Falling into You (Falling Stars 3)

She shrugged. “Hasn’t been five seconds yet. Wait, has it?”

She looked at me for the answer to that.

She was a little tornado. A lightning strike. A flare of the brightest sun.

My chest tightened, agony stretched tight, and my gaze shifted to Violet who pulled at Daisy’s hand in clear distress.

“We really need to get going. Remember Papa is waiting for things to make dinner?”

“Oh no…we better hurry. Nice to meets you!”

She grinned and waved, and Violet was hauling her toward the registers. Rhys made a beeline behind them, chatting Daisy up the whole way. He got into the lane beside them and paid for our single purchase while I stood there itching.

Violet hefted her two reusable bags up and held out her hand for Daisy with the other. “Come on, sweetheart.”

“Need a little help with that?” Rhys asked, back at her side, but he shifted to widen his eyes at me when he said it, the asshole.

This was complete idiocy.

Stupidity on a level that was going to cost everything.

But I shot into motion, anyway, like some kind of knight in shining armor who really was the monster hiding underneath, my hand already on the straps before Violet could refuse.

She attempted to do it anyway. “I have it,” she growled. A fierce, ferocious kitten.

“Let me help you.”

“I don’t need your help.”

I tugged it out of her hold.

She held in a high-pitched scream.

“I’m just taking your bags for you. That’s all.”

She huffed, rambled under her breath, “If that were the only thing you’d taken from me, I’d be just fine.”

Still, she gave, and she stomped out the door with Daisy in tow while I followed a couple steps behind.

Basking in her rays like a pathetic fool.

She headed straight for where she was parked a few spots down from Rhys. She opened the back door of the truck and helped Daisy inside.

I opened the opposite door and reluctantly set the bags on the floor.

“Goodbye, Mr. Richard,” Daisy sang from her car seat. “I likes meeting you a lot.”

“Goodbye, Daisy.” My smile was rigid. “I liked meeting you a lot, too.”

I wanted to stall. To say something. Fucking explain or apologize or just round them up and carry them away where I could forever keep them safe.

Wishing it was my place and knowing it most definitely was not.

Didn’t matter.

I could already feel the fires striking all around me. Getting ready to blaze.

If I wasn’t careful, I’d burn this entire thing to ash.

And I was just selfish enough to think it might be worth it.

I closed the door and moved around the back of the truck and onto the sidewalk. Violet hopped into the front seat, rolling down the manual window that whined as she did. She blew her bangs out of her gorgeous face.

Why did she have to affect me this way?

Make me sweat and ache with want?

Why did that sweet body have to be the perfect shape?

The exact outline of what was missing from the middle of me.

She turned over the engine. It rumbled to life, so loud I was sure my mom could hear it from the other side of town.

She started to put it into reverse, and I was moving, unable to watch her go. I rushed to the window and planted my hands on the door, leaning in through the window. “Fuck. Violet.”

She scowled. “Kindly let go of my truck.”

Except the tone of her voice wasn’t so kind.

“I can’t.”

She scoffed. “I’m fairly sure you can. You just pry those selfish fingers off the metal and step back. And then what you do is stay far, far away.”

Those selfish fingers she was referring to curled tighter into the window frame. “I need to know that you two are safe.”

She laughed a biting sound. “Oh. That’s brilliant. But if you need to know, we’ve been doing just fine by ourselves. You don’t need to concern yourself. I know you’re not really, anyway.”

The words hitched at the end.

Nothing fine about it.

“I’m sorry, Violet. So fuckin’ sorry.”

She shook her head with a disbelieving laugh. “You’re sorry?”

“I am. Sorrier than I can explain.”

Would take it back if I could. If there was a single thing I could change. But what I had done had been written in stone.

My penalty carved in the bedrock.

The foundation of who we were forever altered.

“You’ve got to be kiddin’ me,” she muttered below her breath.

“You think I wanted it? To hurt you?”

“Don’t start givin’ excuses now.”

“I’m not trying to make excuses, but we need to talk.”

What I would tell her, I didn’t know. But my guts curled. Instinct kicking. Inciting a rage. The urge to keep them close. Even if it would hurt more in the end.

“Absolutely not,” she shot out.

“Need to talk to you. Won’t take no for an answer.”

“Oh, well you’re gonna have to because in case you didn’t notice, I don’t like you very much.”