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I lifted a shoulder because she couldn’t know that.
No one could.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, bringing us back to the beginning. “I’m sorry for what she did and what she’s been doing. I’m sorry you’re losing your best friend. I’m sorry for not telling you the second you walked in.”
A shaky smile tugged at one side of Scarlet’s mouth. “You did this time.” At the slant of my head, she explained, “The second I walked in, you told me everything.”
“Remembered that feeling,” I said as I held out a hand toward her, giving her a choice in coming to me, and felt some of that strain ease when she moved toward me.
Sliding her hand into mine and pressing against my side without hesitation.
“That same heartbreaking pain and gut-wrenching worry because I knew there was achanceyou’d believe them. Knew there was achanceI could lose you. But I knew exactly what would happen if I kept it from you, and I wasn’t going through that again.”
Her fingers tightened around mine for a moment as if in gratitude, but she didn’t say anything. Just let me hold her there in the kitchen as she tried to absorb everything while I did the same...all over again.
Letting my memories that had been unlocked consume me and mix with the ones that had been a constant this past month. Finally seeing them the way Scarlet had from the beginning.
My life fully twisted around to create another one so similar and different at the same time.
And at the center of it was the girl in my arms, even if my mind had tried to erase her.
“What do we do now?” Scarlet asked a while later.
“Chinese?”
“Chase.” My name rushed from her on a saddened laugh as she pushed at my stomach. But instead of moving away, she wrapped her arms around my waist and looked up at me, giving me the perfect view of her.
Those dark, hypnotic eyes.
Those full lips.
That smile that had captured my attention from the very first night. Slow, sensual, fucking breathtaking.
She pushed up on her toes to press her mouth to mine. The kiss soft and unhurried before she settled on her feet, as if she just needed that connection again after the shit we’d gone through. “I can see you’re thinking about something. Talk to me.”
I held her closer as I studied this girl who was all wicked temptation and the brightest light. This girl who had taken my heart and refused to give it back from the moment she’d walked into the tattoo shop. This girl who had been through Hell and back with me so many times already and was still there in my arms.
Letting my fingers trail along her jaw, I tipped her head up and slanted my mouth over hers. Hovering there for a moment as more of our life raced through my mind. “Just remembering.”
Anna slowed as she neared the table in our favorite brunch spot the next morning, eyebrows bunching together as she pointedly took in the only other chair at the table opposite me.
“Where is everyone?” she asked as she slid into the seat, still holding onto her bag like she might have to get right back up and leave.
I pushed a mimosa her way and watched as her eyebrows rose.
“Oh, it’s one of those mornings?”
“I already have an entire carafe on the way,” I informed her as I drained the rest of my first one.
“Well, hold on, friend. Let me catch up.” She unceremoniously dropped her bag to the floor and hurriedly grabbed the champagne flute. “What are we celebrating?”
“We aren’t.”
She paused with the flute halfway to her lips before leveling me with a look. “I already have my alcohol, so start spilling.”
I drew in a slow breath and did exactly that.
* * *
