AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I pressed my lips to her temple and then kissed the top of my daughter’s head before releasing them. My daughter’s expression was warm. Electra’s gaze remained bright.
“Anytime,” I said my voice gruff with emotion. “I’m here for you.”
I started for the door, but Electra’s next words stopped me.
“You’re my light, Champion,” Electra said, her voice husky. “You pushed back the darkness from the moment I met you.”
“Ditto, baby.” I glanced back at her, not embarrassed for Ally to know her best friend rocked my world. In fact, it was good for her to know what love worth having looked like.
“Before you came along,” Electra said, not just rocking my world but rebuilding it, “I couldn’t see myself clearly. Apart from dancing, I couldn’t see a way to reconcile the old and the new me. I couldn’t see a way because I hadn’t found it—you—yet. I love you, Champion.”
Electra
“YOU SURE YOU’RE doing okay with everything?” I asked Ally.
In the bedroom on the opposite side of Champion’s house from the master, I dropped down onto the foot of the bed beside Mr. Smooches aka Sir Cat. I tipped my gaze to Ally.
“He’s my dad.” She closed the drawer where she had placed a stack of her things, turned around, and shrugged a shoulder. “I’ve known about him for a long time. I just didn’t realize what a cool guy he was. I feel like I have a lot less to process than what’s happening with you.” Her cute blue baby-doll pajamas in her hand, she came and sat beside me, then took my hand.
“He is cool.” I breathed out. “So much more than I could have dreamed, but it’s moving fast with us. I don’t want him to miss how messed up I am. I don’t want him to be disappointed.”
“Messed up?” She squeezed my hand. “Because you lost your family?”
My eyes suddenly wet and stinging, I nodded.
“He knows about the accident.” She tilted your head. “You told him at the beginning.”
“But I didn’t tell him that I have nightmares.” I hadn’t experienced one since sleeping with him, but that didn’t mean I wouldn’t. “Or that I have flashbacks like the one at the club, or sudden crying jags when something reminds me of them, or about my back stiffness—”
“He doesn’t have to know everything up front to love you.” She studied me for a long moment. “That’s part of getting to know each other better, isn’t it?”
“I guess.” My brows drew together. “In theory, I understand the process. But I’ve never felt like this before, and no one’s opinion ever mattered to me as much as his does.”
“Do you want the things he wants?” She arched a brow. “To move in? To take your relationship as far as it will go?”
“Yes.” I nodded. “Definitely, I do.”
“Then go make that happen,” she said pointedly and gestured. “Instead of wasting time here with me.”
“Time with you isn’t wasted.” I narrowed my gaze. “You’re my best friend.”
“I will always be your best friend,” she said firmly. “But you need to take that next step with him, let him all the way in, make room in your heart for another best friend, right?”
She was correct.
“How’d you get so smart?” I said, giving her a small smile.
“Being friends with you. We both know, and I think he does too, that it’s the people in your life, the right ones, that make it worthwhile,” she said as if my question weren’t rhetorical. “I think he’s afraid to lose what he’s found. I know you’re afraid to hold on to it. Your solution to overcoming that fear isn’t here. It’s with him.”
“Wow, Ally,” I whispered, feeling raw as I took all that in.
“Go,” she said, sounding bossy. “Show him you’re willing to take a chance. That you’re willing to risk losing love to possess it. Go.” She slid her hand from mine.
So I went, but I stopped in the door frame to her room and turned to look at her. “I want you to find someone wonderful too.”
“I saw too much bad shit with my mother. Love isn’t in the cards for me.”
“I disagree.”
