a tiny groove in the weathered hardwood that through my veiled gaze almost looks like a face.

“Did something happen last night?” Jasper asks, all hints of jest gone from his voice.

“Mrs. Langston is dead.”

Falinand I have been laying in Damon’s bed for over an hour, watching a movie on my laptop. I’ve only digested a few minutes of it. The rest has been nothing but background noise. Even so, the guys needed space, and I needed quiet time with Falin just as much.

“I can’t believe she’s gone,” I say, picturing the lively woman who, just a few nights ago, grabbed Jasper’s butt on the way out of the house. Seeing her on her back like that, in the same position my mother was in, brought my grief to the surface. If I close my eyes, it’s not Mrs. Langston’s face that I see, it’s hers. The pain is as fresh today as it was all those years ago.

“I’m so sorry. She seemed great.” Falin pulls me into a side hug and twirls a strand of my hair. “I know you had a rough few days, but while we have some space, I wanted to talk.”

“Okay,” I say, drawing out the word. “What’s on your mind?”

She sighs and gathers her thoughts, which means she’s about to deliver a whopper. If there’s one thing I know to be true about my best friend, it’s that she says what she wants, unfiltered as a hand-rolled cigarette. That’s her, and I love it… most of the time.

“Come to San Francisco with me. Take a semester off, relax a little, visit some schools. I have plenty of space in my place now and plenty of money to spoil my best friend. I don’t know about these guys, Blakey. They seem alright, but their life and yours are headed in opposite directions. And don’t get me wrong, I love a man who goes after what he wants but Damon… He’s not just one red flag, he’s an entire field of them.”

I sit up, worrying my bottom lip with my teeth. The skin there is red and raw from how often I’ve chewed the same spot. “Trust me, I know he’s not perfect, but neither am I. He’s passionateand loyal and he hasn’t said it but I’m pretty sure he loves me. And I know what we have going is intense, but maybe that’s what I’ve needed.”

I haven’t felt like Blake the Bore since Damon and the guys came into my life. The insecurity that’s been a constant whisper in the back of my mind has quieted.

“Ethan was an ass who treated you like shit and I know your luck with guys hasn’t been great before him, but Blakey, you’re worthy of love, of a healthy relationship. I get it, the unhinged ones are wild in bed, and they scratch this itch somewhere deep inside us, that little nagging feeling that says we’re not enough.” She plays with a silver ring on her finger, looking at me with genuine concern. “I’m just worried about you. With Brennan gone all the time you’re alone so much. And now, what? People are dying around you, your car is getting wrecked. You won’t hear me say this often, but I’m scared.”

I hate to admit it, but she’s not wrong. The pit in my stomach has made itself a permanent home, even planted a garden and put up a picket fence. But what Falin doesn’t know, what no one else knows, is that the pit’s been there for as long as I can remember. It has nothing to do with Ethan, or losing Bryan or my mom, or any of this that’s happening now. It’s been a part of me for so long that I don’t know how to live without it.

I scoot closer for a hug. “I know you’re scared, I am too, but I don’t want to uproot my life. I need to see if this thing with Damon can work out.”

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