Page 126 of Dissolving Prejudice

“Trust?” I half turned to face her. “Trust in what?”

Her green eyes shone, almost like she was holding back tears. Which was a bit odd, but I’d give her that.

“Yourself,” she said.

Somehow, the kindness that showed on her face reminded me of my mom. She used to say that as long as we trusted our hearts, everything would work out for the better, and I used to do that as a kid, thinking her words were true. But I guess, somewhere between shooting herself in the head and my whole life turning to shit, her message got lost. Not to mention, every decision I’d made since her death was more destructive than the last, resulting in me becoming more like my father than anything. But you trusted your heart and fell in love, and look how that turned out. Since Shay-Lee, without a doubt, was the best thing to have ever happened to me, maybe it was time to try and trust myself again or, at the very least, trust this therapist who claimed she could help me.

“Anything I say stays in here?”

“Of course,” she said and sat back in her chair, clearly waiting for me to do the same.

It took me one more second of self-doubt and my typical pessimism before I moved my ass and sat back on the couch.

Shay-Lee

“I’m surprised you actually stayed in there the whole hour,” I said and pushed back from my car just in time for him to catch me in his arms.

“I’m surprised myself.” Camilo smirked, then ducked down to kiss me.

His lips were a bit cold, but I loved it anyway, and I opened my mouth to allow his naughty tongue to slip inside when something caught my attention, and I pulled back. “Why do you smell of cigarettes?” I frowned while giving him another sniff to make sure I wasn’t imagining things.

“Did you know Blaire’s a smoker?”

My eyes widened as fury went through me. “Don’t tell me she gave you a cigarette!”

Knowing her, I was worried she’d do something outrageous, as that woman’s methods were, more often than not, unheard of. I mean, Soren had brought me to her for a reason. Those two were the definition of toeing the line of professional ethics.

Laughing, Camilo brushed my hair out of my face before cupping my neck. “Relax, I didn’t take it.”

“That’s good to know.” I closed my eyes while getting lost in the warmth of his touch when I realized what he’d just said. “Wait, so she did offer you one?”

“She did.”

“I’m going to kill her,” I hissed before breaking our connection and pulling out my car keys.

“Relax, Llorón, I swear I didn’t smoke.” He muttered something about how shitty it was quitting when I started walking toward the driver’s side to get inside the car. But the second I applied too much weight to my right leg, a jolt of pain shot through me, and I grunted. As it turned out, kicking Jordan’s headlight with my fucked-up leg wasn’t such a smart idea.

“Why are you limping?”

Shit. I hoped he wouldn’t notice.

Forcing a smile to hide the fact my ankle was killing me, I looked at him. “I’m not.”

“You are.” He scowled, moved to my side of the car, and held the door open for me. “What happened?”

Since I had no intention of troubling Camilo with Jordan’s bullshit, as he already had too much to deal with, I came up with a reliable excuse. “Just one of those days, you know.” I tried shaking my leg a little bit. “You’ll have to give me a good foot massage tonight.”

“Will do.” He slipped the keys from my hand. “I’ll drive, okay?”

Since it sounded like a great idea, I hummed a yes and limped my way to the passenger seat, all while promising myself that next time, if need be, I’d use my fists, not my stupid legs.

“So what did you do while I was at Blaire’s?” he asked after we began driving.

“What do you mean?” My eyes drifted to the mirror, only to check, once again, that Jordan wasn’t tailing us.

He wasn’t. Good.

“You said you had something to do around here.”