AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Everyone had cake and we chatted about the next book and I put in my points about my two favorites, but we’d see what the consensus was.
“Do you need any help cleaning up?” Lark asked as she hung around.
“No, we’ve got this,” I told her. “I’ll see you upstairs.”
“Oh,” she said, her face falling. “Okay.”
“I’ll be up later,” I said, wondering why she seemed upset. Lark left and it was just me, Layne, Honor, Joy, and Ezra.
“I’m sorry, but I need them,” I said, grabbing Joy and Layne’s arms. “I’ll give them back, but I need them right now.”
I dragged them off to the storage room and shut the door.
“I have a problem with Lark,” I said.
* * *
“Yes,we know, and I have some bad news for you, babe,” Joy said, trying to hold back a smile. “But I think you have feelings for Lark.”
I scoffed. “No. No way. What makes you think that?”
Layne and Joy shared a look.
“It’s pretty obvious,” Joy said.
“Syd?” Layne said, putting her hand on my arm. “I know your whole thing is being anti-feelings, but that doesn’t work in reality. And it’s not a bad thing. Feelings are good,” she said.
I narrowed my eyes. “Feelings are bad. I don’t want them. I don’t need them.”
“You have feelings for us,” Joy said.
“Yeah, friendship feelings. That’s different,” I said.
I crossed my arms and leaned back in my chair.
“You can’t control being attracted to someone,” Joy said gently.
“Attraction is fine. I’m attracted to lots of women. It’s the other stuff,” I said, cringing and squirming in my seat. I’d wanted this conversation but now all I wanted to do was get out of it.
“The emotions?” Layne said. “Kind of overwhelming, aren’t they?”
Layne and Joy shared a look of two people who knew a secret.
“I mean…no. Yes. I don’t know,” I mumbled.
When Lark had sung and I’d kissed her, that had been overwhelming. If I was honest, everything about that first night and the next morning had been, too. Not to mention the thing with me dropping my towel.
“I mean, just because I can hear her breathe when she’s in the living room and sometimes I get up in the middle of the night and stand outside her door to make sure she’s okay, doesn’t mean I care about her,” I said.
“Did you hear the words that just came out of your mouth?” Layne just asked. “Because I did.”
“I heard them too,” Joy said, raising her hand.
I glared at both of them. “I’m regretting having this talk now.”
“It’s not our fault you like her,” Layne said.
“Youreallylike her,” Joy said, her voice full of glee. She’d been predicting that I would fall for someone for years now.
