Page 56 of Will Bark for Pizza
Except, I did. I really, really did. I was bursting at thefucking seams, desperate to let out a long scream. But the locals wouldn’t appreciate the outburst on their quiet lake, so I held it in.
“You know I love you, Kira.” Aspen kicked off her flip-flops and took a seat next to me, dangling her feet into the lake.
“I sense abut.”
“That’s because I’m a little worn out with how much you seem to hold things in these days.”
Despite the compassion in her tone, guilt gnawed at me. Of anyone who had a right to be upset about my outburst last summer, Aspen was the kindest about it from day one. I owed her more than silence.
“Beckett’s buying the bookstore.”
“BeckettCampbell?”
“Yeah.”
BeckettfuckingCampbell. The man who came to my rescue this morning and was my undoing, all in the course of a few minutes. How long would I have lain there, crumpled on the cold tile floor, if he hadn’t found me?
“That’s a good thing, right?” she asked.
My spite renewed. His kindness was costing me Mom’s bookstore.
“No, it’s not a fuckinggoodthing,” I snapped.
I gulped a hard swallow, well aware that I needed to dial back my anger. I hated how easily I could still be set off, especially around well-meaning people. This wasn’t me.
Aspen, the ever patient friend I didn’t deserve, simply waited, much as Beckett did the other night around thefirepit. It wasn’t fair to like and hate the man so much all in the same moment. It hurt my damn brain.
I took a deep, centering breath. “Sorry.”
“You’re hurting. I get it.”
That didn’t mean she deserved my misplaced anger. Especially when it was still so damn unpredictable.
Travis knew how to push all my buttons at once, and set me off like a fucking bomb. He worked me up until I exploded, and then got really calm, convincing me time and time again that I was the crazy one. The one who couldn’t control their temper. That I was the problem in our relationship, despite him never once taking accountability for a single thing.
Though I never got to that level of anger since I broke things off with him, I still dealt with a short fuse more than I cared to admit.
Maybe someday, it’d get better.
Maybe I’d even be myself again.
But today was not that day. Because the man I was secretly crushing on—the same man who served overseas with my brothers and won over the hearts of my entire family—was destroying the one thing that meant the most to me.
Served me right for letting down the walls I fortified and swore to never let falter.
“He’s buying the building. Not the bookstore.”
She frowned, as if trying to unriddle my words, and then shook her head in defeat. “What does that mean?”
“It means Dad’s liquidating the business.”
“Oh, sweetie. I’m so sorry. I?—”
The hum of an engine turned both our heads. Ireached for the handle of Husker’s leash so he wouldn’t run off to greet our newcomer and end up chasing a deer. Husker was more than a little annoyed at the yank when he tried. He looked at me, then at Tango—who was leash-free—and back at me.
Not fair, Mom.
“So, I invited a stray,” Aspen admitted, biting her lower lip the way she did when she did something sneaky and was hoping I wouldn’t be mad at her for doing it.
