Page 8 of Missed Sunrise
There’d been a weight inside me that I’d been holding for so long that I didn’t even remember when I first picked it up, but as I easily made conversation with LL and took direction from him, it somehow lightened.
But the problem was that I now knew it was there. By its lessening, I became keenly aware of the burden.
I fell into LL’s voice and easy instruction as if entranced, and every time one of those burdens pressed against me, he would say something so endearing or wildly off topic that I had to wonder if he knew what he was doing.
Or how he could, especially without knowing me or even seeing me.
Any negative feelings were kept at bay while we were connected, and by the time I’d almost finished a much bettersketch of Mona—having only murdered three napkins with the purple pen before learning how hard to press with it—we both fell silent.
I didn’t mind it.
I couldn’t remember if I’d ever spoken to someone like this. He had no stake in my life, no preconceived notions or reason to be kind. Nothing to gain from any of it.
LL was just someone out in the world, living a life outside of the Fortuna ecosystem.
Something I’d hardly ever considered as a possibility.
“Dezi?” LL asked eventually.
The breeze picked up, blowing right in my direction, and I straightened my legs as if I could push it away. “Yeah?”
“I’m here. You can tell me whatever you need to.”
If angels existed, this was how they would sound. And this man would be one of them.
My legs bent again, falling back over the edge of the pier, and my heartbeats decreased in tempo as I decided to do something that went against all my natural and learned instincts.
I confided. Without thought, without preparation. To a stranger.
There was no finesse to my words as I started with Bree, who was at the forefront of my mind. Her withdrawal from everyone and everything and how, for the first time in our friendship… I was afraid.
Afraid to push.
Afraid that our chaotic lives had finally become too much for her.
That my support wouldn’t be enough. That the family we’d found in each other wasn’t enough for her anymore.
Which meant I could lose it.
My throat closed as I muddled through those dark thoughts, but I forced it open again and made myself continue.
I moved onto talking about Fortuna. I told him about growing up in Louisiana and moving to Mississippi a couple of years after meeting Bree as a preteen. The chaotic upbringing we’d both had.
And then I went even further back, my words halting as I tried to find a way to explain my parents and their different types of detachment.
I sat on that pier until the sun rose and spilled my guts to a guy whose face I wouldn’t see in person until many months later—when it was too late.
Too fucking late.
For so many things and for so many reasons.
I didn’t see the angel’s face until after I’d made the worst fucking decision by signing a six-month contract to work on a cruise ship with my new boyfriend, Austin. A guy who offered adventure and escape when I’d desperately needed it.
By the time I’d laid eyes on Liem Lott, heard his voice with my own ears, and felt my heart stop at his smile and my skin prickle at his scent, he was as lost to me as I was to myself.
I’d had no choice but to weather the storm of my own making, with little hope that things would be different when it passed.
THE END OF THE CONTRACT
