Page 27 of The Sun and the Moon
Chapter Twelve
Sydney
Dread snakes its way around my throat as I replay the night’s events.
Dad tugged me aside right after the meal. Seconds, that’s all we had to chat alone.
“What a ride that was!” he said, looking invigorated and enthused. “You like her, right? I mean, since she answered your questions?” Hardly! But I didn’t want to disappoint him. Not when he’s clearly smitten and all I have are bad vibes and the testimony of a perfect stranger with her very own vendetta.
It’s after midnight. I’m still recovering from days in the air, still disoriented about what time zone I’m in, exhausted as fuck, but even after two Benadryls and a dose of melatonin, I’m wide fucking awake. I feel responsible for how the conversation derailed so completely, never managing to get on track with our original plan. Cadence tried to warn me about her mother. The cultish way her personality curls around you like rope and ties you all up in knots. I never should have let that conversationescalate as far as it did. I thought I had it under control, but, wow, did I think wrong.
I don’t really know why it got under my skin so fast, either. But it was like from the moment I met her, she had some sort of dirt on me, like she was a journalist with a scoop. I just couldn’t put my finger on what the scoop was. I felt weirdly exposed and defensive, like I had to prove I was stable and happy and exactly where I want to be lest she try to advise me on a better way to go.
I do not need advice—I am doingjust fine.
We never got on topic after the toast, and I feel shitty about it.
Moira won’t be easy to break, even with Cadence here setting her on edge. It’s crazy to think I went that deep with her—talking about belief as if it were casual dinner conversation. I don’t do that shit, not normally. But Moira pushes the boundaries.
God, I need sleep. My eyes ache, my skin feels tight. Nothing is working to quiet my mind. In my experience, there is one thing that almost always does the trick when nothing else will. I flip over, yanking the drawer of my bedside table open and pulling out my vibrator. Small, discreet, and pink, with the best sucking action known to woman. A little release might do the trick to carry me off to dreamland. I clutch it in hand, falling back against my pillows.
Everything that is meant for you will find you.
Fuck my mind for that betrayal.
How am I supposed to get off with her words echoing in my brain?
The conversation with Moira more than rattled me—I’ll admit it. To myself, anyway.
I’ve dated around enough to know that I don’t have a clue whatI’m looking for in a romantic partner, but I’ve otherwise always felt pretty sure-footed when it comes to everything else. It really bugs me how she poked at my belief in the little birdie pin. Sure, it’s a fucking superstition that I inherited from my dad. Just like my blue eyes or my spatial awareness. Why does it feel like she was saying so much more than that?
And why do I care?
I shake my head and let out a groan.
I am right where I need to be. Successful, independent, living the dream. Single and mingling. And sure, maybe it gets old going from person to person, but the idea that I could find someone I would want for more than a few days or weeks isn’t an idea that I’ve entertained as plausible.
It’s not that I don’t want it. Of course I’d like a partner to do this thing with. It’s more that I don’t want to rely on a person, because even your person can leave. Mom didn’t choose her exit from our lives, but that didn’t change the nature of her absence. She was gone, and it wasus against the world. Just Dad and me.
I’ve never found another person who I thought could become a differentuswith me. Anusall my own.
So I leaned on what I knew best. Theagainst the worldmentality.
Joe is the closest I’ve had to a partner, and we’re the farthest thing from romantic. Always have been. It’s nice to have him around as a roommate. Low stakes but still valuable in a way most every other relationship I’ve been in isn’t.
I curl my fingers around the vibrator and close my eyes, willing myself to conjure up literally any image that might get me off.
But what comes ismuchmore complicated.
Black curls hanging wild. Long, lean limbs. A taut but supple backside that looks good in a pair of jeans. Skin like sugar. Lips like roses.
Cadence Connelly shouldnotinvade my brain in this way. There’s danger in entertaining the fantasy of her. Not just because of the very real stakes of our scheme to split up our parents, which, should that succeed, would make any kind of connection between us tenuous.
You don’t do long-term anyway. The voice in my head taunts as my mind’s eye slides over the slope of her hips. The devil on my shoulder isn’t wrong. Even if this line of thinking very much could be.
But then there’s the soulmate-prediction elephant in the room. Huge and hulking despite the two of us adamantly and openly declaring we don’t believe in the concept. The shiver through my center, settling cold right behind my belly button, sends my eyes flying open.
Questioning is a good instinct.Madame Moira fucking strikes again.
