Page 82 of Pretty Lies

“God save us all,” he murmured, stirring his coffee, “because in that case … I don’t think the world is ready for two women that are half me.”

She wasn’t expecting that answer.

Della also kind of loved it.

“You say all the right things, Cory.”

He laughed darkly. “I do what I can.”

Just like that, the heaviness came back to her chest, and the kitchen grew quiet. Even Mace, who finished his eggs, drifted out of the kitchen to leave Cory and Della alone. There was no way to distract herself from what she wasn’t ready to face.

Della dragged in a shaky breath, the sound loud in the silence of the kitchen. “I’m still trying to process what happened yesterday.”

“We don’t have to talk about it. We can keep doing this—just talking about anything else. You don’t have to go there yet, Della. Not if you don’t want to.”

His words made her pause. They could pretend, she knew, but it would still end. Her brother was dead. She would never go back to a time when she couldn’t say those words. J would always be dead now.

“Or … could we just be quiet for a minute?” she asked. “I think I want to process.”

Ten feet away, he gave her one of his grins. “Yeah, you can think. Silence it is.”

He continued stirring his coffee, seemingly fine to not pay her a bit of mind even as her bare feet padded across the room to take her right where he stood. Turning around, she used her hands to pull her up to the edge of the counter where she sat.

Eventually, with the rhythmic ting-ting of his spoon the only noise other than their breathing, Della rested her cheek to the top of Cory’s bare bicep.

She felt him look down at her, but he still didn’t say a word. She understood why he was something she needed. Compared to her, he seemed like a pillar in destructive winds. She was the hurricane making the mess. Somehow, he felt like the steady, safe ground and she was desperate to find some traction.

Just like the day before when she couldn’t bear to break down in an emergency room full of people watching her, so she walked and walked and walked until she was sure nobody who knew her face would see her cry. And who followed her the entire way? Who sat beside her and held her without saying a word and didn’t mention it after?

Cory.

Everything in her life lately, from her business to her heart and even her pain, brought her back to this man. It was starting to feel like the universe was telling her something. It wasn’t at all the best time, but the thing that had bloomed between them was becoming impossible to ignore all the same.

Maybe that made it hurt worse.

The rest, that was.

Because the falling part—falling for him?

That had been easy.

It was the hows of all this. How had Cory done this? How did her heart find a way to open up and let him in?

She had another question, too. One that only time would answer, but it had nothing to do with how she felt about Cory. Yet it had been the first thought that raced through her mind when she dared to open her eyes in bed that morning.

How would everything change?

After yesterday, her world stopped. It was turning again—of course, it kept going. The world didn’t revolve around her. So, even though she’d lost the person who had been her best friend for as long as she’d been alive, life continued on.

Differently.

“Nothing is going to be the same,” she whispered.

Not for them.

Or her family.

J was gone.