Page 97 of Love & Heart Braking

“So he says.” She pulled a face. “Listen, I don’t want to talk about him anymore. It’s done. Let’s just drink and have a good time.”

Dang.

I raised my flagon again. “You got it.”

I kept my sips reasonable—to Soleil’s gulps—because someone had to be semi-awake for work tomorrow. I exchanged our flagons when she was three-quarters of the way through hers. She needed it more than me.

Another trip to the dusty corner store and Soleil was in the gutter, dancing to music only she could hear. I twirled with her for a time until she rested heavily on the curb.

“Fuck him!” she screamed.

There it was. “I don’t think the people on Nox Street heard you.”

She screamed the words again, then burst into tears.

None of the passersby batted an eyelash. That was the beauty of Mercury’s Bend—that’s what had drawn every aching sole in Nepos here at some point, me and Soleil included.

“I opened up to him. Really. And he treated me like shit,” she slurred. “But he also treated me like a queen.” Her bottom lip trembled, and she dragged an arm over her eyes. Somehow her mascara wasn’t running or smudged still. “Why did he treat me like a queen, Cerys?”

I swilled the wine in my flagon. “Because he saw his equal in you. Someone he would protect with everything he had. Forever.”

She sniffed. “And why did he treat me like shit?”

“Because he saw his equal in you. Someone he would protect with everything he had. Forever. And he was afraid he wouldn’t succeed against the people looking to tear you both down.”

Dissolving into fresh tears, Soleil buried her face in the crook of my neck. I wrapped an arm around her shoulders, feeling her tears and snot dribble down my chest. Wasn’t the first time it had happened, and it wouldn’t be the last. And still her makeup would be immaculate at the end.

Because Bain was the only one who could ruffle her.

“You’re really upset,” I murmured when she’d stopped sobbing and merely sat leaning on me. “Are you certain that you can’t figure things out with Bain? Even if he botched the apology earlier, I do think he was trying.”

“How many chances do you give someone? If he’s not ready to date, then he’s not ready. Nothing I can do will force it.”

“Why don’t you put things on pause for now?”

A beat went by. “I don’t know if I can push pause with Bain. It needs to be everything or nothing.”

An inferno to match her inferno. “I see.”

Her voice was small. “Do you think I’m crazy?”

“Crazy? Absolutely.”

Her laugh was wet. “No, really. About all this stuff. Am I losing it?”

“Love makes us insane,” I said honestly.

Soleil straightened to look at me. “What does my love line look like?”

She’d wanted to ask since my newest Venus gift appeared, and she’d resisted thus far, knowing it would put me on the spot. “Once you know, you know, Sol. That knowledge will change what you feel in this moment. And it will change what you feel in the future too. If things don’t work out with Bain and if things do. Knowing will lessen the high and make the bad that much worse. Do you really want to ruin things for yourself?”

She searched my expression. For the longest time, she sat, her mouth opening every so often before snapping shut.

“No,” she whispered.

I smiled. Soleil was brave in love.

So many sayings about the heart had been misinterpreted, and that was one of them. To be brave in love wasn’t to wear your heart on your sleeve and fall in love with as many people as possible. It wasn’t to fearlessly open your heart at every turn. Being brave in love was to fearfully open your heart. When you were emotionally invested up to your neck and expected rejection and pain and refusal, bravery in love was saying the words anyway. Shrinking away to where the heart was safe was the route people took more often than not.

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