Broken Knight by L.J. Shen

“There’s an Emergen-C pack and Advil on the kitchen counter. You know your way around, and if you need anything, ask Vaughn. Or call. You can call me, too.”

Emilia, Mom’s older sister and Vaughn’s mother, practically shoved me out the door, delving through paper bags for all the shit she’d brought Mom. She looked tired, worried, and secondhand sick. I spat phlegm into one of the plants by our door, ignoring the pulsating heat radiating from my body.

“Remind me why I’m getting kicked out of my own house again?”

“You spiked a fever last night. You’re not well, Knight. You know you can’t be here next to her.”

“Fine. I’ll take the guestroom downstairs. I won’t go anywhere near Mom.”

“I’ll be taking the guestroom.”

Emilia finally plucked a pack of chips from a bag. Salty snacks were good for Mom. She’d lost a lot of sodium. “I want to take care of my sister. Besides, even if you took the downstairs bedroom, you still have the flu. You’re a germ-ball, excuse my bluntness.”

I shrugged. “Been called worse.”

“I promise I’ll keep you updated. I made you some chicken noodle soup. It’s in a container near the other provisions. I’ll ask your uncle to report back if you haven’t touched it, so no funny business. Don’t worry, honey. She’ll get well.”

“She can’t get well.” I smiled bitterly, my eyes darkening. “We both know that, Aunt Em.”

Emilia’s throat bobbed with a swallow. She looked down. Why did people do that? Look down when things got too real? What was on the ground that was so fascinating, other than my mother’s impending grave?

“But she can get worse,” Aunt Em whispered.

She stepped into the house then, pushing the door closed in my face before pausing. “Oh, and I’m not sure what your current status is, but if you’ve decided to pull your head out of your butt and you’re swinging by Luna’s, please send her my condolences and let her know I’m here if she needs me.”

I was midstride when I turned around sharply, pushing the door back open.

“Condolences?” I could feel my eyeballs dancing in their sockets.

Emilia dropped her paper bags, peaches and garlic rolling on the floor.

Our parents had refused to get the memo that Luna and I were no longer BFFs or whatever bullshit term they called us. But that didn’t bother me as much as the notion that something bad had happened. Condolences meant one thing.

“What’s going on?” I braced my arm against the door, making sure she knew she couldn’t get rid of me before she explained herself.

I was burning like a thousand angry suns on their galactic period. The fever had come out of nowhere. Vaughn said it was probably because I’d nearly combusted watching Luna make out with Daria the other night.

When Aunt Emilia didn’t answer immediately, I stepped back into the house, ignoring my general dizziness. Getting into her face, I bared my teeth.

“Speak.”

I knew if Uncle Vicious ever found out I’d behaved even mildly aggressively with her, he’d castrate me and make dangling earrings out of my balls for his pretty wife.

Emilia’s jaw tightened. “Step back, boy,” she growled.

Maybe she didn’t need Uncle Vicious to make the earrings for her.

I decided to step back, because it was the quickest way to make her talk.

“Her birth mother, Val, died.”

“Jesus.” I covered my mouth, running my palm along my face. “How is she coping?”

Moonshine was entirely unpredictable when it came to Val, so I didn’t know the level of devastation I was dealing with here. I just knew she’d been looking for Val, and now she’d found her—probably not in the state she needed her to be.

“I thought you could fill me in. Edie hired a private investigator, and that’s what he came back with.” Emilia frowned. “How do you not know this, Knight? You used to be like siblings.”

Siblings, my ass. I needed to see Luna. Now.

Hold on a second—did I? Because last time we hung out, she’d yelled at my ass.

Yeah.

No.

I needed to.

Crisis trumped anything else. Even my mansion-sized ego.

Fuuuck.

She quickly amended. “Soulmates.”

“Thanks for making it creepy.”

“She needs you.”

“Tough luck.”

I could be a stubborn motherfucker. So no then? Not going to Luna?

Shit. I needed a fortune cookie to make the decision for me, or something.

“This can’t be about a little college fling. What really happened, Knight?”

Everything. Everything happened.

Luna had moved on. I’d stayed behind. Mom got sicker. Dixie was healthy and pushy and depressingly alive. Apparently, God had a twisted sense of humor, and the joke was on me.

Emilia cupped my cheeks, pulling me closer. I was over a head and a half taller, but she still looked every inch the person in charge between us. It was in her eyes. They were like the ocean on a perfect summer day. Flat and blue and calmer than anything life could throw at them.

“You’re so stubborn. So…tunnel-visioned. You’re such a…”

“Cunt?” I offered indifferently.

“A guy.” She bit her barely contained smile. “We always thought we were going to have girls, Rosie and me.”

I couldn’t help but smirk, mainly because all they had were boys. And we were about the most testosterone-filled creatures in the history of mankind. Sometimes I wondered if I had blood or jizz in my veins.

“Sorry to disappoint. Then again, I was adopted. Mom, at least, had a choice.”

“There was never any doubt you were a Cole, Knight. You weren’t a choice; you were destiny.”

I waved her off. Mom and Emilia had the tendency to go full-blown This is Us on my ass when I brought up the A-word (adoption). I never understood why they were so butthurt about it. It wasn’t like they’d fucked some random and given me away.

“Speaking of adoption, are you sure your son is yours? Because you’re like oil and water.” I tried to disconnect from her embrace, but the Leblanc sisters, for all their tininess, cuddled like Olympic wrestlers.

“Yup. I have four stretch marks to prove it.”

“I bet he carved his name on the walls of your uterus, too, warning off any potential future siblings. The bastard.”

Aunt Em laughed, her bright blue eyes shimmering with joy. She had Mom’s laugh, and I could already see myself making her laugh when Mom wasn’t around anymore, just to get a taste.

“What’s so funny?” I frowned, finally managing to pull back.

“I bet you didn’t mean to say the uterus thing out loud.”

Shit.“Sorry. My filters are broken.”

“Your manners, too. You know I love you like a son, but you need to get your butt out of here.” She smacked said butt lightly.

I did. I knew that. But I was feeling particularly loyal to Mom, and particularly vindictive about the rest of the world.

“I only have one mother.”

Burning.

I was burning.

Like a nice, hot vacation in hell.

I woke up with my blanket sticking to my body, glued by cold sweat. Everything was so wet, for a second I thought I’d pissed the bed. I ran a hand over my head and found my hair soaking, like I’d just gotten out of the shower.

I slid out of the bed in the Spencers’ guestroom, still clad in my black Tom Ford sweatpants, and grabbed my joint and a lighter from the nightstand. I slipped my socked feet into a pair of slide sandals. I didn’t bother putting on a shirt. I headed to the kitchen for a glass of water before going on the porch for a smoke, but once I was out of bed, I continued past the kitchen to the front door, tossing it open like a moonstruck monster.

Any more bad ideas, assface?

Fresh blood pumped in my veins as I climbed up to Luna’s window for the first time in months, a fucked-up Romeo in a story that was definitely a comedic tragedy. She’d made it clear she wanted nothing to do with me. And I’d made it clear I didn’t care.

I wasn’t done throwing Poppy in her face every chance I got. But it didn’t matter. Emilia was right. Luna needed me. I refused to believe we were two strangers with a past, that our mile-long memories were nothing, that our first kisses were nothing, that the way we molded around each other was nothing, that our blood oath wasn’t worth shit.

Her window was locked, as I expected it to be after everything that had gone down between us, and the curtains drawn together. I knocked once. Twice. When she didn’t answer, I took a deep breath, looked away, and drove my fist into it. I knew the window was double glazed and I’d need more than a punch to break it, but the loud thud was enough to let her know I wasn’t playing.

Luna rushed to the window, throwing the curtains open and frowning at me, heat dancing in her eyes.

“I just thought about Romeo and Juliet, and I remembered…” I swayed back and forth, losing my balance on her roof. Shit.

She probably thought I was drunk, not dying. I was the boy who’d cried wolf. Or, you know, tequila.

I braced on the edges of her window and continued. “And I remembered that Juliet told Romeo not to swear by the moon. Do you know why she did that, Luna? Do you know? Because I do.”

We’d studied the book last year in English Lit. That Shakespeare dude was majorly depressing. I studied Moonshine’s horrified face as it morphed from pity to anger in the span of a heartbeat.

“She told him not to swear by the moon because the moon changes, Luna!”

No answer.

“You changed on me, even though we were in this together. You never, ever let me have a say. I stayed the same, and you just…you just changed!”

She stood there staring, like I was a fucking off-Broadway show. Mildly interested. Mostly terrified. Definitely waiting for the punch line.

“Let me in,” I croaked, ignoring the shivers coursing through my body.

She shook her head at that. Sadistically, almost.

“No, huh?”

I made myself comfortable, parking my ass on her roof and fishing in my sweatpants pocket for my joint and a light. Might as well. She wasn’t going to back down, and I sure as hell wasn’t going back home before I knew she was okay.

“Give me one good reason.” She crossed her arms over her chest. It was the first time I noticed what she was wearing. Or lack thereof. Holy fuck. A tiny, orange nightgown, the hem made of lace. An actual piece of lingerie. Who’d given it to her? Who did she wear it for?

None of your goddamn business.

“What’s with the nightgown?” I asked around my joint, lighting it up. My tone was notably more cheerful. Flu and fever be damned, my cock already felt better. I would give up national security secrets for the opportunity to see the outline of Luna’s nipple. Seeing her half-naked felt like all my birthdays crammed into one.

“Daria gave it to me for Christmas.”

I made a mental note to make a voodoo doll of my blonde neighbor and punch it in the tits. I puffed on my joint and stared at the sky, thinking about what to say next.

“Knight, what are you doing here?”

“I heard about Val.” I exhaled in a thick cloud of smoke.

“I’m fine,” she said.

I remembered how she felt about the damn word, but couldn’t help but agree with her—she didn’t seem upset. But maybe Val was just an excuse. Maybe I just couldn’t stay away.

I cocked my head. “Open the window.”

“Does your girlfriend know you’re paying me a late-night visit?”

“Does yours?” I blurted, exhibiting my fine, toddler-aged maturity.

I hadn’t even seen Poppy since New Year’s Eve. She was still sulking about the tantrum I’d pulled at the party because of Luna and Daria. When I’d told her I was sorry it couldn’t work out between us, she’d said she just needed time to get over it. That we were not over. Chick was more persistent than an STD. Not that I was comparing. Some STDs were treatable. Point was, she had plenty of girlfriends and a sister who made Lucifer look like a Care Bear. Couldn’t one of them convince her I was a bad idea? Even I knew my boyfriend game was trash.

“Wow. You’re a piece of work.”

“A piece of work who worked his entire life protecting your ass.” I smirked around my joint. “Open up.”

She closed the curtains. Apparently, tough love wasn’t the way into New Luna’s heart. You live, you learn.

“Moonshine.” Just to be an ass, I tossed the joint toward the Spencers’ artificial pond across the lot before banging my fist on the window again. “Please.”

“Why?” Came her muffled voice from behind the curtains.

“Because you need me right now.”

She let out a yelp that was supposed to be a laugh.

“Fine. Because I need you.”

She didn’t say anything to that. Interesting. Was this the angle I’d been looking for? I elaborated quickly.

“I have the flu. And I don’t have a shirt. And I’m living with the Spencers. Doctor’s orders because of Mom…”

She pulled the curtains and cracked the window open, taking a sidestep to let me in. I slid into her room, inspecting it first, wary that it had changed somehow, just like she had. I let out a sigh of relief when I found everything in the same place. Even our pictures. That was the first thing I looked for.

“Jesus Christ, Knight, you’re shaking. Why are you shirtless?” She snapped out of her anger and finally got the picture. Luna put her tiny, warm hand on my chest. I shivered against it. I looked down. My skin was full of goosebumps, and even I had to admit, I was on the corpse-looking side.

“Look at me,” she gasped, taking my face in her hands. “Knight, you are completely blue. It’s freezing outside.”

I tried to laugh it off. “It’s SoCal, Moonshine. I think I’m fine.”

“I’m running you a hot bath.”

“Your dad will know I’m here.”

“Who cares!” she boomed. “Take off your watch.”

I set my watch on the nightstand as Luna dashed out of her room, leaving me to stand there and process the fact that going outside shirtless in January, in the middle of the night, in the desert, with a serious case of the flu and a fever wasn’t one of my finest life decisions. She came back ten minutes later, with a huge towel draped over her forearm, and dragged me down the hallway.

“I don’t need you to take care of me,” I whisper-shouted, digging my heels into the marble floor. I’d come here to take care of her, for Christ’s sake.

“I’m not offering, I’m stating.” She practically bared her teeth.

When we got into the bathroom, the bathtub was full of hot water, steam curling out of it like it was a cup of tea or something.

“Shouldn’t people with fever get lukewarm baths?”

“It’s not that hot.”

I chanced another look at the tub. “I’m going to get third-degree burns from that shit.” I pointed at it, shaking my head. “Nuh-uh. I’m going to look like Two-Face if I dip half my body in.”

“You’re getting in,” she informed me.

“No, I’m n…”

She took off her nightgown. Just like that. The entire thing.

No bra. Just a pair of white cotton panties. Her nipples staring back at me. Dark and tiny and pebbled and fuck.

Dear Santa,

I always knew you were real. Thank you for giving me the gift I wanted, even if it’s three years and one week late.

Yours,

KJC

She lifted one ridiculously toned leg over the ceramic of the bathtub and got in, but she was still standing. I took in everything, inking it to memory. Luna had actual abs from surfing and riding her bike. Her tits were small but full—they’d look perfect in my palms. Slender arms. Sleek all over. She looked like a fantasy. A sweet torture.

She reached her hand out to me. “Together,” she whispered.

Cunning little thing, she knew I’d bathe in lava if it meant touching her. Growling, I yanked down my sweatpants, staying in my briefs. (I didn’t want to scare her away. I wasn’t being funny—my dick was so big, at this point I called it Knight Senior and myself Knight Junior.)

I stepped in with her. She put her hands on my shoulders and lowered me so we both sat down, facing each other. My theory proved to be correct. Girls were cold-blooded. The water was boiling. I shook inside it, thawing slowly. I looked down. I could see the veins under my normally tan skin, like thick ropes. Everything looked fragile, pale, unfinished. I was as sexy as a lizard.

(Yet she was still nearly naked.)

“Your lips are purple.”

She took a loofa, dipped it in the water, and started rubbing my chest. It felt illegally soothing, and I couldn’t help but moan.

(By the way, she was still nearly naked.)

I was proud of myself for not coming in my briefs. Knight Senior hadn’t gotten the memo that the rest of me was dying and decided to sport a freaky hard-on that threatened to tear the fabric it was stretched against.

“Did you take anything for the cold?”

“Yeah. Two Advils.”

She was still mostly naked. Did I mention that? Her tits. Her cute belly button. Her endless legs. All in my face. Incredible.

“I’ll make you some tea,” she said.

“I hate tea.”

“You’ll drink tea.”

“Give me one good reason to.”

“I’m asking you nicely.”

I gave her a do-we-know-each-other? look.

She rolled her eyes. “I’ll let you touch my boob.”

“Nipple too. I don’t want any side-boob action. That doesn’t count.”

“Fine!” She threw her arms in the air, exasperated but smiling.

“Sold.” I smirked.

She leaned forward, advancing toward me.

I stopped breathing altogether. I wanted to ask what she was doing, but the smart part of my brain—a tiny, neglected corner I saved for family trivia nights—told me not to say anything in case she didn’t notice she was doing it. She wrapped her arms around my neck, and our chests pressed together.

Her.

Bare.

Tits.

On.

My.

Chest.

My dick throbbed between us in the water, and all I needed to do—all I wanted to do—was remove the thin fabric of our underwear and drive home, screwing FUCKING JOSH out of her. She nestled her head in the crook of my neck and sighed.

“I’ve missed you,” she whispered.

“I’ve missed us,” I admitted brokenly, my heart crumbling inside my chest.

What the hell was wrong with me? Why couldn’t I be an asshole, like Vaughn? Why did I have to crumble at the first sign of her vulnerability?

I chugged the stupid tea and passed out, Luna by my side. For the first time since we’d known each other, she was the one holding me, and not vice versa. We were both mostly naked, in only our underwear, her body pouring heat into mine.

I tossed, turned, and sweated out my fever the entire night, my eyes closed, the rest of me awake. Thinking, wishing, willing myself to sweat Luna out of my system the way I did the fever, but knowing damn well that some syndromes were incurable, and she was one of them.

The next morning, I woke up groggy and disoriented. Luna brought me clear broth, tea, and two Advils. Then she sat at her desk and refused to look away until I’d consumed all of them. I still felt like shit, but better.

She stood up as soon as I was done with the tea, moving for the door. “I’m going to go grab a shirt for you from my dad’s closet. I don’t want you to walk around shirtless, even if it’s just to Vaughn’s house.”

“Not so fast.” I held up a hand. She stopped at the threshold, turning around to me.

“Your tit—” I pointed at her nightgown-covered chest. “—and I have a date. Now, I have no actual preference for which tit you’re giving me, but I drank two teas and that broth that tasted like sewer water. I think that qualifies for something.”

“For what?” She crossed her arms across her chest, raising an eyebrow.

“Sucking your nipple.”

“Dream on.”

“Dreams are just our reality on hold, Moonshine.”

Hesitating, she peeked into the hallway, then closed the door behind her, locking it for good measure. I crooked a finger in her direction, coaxing her to come closer to the edge of the bed, where I sat. She took measured, careful steps, stopping about a foot from me. I could hear her heart beating. Or maybe it was mine.

Silently, she slipped off the straps of her nightgown, letting it slide down her thighs. Her body was glorious. Curvy everywhere, with a flat stomach and wide hips. I leaned forward and reached for her, hooking my arm around her lower back and jerking her to me. Her abs were in my face. I looked up at her. She was breathing fast and heavy.

“How far can I take this?” I murmured into her navel, my tongue playing peekaboo and darting into it for a delicious stroke. Her throat bobbed.

Beat.

Beat.

Beat.

“Well, you won,” she finally groused.

Fuck yes, I did.

Tentatively, I pressed my hot, pierced tongue over her hipbone, slowly dragging it up her stomach. She shivered and tried to pull back, but my hands slid from her lower back to her ass, cupping it to keep her pressed against my face.

When I reached her breasts, I traced the outline of her right tit with my tongue before pressing my piercing to her nipple and playing with it, sucking and tugging with my teeth.

“Ah,” she shuddered against my face, and I hungrily swirled my tongue around her puckered nipple, again and again, until her thighs shook and clenched.

“Knight,” my name fell off her lips like a broken prayer.

She yanked my hair. I was still sick, my head still pounding like a drum, but I could be in the middle of open-heart surgery and still suck her nipples like it was my job.

Her sweet cunt taunted me, and I moved to tease her other nipple, sucking on it hard and slow, building pressure, wondering if I could get away with more. She was moaning, raking her fingers over my hair and back, when I started rubbing her ass cheek with my thumb, back and forth, casually moving my hand to the front. It took me a few minutes to gather up the courage to dip my hand between her thighs and press it against her panty-covered pussy. Even though I still worked her nipples, I held my breath, knowing she was going to shoo me away in a second.

Only…she didn’t.

Her thighs opened up for me in silent approval, and I fell backward to the bed, taking her with me. I kissed her everywhere but her mouth—not because I didn’t want to devour her, but because I was sick. I still had my hand between her legs possessively, even though I didn’t exactly do anything about it yet. I just didn’t want to retreat. It was a parking space in downtown LA. I’d worked hard for this spot.

Moonshine was on top of me, tilting her head to the side and letting me kiss her neck, shoulders, and tits, when I figured out the best way to get my fingers in her cunt would be to flip us over. So I did. Now I was on top. I shoved my big palm into her small panties, dipped one finger into her pussy, and it was so wet and warm, I wanted to die inside it.

“You’re dripping,” I breathed. It almost sounded like a cry.

She bucked her hips toward my hand, and I started fingering her, my dick pulsating against my briefs with every kiss and thrust.

I had Luna Rexroth in my bed. Well, technically, her bed. My fingers inside her pussy. Hot and sticky. Naked, save for the panties, which I nudged aside. The unlikely scene barely even registered, even before she did the unthinkable.

She put her hand on my dick through my briefs, curling her fingers around it.

“Please don’t do that,” I groaned into her neck, rubbing her clit with my thumb faster and faster. I was pretty darn proud of myself for finding the clit right from the get-go, seeing as how I’d never fingered a chick. I felt the little nub, and went to town on it. All the shit I knew about sex, I’d learned from porn, so I knew the clit was the end game, and that torturing her with fingering was stage one in chain-orgasms-landia. I did it all by the book. I was a good student, but I had no experience to think of, because I’d been waiting for her.

Only she hadn’t waited for me.

Nope. Your brain’s not gonna go there right now, asshole.

“Why not? Am I doing it wrong?” she half-moaned, half-pleaded.

A lot of football groupies begged for my cock, but it always sounded needy and annoying. It felt like a song coming from Luna’s mouth. Not a shitty song. Not something by Katy Perry. A classic. Dare I say it? An Elvis Costello song.

“Everything you do is perfect, Moonshine, but I don’t wanna come in my briefs .”

“Why not? Is it bad?”

I shook my head, sucking on her nipple. We were so inexperienced. So clueless. This. This was what I wanted. To figure it all out together. And even though I had the notion that coming in my pants was not the studliest trick in the book, I couldn’t hold back.

“Oh, fuck. Fuck.” Without thinking, I took her hand and shoved it into my briefs. Her little fist wrapped around the silky, hot length of me immediately, and she gasped.

“That’s what you do to me, Luna Rexroth.”

“I love it.”

I love you.

Of course, I wasn’t dumb enough to say this. Not when we were in a compromising position and she wouldn’t believe the words.

Her hips began to buck and grind against me, and her eyes popped open in shock. “I think I’m…”

Coming.

She was coming. I could see it on her face. The way her eyes rolled back and she let out little frantic, throaty moans that almost broke my dick in half from all the blood rushing through it.

Smugness spread across my chest like hot wax. It was so pathetic that this was the first orgasm I’d given someone other than myself. It was even more pathetic that by the astonished look on her face, I could see Josh hadn’t been so successful in hitting the big O, and that made me stupidly, ridiculously, tragically happy.

She came all over my fingers at the same time I came all over her hand in my briefs. I’d never come so hard in my life. I was pretty sure I lost a pound or three in the process. I just came and came and came, the stream never-ending. And she was still holding my hard cock in her fist. I pulled my fingers out slowly, still staring her dead in the eyes. Her heavy-lidded eyes flared when I slurped every single drop of pussy juice from my hand.

“You’re insane,” she whispered contently.

“I’m going to eat your cunt until you go numb with orgasms,” I quipped, serious as a heart attack.

It took us a few minutes to pull our shit together and get dressed. Luna combed her hair with her hands, cleared her throat, and dashed toward the door.

“Okay. Yeah. So. The tea and the broth. Oh, and the Advils. Coming right up.”

“Moonshine?”

“Yeah?”

“You already did all those things.” I motioned to the Advil pack and empty bowl and mug sitting on her desk. “You were going to get me a shirt.”

“Of course,” she mumbled. “I knew that, obviously.”

Flustered, she made a beeline to the door, bumping into a wall on her way out. She took her phone with her before she left the room, throwing an accusing look my way. I stayed in her bed, sniffing the scent of her pussy on my fingers and replaying what had just happened on a loop. Her nipples against my tongue. Her clit swelling against the pads of my fingers. I stretched, patting the nightstand for the Cartier I’d removed before I got into her bath yesterday. My hand rested on something. An envelope? A letter?

I knew a repeat offense of getting into her shit was going to get me kicked out of her life for good, so I practiced self-control. I reached for my watch. There. Good boy. But as I did, I couldn’t help but notice FUCKING JOSH’s name on the sealed envelope.

She writes him letters now?

I flung up, ramrod straight, grabbing the letter. Self-control, my ass. This wasn’t a goddamn chocolate cake. The letter was already sealed, so I had to work with what I had. I angled the envelope toward the rays of sun drifting in the window, as far away from me as possible, reading the text through the somewhat transparent, thin paper. I couldn’t make out much, but here’s what I did read clearly:

“…and I want you to know that, of course, I love you.”

Of course, she loved him.

Of course.

She loved him, and if I wasn’t careful, I was going to hate her.

Something came to me then. A switch flipped in my brain. Luna and I were never going to be even as long as I was still holding my bullshit V-card for her. We weren’t equal.

FUCKING JOSH was always hovering over our head, just like Poppy.

Only difference was, I knew I would drop everything and be with her. I couldn’t say the same about Luna—especially with this fucking love letter to another guy in my hand…

Fury crackled in my veins, so hot it burned past my skin. My jaw locked, and I felt my teeth grinding. She loved him. I’d drunk her pussy juice like it was the nectar of the gods, and she pined for him, still.

As a friend.

As a lover.

Who the fuck cared?

Were they going to bump uglies as soon as she returned to Boon? There’s no way she would wait for me. She hadn’t before…

I merely passed her time until she got on a flight back home.

She must feel high and mighty, too, since she wasn’t exclusive with FUCKING JOSH and wasn’t technically cheating. I was. I was a goddamn cheater, something I’d hated with a passion.

No matter how pissed I was, this time I wasn’t going to be a pussy about it. I didn’t bail. I didn’t throw a fit. I just placed the envelope right where it belonged, pulled my sweatpants on, and waited for the stupid-ass shirt.

When Luna came back, I thanked her for the tea, the shirt, the soup, and the Advil. I kissed her nose, smiled, and got the hell out.

I was going to kill Luna with kindness.

And dance all over the grave of our friendship.