Page 58 of One Last Thing Before You Go

It’s like a record scratch cutting through all the noise in the lounge, like an atomic bomb in the shape of a single sentence. It cuts through the room like a samurai sword, leaving everyone speechless.

“Dude,” Jenn whispers, dropping her face in her hands.

“I’m not strong enough?”

We’ve garnered the attention of everyone in the room by now, the patrons of the place having overheard the most intimate details of my life thanks to my sister’s stupid outburst. And I am done. So fucking done.

Her lips tremble, eyes teary as she shakes her head.

“I think you lack resilience.”

I scoff, and if I wasn’t seething with rage, I am now. “I keep resilience in fucking business, Adriana. If there’s someone at this table who truly knows what that is, it’s me.”

I fist my hands at my sides, a million more rebuttals running through my head. I want to tell her where she can go, I want to tell her to mind her own business. I want to tell her all about the judgments I can also make about her life but choose to keep quiet everyday because it’s her life, not mine.

Instead, I choose to do the right thing: I pick up my bag, my coat, and walk away, my head held up high.

I’ll show you just how strong and resilient I can be.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

KNOX

Iclick through this week’s images—the before and after of the demo, the crew working, some shots around town, Jenn helping pack up some more rare books to sell, and Lottie. Dozens and dozens of pictures of Lottie.

I can’t help it—she’s my… muse? I gag. I’ve always hated that word, associating it more to artists suffering from obsession and a self-centered someone loving the attention. But what I feel for Lottie isn’t that. It’s based on real experience and knowledge of her as a person. And if there’s someone who’s less of a Pick Me Girl, it’s Lottie. She’d hate it if I ever called her my muse. But as I scroll through, she’s in almost every frame of my memory card, making it a little difficult to pinpoint exactly who she is to me if not that.

Sure, she’s my business partner—friend, even. But fuck me if looking at pictures of her doesn’t make my chest tighten in a way that tells me that’s not at all what she is to me. I pore over each and every single frame: Lottie focused at her desk, brows scrunched in that way I find nothing short of adorable; Lottie alone in the office, gazing at her Post-It mural with admiration; Lottie laughing with her sister and Jenn at the store closing party, her face shining with a lightness that wasn’t there the night I met her all these weeks ago; and so many more I wish I could print and wallpaper this entire apartment with (in a super, non-creepy way, I promise.).

Lottie Veracruz might not be my muse per se, but she’s become the center of my universe, that’s for damn sure. There’s no other reason why I should be thinking about her at one in the morning while I’m home alone in bed on a Friday night. There’s no other reason why my mind should be filled with her laugh and her voice and her strength 24/7.

I need it to stop. I need it to stop, because we agreed that nothing would happen and what I feel for her has only gotten stronger and I can’t keep going like this.

I groan, running my fingers through my hair as I put my computer away, too wound up now to go to bed. “I need a cold shower,” I mutter to myself, throwing the covers off myself in frustration. But as soon as my feet hit the cold floor, there’s a knock on my door.

I freeze, thinking maybe I’ve lost my mind and am imagining Walter’s ghost has come back to haunt me. Or maybe it’s some local trying to murder me.

Or maybe you’ve been watching too many true crime documentaries on Netflix, you dumbass.

Another knock, a little harder this time, has me jogging quickly to the door, peeking through the peephole.

“Lottie?” I pull the door open, fully ready to ask her what she’s doing here so late when I see her full outfit.

And I want to die.

Because standing right in front of me, Lottie looks hotter than I’ve ever seen her before. In a flared red dress with a low neckline where the skirt hits a couple of inches over the knee, she stands before me looking like every straight man’s dream. And those heels… I can’t help but immediately wonder what they’d look like with her legs wrapped around my neck.

I groan and pinch the bridge of my nose, squeezing my eyes shut. “Jesus, Lottie. You can’t just show up to my apartment late at night looking like this. I’m already dying every day when I see you. But now I’m gonna have this image burned in my brain forever.”

I want to photograph her for hours from every angle. Then I want to strip her, fuck her, and photograph her naked body even more. I need even more photographic evidence that a woman of this caliber even exists. That she fucking exists.

I squeeze my eyes shut to concentrate, remove the temptation of wanting to wrap my arm around her waist and kiss her crazy. “This is gonna sound horrible, but please tell me no other guy saw you dressed like that. It’ll fucking kill me.” She chuckles half-heartedly. “Seriously, though. I know it sounds possessive and uncool, and it’s not like we’re together, but I do not give a shit.”

She snorts. “If I look so good, then why won’t you look at me.”

“I can’t,” I swallow and shake my head. “I’m trying hard to respect your boundaries, and I’m pretty sure I won’t be able to keep myself from gawking at you right now. That, and I don’t know if I’d be able to concentrate enough to understand what you’re saying.”

An exasperated sigh, a shuffle of feet. “Knox. Please. It’s important.”