Page 79 of Sweet Addiction
Clips I don’t even have to click on to see Rome jumping over a table.
Guilt prickles at the base of my head as pressure mounts. I should have gone with him. I’m supposed to be his girlfriend. Even if it’s in name only. I shouldn’t have left him to deal with this alone.
Wait—screw that.
He blackmailed me into this. Guilt has no business being anywhere near me.
Or does it . . . ?
Damn it.
My emotions are all over the place. It’s why I’ve written so well today. Hurt and regret are both big bitches, and I’m wallowing in the twins today.
Hurt by his actions.
Regret over my own.
Where would we be if we’d just talked instead of both of us being so self-protective that we wasted two years?
My phone rings, this time with a call, and my sister’s name flashes. I slide my finger across the screen but continue to stare at the computer screen.
“Jesus, Dillan. I was worried something happened to you. What the hell are you doing that you couldn’t answer my textsor my calls? Even Mom was texting me, asking if I’d heard from you.”
“I was writing,” I tell her without thinking it through.
“Writing?” she questions, and I glance at the phone and accept the Facetime she’s sending me.
Lilah’s bouncy blonde curls are a mess around her face when it appears on-screen. “What are you writing?”
“Story for another time, Tink.” I look back at my computer, trying to pick which thumbnail to click and hoping she drops the subject. “Are you going to tell me what I missed at the press conference or should I just watch it myself?”
“Why the hell weren’t you there?” she asks, but there’s definitely a shocking level of pissed-off in her voice.
“What?” I snap, confused for the anger. “Why are you yelling at me?”
“Somebody has to. Listen.” She throws her hair up in a bun on top of her head and fiddles with the hair tie before looking back at me. “I don’t know why you and Rome have kept yourselves such a secret, or how long you’ve been together, or what he did to piss you off so badly that you’re not there supporting him. I can’t know any of it because you haven’t told me, or anyone else for that matter, anything about this relationship. And I’ve got to tell you, I seriously wish you would trust me enough to share. But that’s a problem for another day. Today, I’m going to give you some advice about loving a fighter. Because,”—she smiles and straightens—“been there and done that for most of my life. Even when I hated him.”
Sounds familiar...Even if I can’t tell her that.
“Lilah—” I start, and she glares.
“Stop. Just listen to me,” she snaps. “I know you think I’m just some dumb singer, but the one thing I’ve done right in my life was let myself love Killian, and loving that man means loving the fighter. It’s a part of them. They’ve trained their entirelives for this. They’ve basically turned themselves into vicious machines. At least that’s how the outside world sees them. But you... you can’t see him that way.” She chews the inside of her cheek, Lilah’s classic tell that she’s nervous... or maybe just pissed. I can’t really tell right now.
“I don’t think you’re a dumb singer,” I interrupt her, and she glares again.
“Like you said, that can be a discussion for another day.” Lilah shakes her head, and my heart sinks, hating that she thinks I feel that way. “People think fighters are the ultimate alphas.” She sighs and leans back on the couch, dropping her hand a little so I can see more of her and her perfect little baby bump. “You and I both know it’s true. These men. My God. There’s no more perfect alpha. They’re everything. But don’t ever let yourself forget, alpha or not, he still needs you. He needs to be able to show you the good, the bad, the hard, and the soft. And you need to be there for all those sides of him. You’re supposed to support it all. Even when he doesn’t know how to ask for that support.”
“Seriously, Tink, I have no idea what you’re talking about.” It’s the truth. She just went down such a huge detour I’m struggling to follow, and yet, I somehow know exactly what she’s saying, and I feel like a gigantic asshole. Both for how she thinks I view her and how I may have treated Rome.
“You should have been there, supporting him. My husband was. His parents were. Ryker. Lucky. Fuck. I talked to Maddox last night, and I think he was trying to fly in, in time, but one of the kids was sick. Why weren’t you there?”
I want to scream at her that it’s because we’re not real...
But suddenly, those words feel like a lie, and yet they don’t.
Leaving me more confused than when this conversation started.
So I go with as much of the truth as I can give her.
