Page 271 of Darling Venom
Without even trying, That Asshole will ruin the woman he loves.
I peeled the pages open and forced myself to finish.
Even though it hurt like a motherfucker.
And when I finished, there was nothing left of me but bones, flesh, and blood. I sprawled across the hardwood planks, loose-limbed and exhausted.
Charlie kissed Kellan.
Correction: Charlie kissed Kellan, and he wrote an entire book about it. Named it after her taste. Immortalized her inside the same coffin he’d locked his soul.
And above all, he’d given them a happy ending.
My excuse for showing up at Charlie’s apartment consisted of returning Darling Venom and not much else.
I knew treating her like a public library suggested I had the IQ of a pencil—it’s not like she didn’t have any copies of the book.
Still, I came on autopilot.
Careening toward a cliff, the train wreck that I was.
Leah stood in the hallway, keys dangling from her fingertips. She took me in, a sight that no doubt differed from the previous version of me she’d met. I hadn’t changed out of my torn button-down. Stains from upchucking my dinner peppered my dress pants.
I probably reeked, too.
She set her key in the doorknob, then turned to face me. “Lottie’s at the playground.”
Let it be a metaphor, asshat. Since you are now, apparently, catching feelings for a child.
“So, she’s Lottie now.”
“Yes. Thank you for snapping some sense into me.” She crossed her arms. “But it doesn’t excuse the hell you’ve put her through.”
“She told you that?”
“No. You just did. She, on the other hand, told me not to worry. She didn’t want to burden me. Lottie’s like that. Always thinking about others before herself.”
Her foot tapped a chaotic rhythm beneath her sensible shoe. She wore a collared tunic. Some sort of work uniform, I surmised.
For a job Charlie once mentioned she never wanted.
Every sacrifice a person makes paves the way for the next one. Until they come so easily, they no longer consider them sacrifices.
I knew because it’d been the same with Kel and me.
Leah sighed. “Since you offered unsolicited advice last time we talked, it’s my turn. If you can’t get your shit together and treat Lottie right, don’t string her along. She’s gone through enough pain and suffering to last a lifetime, and I’ll be damned if you add to it.”
She twisted the door handle, slinking into her apartment before I could answer. I hightailed it out of there.
On the walk to Galileo Playground, I accepted two indisputable facts:
Kellan claimed Charlie in Darling Venom. And…
I was stealing his girl, and I was the scum of the earth for it, but I vowed to never take it to the next level.
If he couldn’t have her all the way, neither could I.
Maybe a meteor would fall. Level me. Put me out of my misery.
