Twisted Love (Modern Romance #3) - Piper Lawson Page 0,51

sheets.

Or how she took me so deep it felt as if we were the same damned person.

Still, my best friend looks composed and collected. “You were gone when I woke up.” Her low voice brings me back.

“Tris called to say that my partners, in their infinite wisdom, decided I was right.”

“Don’t get a big head.”

I lower my voice. “I don’t remember you complaining about the size of any part of me last night.”

A hint of color rises up her cheeks, the only response to my innuendo.

“I’m grabbing caffeine, then we should pack.” Daisy starts past me for the station with coffee and fruit water.

I frown after her.

As my best friend makes herself a coffee, and another guest makes small talk with her, I can’t help thinking she’s returned to normal.

I don’t need her to tell me last night was amazing. Unexpected. Hot as fuck. But it wouldn’t kill her to look a little more dazed.

“There’s another advantage of us spending this weekend away,” I murmur at her shoulder as she adds cream before lifting her gaze to mine. “Tris said he wasn’t taking us seriously, but he does now because of how I’m acting.”

She arches a brow. “Like a man who’s in love?”

Suddenly, I’m the one who feels naked.

Someone always wants more.

What if that someone is me?

“It was a joke," she says, misinterpreting my hesitation. "I’m an adult. I know last night didn't change anything."

The words shouldn’t set me back, but they do. Last night was physical, but it wasn’t only physical. It couldn’t be when she’s been the best part of me for almost a decade.

Daisy takes a sip of her coffee before cursing at the temperature. “We should get going.”

But the way Daisy’s looking at me with those huge, dark eyes has me thinking of another set of familiar dark eyes. Ones that changed not only the trajectory of my relationship with Daisy, but with myself.

I don’t want last night to be a one-time thing. But if I’m going to convince her of that, I need to get my head on straight first.

Eight Years Ago

I’d just finished my nighttime chemistry exam and was on my way out to celebrate when the call came in from Tris about Mom.

Hospital.

Overdose.

I stayed on the line with him for an hour while he cried and cursed, then I made some more calls of my own to ensure she was getting looked after.

I had another exam before I could head home for the summer. The doctors assured me there was nothing to be done in the meantime, that she was in stable condition. But I knew she wasn’t. Stable on the outside wasn’t the same as stable on the inside.

I wanted to track down my dad and haul him up against a wall, hit him with my fists.

I wanted to hold my mom's hand and stare at her pale face, to ask her why she put up with it until I got a good answer.

Mostly, I wanted to forget the world outside. At school, it was easier to pretend I was in control—of my grades, my friends, girls. In light of what happened tonight… not so much.

I grabbed my jacket to brace against the wind and went down to a bar students frequented near campus.

I ordered hard liquor, drank it too fast. It burned through me, dulling the ache at the edges of my soul, the one that said something had gone horribly wrong and the world wasn’t as it seemed.

That’s when I spotted her.

Dark hair tumbled down her back in a wave. Curvy legs were revealed by a short denim skirt.

The outfit was how I recognized her. The cropped shirt that must’ve been freezing if it weren’t for the jacket tucked under her arm.

She looked as if she was alone, and that realization pulled me across the room, had me laying a hand on her shoulder. I was going to make sure she was okay. But when she turned and settled damp, heavily-rimmed eyes on me, the words stuck in my throat.

Her eyes were wild. Haunted. Hurt.

Or maybe that was only the reflection of mine on this night that had already cost me so much.

“No,” she informed me before I could say a damn word, then she spun on her heel and headed for the door.

It took me half a dozen steps to catch up with her. “No what?”

“No, we’re not doing this. My sister and I had a big fight.”

My first thought was whether her sister was okay, but I forced