Page 54 of Lost in You (Flirting with Forever 1)

I don’t bother to respond; I just keep hustling down the hallway. I rap my knuckles sharply on their door.

James swings the door open, takes one look at my face, and waves me inside.

I hastily enter, yanking my roller bag behind me, and come to an abrupt halt when I see Emily sitting on the bed. I drop my other bag to the floor and cover my face with my hands. “I’m so sorry you guys. I-I’ll go see if there is another room I can stay in.” My eyes drift shut, and I cover my face with both hands. I don’t want to interrupt their weekend together.

This is so damn embarrassing.

“Madi, tell me what’s happened. Is it Chase? Because if that dick is bothering you again …”

Slowly, I lower my hands, looking back and forth between them, not sure if Emily wants to be subjected to my mess.

Emily rises from the bed. “I can totally go get coffee or something.” She swallows and holds her hands out. “But can I give you a hug before I go? You look like you need one.”

I blink as my eyes fill. She doesn’t wait and rushes forward to wrap her arms around me. “Oh, Madison. I’m so sorry for whatever has upset you.” She squeezes me tightly before easing away.

“Please don’t feel like you have to leave. I don’t want to put you out. I don’t mind if you stay. Unless you’re uncomfortable.” I heave out a sigh as I turn to look at my brother again. “James, you’re not going to believe what I’ve done.”

Over the course of the next twenty minutes, I tell them every last detail—from my schoolgirl crush on Shawn to telling him that I’d ruined his relationship with Dana and everything in between—including this weekend’s fake relationship that had become very real, very fast. And all the while, my phone has been lighting up in my pocket with call after call, message after message.

James grunts. “Chase had better hope I don’t see him before we leave. I will totally break his face.”

Emily winces at James’s words, but doesn’t say anything. She’s been more than kind this whole time. I’ll have to remember to tell James how much I like her.

I shake my head. “No, don’t do that. Chase is nothing. I don’t even want to think about him. I don’t want anything more to do with him ever again.”

“And Shawn? What are you going to do there?”

I get up to pace, hands on my hips. My gaze flickers over to my brother and his girlfriend and then down to the floor again. I wet my lips before I take a deep breath and let everything out. “He’s literally the man of my dreams. But now I don’t know if he can possibly feel the same way toward me as he did. Or like Chase said, if he’ll even want me anymore.”

Later, wrapped up in blankets on the floor of my brother’s hotel room, I cautiously thumb open my phone. Ten missed calls and a fuck-ton of messages. My hand shakes as I hold the phone in the darkness of the room, trying to figure out what to do. Will it hurt less if I just delete the messages without reading them? Breaths shudder in and out of me as I stare, unseeing, at the phone screen. I can’t do that. I won’t do that to Shawn. He deserves better. He deserves everything.

I swallow back the emotional lump in my throat and open the messages.

Shawn: Butterfly, please come back. I didn’t want you to go. I didn’t mean for you to think that.

Shawn: I was just trying to wrap my head around everything.

Shawn: I think we should talk. Please answer your phone.

Shawn: Madi?

I see from the timestamp that a few minutes had gone by while he waited for me to respond. When I hadn’t, he’d finally broken down and continued.

Shawn: I don’t want to have this conversation via text.

Shawn: I’m not mad. This wasn’t even your fault.

Shawn: Please just come back so we can talk.

I wipe the tears from my cheeks, trying to figure out what to say and find the courage to type it out and send it.

Me: I think we need some time to figure out how we feel and to decide whether we pushed things into overdrive this weekend because of the circumstances.

Me: And I’m scared to really look inside myself and find this wasn’t real.

Me: Or maybe I’m more afraid that it was and I’ve messed it all up.

As I lie there on the floor, it hits me that Shawn is so goddamn nice—not at all the cheater I’d believed, not the asshole who’d do something like that to his girlfriend—and he’s likely pissed off, but doesn’t want to say so.

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