Page 39 of My Sweet Dollie, You Have to Love Me
Nothing would have made me feel better about that, and I didn’t have the strength to drop to my knees and beg her to talk to me when I don’t even talk because it would only make me feel worse if she turned her back on me again.
The whole thing made me sour. So, instead, I disappeared back into the darkness before she could see me.
Exhausted from the emotions fighting inside me, I’d trailed back to my room, ignoring all the bloodstains and memories that haunted the second floor, and I went to bed with a plan of getting up early to face my fucking fears.
I thought I’d be fine after a few hours of sleep.
Of course, I couldn’t fucking sleep with too many thoughts of her on my mind, finally closing my eyes around six-thirty-five. Twenty-five minutes before my alarm went off, it was buzzing too close to my ear to ignore.
Dollie had already made her own disappearing act by then. So, I went out, too, out to fix a stuffed animal who is about to play mediator for our reunion.
And now that that’s done, I’m here, standing in this room with a chest full of anxiety and Dollie’s favorite possession tucked under my arm, restuffed and dressed in a new yellow tie for her sensory pleasure.
“Do not do that.” Her fake, people-pleasing laugh drifts through the house and into my ears. It rids me of all feelings of animosity.
The dependent thing, it has to go. We should be able to live separately.
But I can’t help my feelings.
“I wanna take these into town. Hand them out to locals. Maybe it can drum up some business.” She lifts a baking tray of colorful cupcakes, all of which look and smell incredible.
Pressure in my throat rises. Is that what she does now? Makes cupcakes.
“I’m still in awe that the oven here works.”
Is she talking to me?
“You’ve eaten two of them. Stop.”
My eyebrows dip with the weight of new emotions when I hear his voice. Shane. She’s still with that weird kid from her teens.
No fucking way.
I glance down, expecting to see my actual heart slowly ceasing to beat on the floor because I feel it drop.
“They are actually quite nice.”
Quite nice?God, he always knew how to give a half-hearted compliment. It’soneof the reasons I hate him.
“If you’re giving them away, I don’t think anyone would toss them.”
I blink at his stupidity, staring around the frame of the door. The kitchen is covered in cupcake supplies.
“I’m shocked about the oven, too, and that someone put food in the cupboards.”
“There’s probably been squatters. Maybe we should call someone to check upstairs?”
“I can look.”
“No. You can’t leave me here by myself.”
“For fuck’s sake, Lancie. I’d only be going upstairs.” Shane picks up another cupcake, and before he takes it to his lips, his waistband judges him for it. He unbuttons his pants, and that’s my cue to put my eyes back on Dollie.
Hopefully, he’s just relaxing his overfilled stomach and has no plans to defile her on the kitchen counter.
If his dick comes out in my kitchen, I don’t think I’ll ever eat in there again. I relax. The sound of him chewing is confirmationthat no additional dicks are about to be loose in my house. Still, only him.
He’s enough.
