Hold Me (Love The Way #2) - W. Winters Page 0,39

and Kam’s eyes widen slightly. “Damon approved it.”

Kam nods as he looks away, obviously uncomfortable but he says, “There was an affirmation I was using a bit ago.”

“Really?”

He meets my gaze to tell me, “When Gerald broke up with me.” His expression sobers. They were engaged and I still don’t know what happened; all I know is that I wasn’t around when they broke up. I was at the center.

Sucking in a breath, he tells me, “I give myself permission to do what is right for me.” He swallows thickly.

“I like that one. I really do.”

He pouts at my smile, a goofy expression on his face. “You should add that to your list.”

“I think I will.”

“Yoga, affirmations, anything else he wants in your new normal?” He returns to picking away at his chicken caesar wrap.

Shaking my head, I don’t tell him the hair and nails, and even my chosen outfit for the day, is all Zander’s choosing. My grooming and appearance are to please him. It’s a requirement for every day.

Along with accepting a list every day of what I should accomplish while he’s gone. He’s busy arranging everything in his new place nearby. I haven’t seen it yet, but he said once he has everything in order, since things have gotten chaotic with his leave from The Firm, then I can come see and maybe stay if Cade will allow it.

Kam asks in a humorous tone, “What about daily blow jobs?”

His last question is spoken at the same moment the waiter returns to refill my tea. I can’t help the grin that slips across my face at the sight of Kam’s embarrassment.

The waiter remains professional, although he’s obviously heard and has a hard time keeping a smile from creeping onto his face that would match mine. “Anything else I can get you?”

Kam asks for the check and I’m grateful he seems to forget about the list after the young man leaves.

“Speaking of blow jobs,” I murmur and prod him. “Anything new in your dating world?”

My playfulness falls flat. Kam’s lips are pressed in a thin line. “Gerald wants to get back together. He called a couple of nights ago and again last night.”

I’m surprised by how happy his admission makes me. “You two were so good together.”

Again the optimism does nothing but faceplant on the table.

“When you were away … he didn’t do things he should have. Not like I needed him to.”

My throat dries and once again, I’m left with an anxiousness that comes with those memories.

“Enough of that,” he says matter-of-factly. “To a new normal,” Kam offers in cheers, his tone a little more upbeat. It only takes me a moment to force a smile and my glass of water, since the tea is empty, meets his.

“To a new normal.”

And so that’s how time passes, checking off a list daily, letting Zander fuck me into contentedness and pretending this new normal feels right and not like I’m counting the days until something inevitably goes wrong, very, very wrong and entirely out of my control.

Zander

It feels like several lifetimes have passed since I let Quincy walk away from me into the night. Time seemed to drag on forever after she was murdered. Guilt is a heavy, relentless emotion. It makes the body move slower and time crawl, except during the moments when you think it might be lifting. It always comes back, though. The guilt is never resolved. No amount of therapy has been able to free me from it. I’ll live with that guilt until I die.

If I had stopped her and done what I wanted to do, done what I know she needed, she’d be here. She’d be alive and happy. Probably with someone else, but she’d breathing.

I know all the things to think, and all the things to say. I know how to organize my thoughts from the physical world around me to the emotional world inside my mind. I’ve practiced holding these things at arm’s length and observing them without sinking into them. But no matter how many times I logic my way around Quincy’s death, I still end up at the same conclusion.

I bear some responsibility. It’s not all my fault, of course, though it felt like it at the time. The man who murdered Quincy bears more of that burden. He’s the one who mugged her and then killed her. He took her life.

I can’t describe the hate I have for him to senselessly take her life.

I’m still not ready for the