Page 130 of Lunar Diamonds
A sense of utter freedom.
I don’t deserve this light.
I don’t deserve this man.
But he did want me. He held me and kissed me and said such adorable things. And he listened to every word, let me open up like never before.
They called that progress.
Man, he kicked down my barriers, crushing them to dust. A joyful package, a gift from Hecate.
I’m falling…
…fast.
He shared his story with me, talking about his eating disorder and his sadness over his dad leaving, and the shade attack.
“It’s a monster,” he said, “the bulimia. One with spindly, clinging arms, forever on my back. I’ve worked hard to make it small. And if it ever grows, I know how to smack it down. But it’skind of like an addiction in the sense that it never leaves you. I’ll always be bulimic, even if its dormant.”
“I get that,” I answered, running my thumbs across his knuckles.
We bonded over trauma, over our tenacity to survive. To keep our sparkle up, as he’d said.
My turn to embrace him, to be the big spoon.
“What happens next?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” I said. “But I’m looking forward to the journey.”
He giggled. “Yeah. Me too.”
How fucking lucky am I?
Chapter 40
RILEY
I’d been reading about my family for the past week—particularly the unfinished chapters on my aunts and uncle. The only book I’d read since this all started.
Jonathon Aurora. The darling of the tabloid press. A real bed-hopper, never settling down. Handsome, with a similar complexion to Isaac’s. Dark-haired, blue-eyed, always decked out in designer clothes, always at glitzy showbiz events.
He attracted a lot of admiration as well as scorn. Many questioned his partying and the effects it had on his job. There were newspaper articles glued into these pages about his casual attitude, shirking his duty for sex and booze.
People didn’t feel safe, that fear growing as Kane Kingwood reshaped the world.
There wasn’t much else after that, aside from damning cutouts about the whole of House Aurora.
I closed the book, half-naked beside Drake in bed.
He lay on his front, wearing boxers and a T-shirt, watching the news.
The energy of a new moon buzzed through my body, doing wonders for my stamina, but not my mood. I couldn’t stop thinking about Isaac, Erin, the horrors on the beach.
Reading the book only served to chase away what was left of my Drake afterglow. But at least we were here in this room, moving toward a new place. Talking again, ready for the journey.
You had to take wins wherever you found them. And sharing space with Drake was an epic win for me.
I slid down the bed to join him on my belly, pressing my shoulder to his. “Okay down here?”
