CHAPTER 26
Lila
A week before the Youth Counseling Expo I was miraculously accepted to—which I can’t think about right now or I’ll crumble under the pressure—my world shifts on its axis.
It starts one unassuming evening after leaving Mariah and Karla’s apartment. My phone rings in the passenger seat as I stop my car at a red light on my way home. Reed’s name flashes on my screen, and a weird feeling settles in the pit of my stomach.
He’s never called me before.
“Reed?”
“Lila,” he says, his voice sounding anxious and wrong. “I’m so fucking sorry. I don’t know what I’m doing, why I’m even calling you—”
“Reed,” I cut him off. “You can always call me. What’s wrong? Where are you?”
There’s a pause in which I only hear my own frantic heartbeat.
“I’m at home,” he says, still agitated. The light turns green, and I make a turn toward his neighborhood. “It’s… Fuck .”
“Reed, tell me what’s wrong,” I tell him calmly. “There’s nothing we can’t fix together, all right?”
I can almost picture him running a nervous hand through his hair.
“It’s Ginny. She swallowed something, and… Fuck . She started throwing it back up, but she was choking—”
“Is she okay?” I rush to ask, tightening my grip on the wheel.
“I don’t know,” he breathes out. “I think so. She’s sleeping now.”
I take another turn. “Just stay calm, okay? I’m on my way.”
My voice doesn’t betray my nerves despite my insides crumbling. Because Reed needs me, and I have to be the strong one right now.
***
Reed
It finally happened—I almost killed her.
It was inevitable, given the DNA weaving through my veins.
For as long as I live, I will never get Ginny’s choking sounds out of my head.
I will never forget the sight of her throwing up one of my socks, which looked bigger than her body, even though it wasn’t.
I will never forget the fact that I stood there, frozen, not knowing what to do to help her. If trying to do something would make it worse.
I will never know why my first instinct was to call Lila instead of a goddamn vet.
You know why.
I told myself I could take care of Ginny, no matter how unprepared I was. I convinced myself the physical and mental trauma my family had put me through wouldn’t resurface, that I would be able to think clearly and not let my emotions ruin a good thing.
A lie.
I told myself my feelings for Lila were just those of a noble man who’s watching out for his friends’ daughter. That I wouldn’t fall for her kind heart, the light in her soul, the warmth of her touch.
Another lie.
The doorbell rings. I take in Ginny’s sleeping form again before heading for the door.
When I open it and her worried eyes meet mine, the urge to pull her into my arms overcomes me like a tidal wave.
She’s here. Everything will be okay.
She breezes past me and crouches next to Ginny’s bed.
“How are you feeling, sweet baby?” she mumbles, delicately stroking her light fur.
The front door closes with a soft click, and I make my way back to the living room with my hands inside the pockets of my slacks because I don’t trust myself not to touch her right now.
“What happened?” she asks me over her shoulder.
I move closer until I’m towering over Ginny and her, and I silently gesture for her to give me her coat.
“I was doing laundry when I got distracted by a work call,” I explain as I put her coat away. “When I came back, Ginny was around, but I thought she was acting normal. Moments later though, she started choking. I should’ve been able to tell something was wrong.”
She probably thinks I’m a monster. It should bring me comfort, thinking she’ll finally pull away and we won’t cross any more lines. Instead, it makes me want to tear the world apart.
I'm so deep in my thoughts that I don’t hear Lila getting to her feet or coming closer until her soothing hand lands on my arm.
Our gazes crash, electricity soaring through my bones. For a second, I allow myself to imagine what would happen if we weren’t ourselves.
If she weren’t my former intern and I weren’t her former supervisor.
If her parents weren’t my good friends.
If I had been born into a family who had taught me what healthy, worthy love feels like from a young age.
“If she was acting normal, there was no reason for you to think anything was wrong. Sometimes puppies eat things they aren’t supposed to. It wasn’t your fault. She’s okay now.” Her voice is gentle as she adds, “You’re taking great care of her, Reed.”
I gulp. “I should’ve been more attentive. She shouldn’t have been unsupervised for so long.”
My head betrays me. As I stand with the woman who’s stolen my heart, it takes me back to the people who broke it three decades ago.
The sharp pain of my father’s belt hitting the flesh on my back again and again.
My mother watching her husband abuse her son and not doing shit about it.
You never take care of your mother, Reed. You deserve this.
Lila’s warm hand lands on my cheek, bringing my attention back to her angelic face. An anchor.
“Where did you go?” she whispers, her thumb painting circles on my stubble.
I don’t tell her where my mind just dragged me because I can’t. Her pity isn’t something I need or want.
“Reed.”
But she insists.
And she does it in that way I find so fucking hard to say no to—by looking at me like I hold the whole world in my hands.
I shut my eyes because I don’t trust myself to make smart choices while looking into hers. My hands turn into fists at my sides, preventing me from reaching out.
Her thumb keeps tracing that comforting pattern over my skin, posing a stark contrast to the wound on my back that burns every single time I think of my parents.
“It’s okay if you don’t want to talk,” she says, and I know she means it. “I can tell you’ve been carrying some type of burden for a long time. You don’t have to keep doing it anymore, okay? You’re not alone, Reed. I’m here. I’ll always be on your side.”
When I open my eyes, I’m caught in her stare. And maybe it’s a mistake, but I don’t want to leave.
“What’s the matter with you and Ginny?” she asks next, her voice soft.
Knowing exactly what she means, I consider not answering or even lying about it. But this is Lila, my Lila, and she makes me want to bare my soul in a way I never thought I’d be capable of.
So, I take a deep breath and crack my chest right open.
“I had a dog when I was a kid. Her name was Daisy.” I haven’t said her name out loud in thirty years. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to. “She was my best friend. My only companion. When my parents argued so loudly I couldn’t sleep, she cuddled up with me and made everything less painful.”
Lila’s smile is sad. “I bet she loved you very much.”
“That’s what I thought, too.” I swallow past the lump in my throat. “Until she disappeared one day. Left without a trace.”
Lila doesn’t say a word. She keeps caressing my skin in those calm, soothing movements that keep me going. She keeps me going.
“My parents said she’d run away because I didn’t take good care of her, so she stopped loving me. I never saw Daisy again. For years, I believed my parents. I didn’t think I was capable enough to take care of anything or anyone. I understand now that it wasn’t my fault, but I’ve never been able to close that wound. I don’t fucking know why.”
“That’s why you were so nervous around Ginny,” she says, reaching the right conclusion. When I nod, her face falls. “Oh, Reed. You were a baby back then. There’s no way taking care of a dog was your sole responsibility.”
My throat is dry, and it hurts when I speak. “The most logical part of me knows. The heart is another story.”
“Your parents made you believe Daisy ran away because of you?”
“My parents beat me up until social services put me in foster care, Lila.”
Air whooshes out of her lungs. Her body locks into place so close to mine, I feel the tension seeping into each and every one of her muscles.
As soon as she blinks away the first tear, I feel like an asshole.
“I’m sorry,” I rush to say, wiping her tears away with the pads of my thumbs. “I shouldn’t have been so abrupt. Please don’t—”
She throws her arms around my neck, hugging me close as the moisture in her eyes wets the bare skin on my neck.
“Tell me what happened,” she manages to let out, a surprising streak of protectiveness lacing her voice.
I wrap my arms as tightly as I can around her frame. I’ve never felt the need to have her against me so strongly. To know she’s here and we’re okay.
“It’s in the past,” I reassure her. “I’ve gone to therapy, and I’m okay now.”
“No, you’re not,” she retorts. “Ginny triggered something in you, Reed. Don’t deny it. Not to me. It’s okay if you’re still not fully healed from something so brutal.”
Ginny isn’t the only one who has triggered something in me in the past few months. But she doesn’t need to know that.
I pull away, still holding her close. “Do you want to know the whole story?”
She nods. “Please.”
Wiping away her tears, I start.
“There’s not much to tell other than the fact that my parents never wanted to become parents in the first place and had a few undiagnosed mental illnesses.” My voice is surprisingly steady. “My dad used to beat me up, mainly with his belt. And my mom slapped me occasionally and didn’t do anything when my dad punished me. A few insults here and there, too, but it never went further than that.”
Lila gasps, horrified. “But you were a boy, Reed…”
“I was seven when it stopped,” I confirm. “My parents left me alone in the house with a bleeding wound on my back and only some expired food to sustain me. They told me not to leave before they came back, so I didn’t. But by the third day, I was so hungry I went to ask the neighbors across the street for something to eat. They saw the state I was in and called the police. It made the news—a whole media circus. I didn’t see my parents again.”
“What happened after that?” She’s quiet, as if she were afraid to ask.
“Looking back, that’s the moment my life shifted for the better,” I tell her. “It didn’t feel like that at the time, though. I felt alone and scared, but I was lucky the social worker assigned to my case was devoted to me. She made sure I had a second chance in life, and she’s been looking out for me ever since.”
Her eyes widen in realization. “Was your social worker…?”
“Haniyah.” I nod with a small smile. It’s hard not to smile when I think about the woman who gave me so much and asked for nothing in return. “She followed my case closely and always offered me all the help she could. I’d hop between foster homes—that’s how I met Liam and Warren—but I never got adopted. When I left the system at eighteen, she took me under her wing and sent me to college because she knew that’s what I wanted to do. The rest is history.”
“I knew you two were close, but…” She pauses. “Wait. Is that why you’re working on that project with the state government? The one about improving mental health care in the foster system?”
I nod again. “I know what it’s like to have all the odds against you. I was lucky enough to succeed, but many children and teens in foster care don’t because they don’t have the tools to. I want to change that.”
Her hand finds my cheek again, stroking it in that sweet way. “You’re something else, Reed.”
“Something good, I hope?”
“The best thing,” she mutters. “Thank you for telling me about your past. I’m so sorry you had to go through that as a kid, but if it’s any consolation, you’ve become one of the best men I know.”
Burying my feelings for her becomes an impossible task when she says things like that.
Her tongue wets her lower lip, a movement I follow closely until she asks, “Not that I didn’t want you to, but why did you call me tonight?”
There’s no point in denying it anymore. I’ve given her everything, showed her the ugliness of my past, and she’s still here.
I can only hope she doesn’t run away now.
“You once asked what keeps me calm,” I rasp out, my fingers itching to move closer to her waist. “I called you because it’s you, angel. You keep me calm.”
Her breath hitches, but she doesn’t pull away. She doesn’t make a move to run away, doesn’t show me any sign that she’s suddenly uncomfortable around me.
Her thumb inches closer to my mouth just as I caress the small of her back.
“You keep me calm too,” she whispers.
Our uneven breaths intertwine, our bodies inching closer.
“Yeah?”
I pull her to me, pressing her front against mine.
She gives me a small nod. “Although I’m not very calm right now.”
I hum as I lean in, the tip of my nose brushing her cheek, earning me a shiver.
“Tell me how you feel,” I rasp, making my way down her slender throat with my nose, breathing her in.
She smells like mine.
“Reed…?”
“Yes, angel?”
“Are you…?” Another shiver. “Are you sure we should be doing this?”
But she doesn’t make a move to stop me, and I don’t pull away.
And when my lips brush the sensitive skin on her collarbone—that one spot I’ve ogled a million times with a primal kind of hunger—she makes a little noise at the back of her throat I’ve only heard in my most forbidden fantasies.
“Do you want me to stop?” I mutter against her skin.
“No,” she breathes out, pulling me closer by the back of my neck.
That’s my girl.
I take my time breathing her in, savoring her intakes of breath and the delicious way she arches her back. Slowly, I drag my lips from her collarbone to her neck, to her jaw, to her cheek.
And then I stop.
A choice.
I can close the gap between our lips and taste her like I didn’t get to last time, make her feel what she does to me. Or I can do the responsible thing and remind myself she might not be my intern anymore, but she’s still my friends’ much younger daughter, and I will only hurt her.
In the end, my heart leads the way.
A breath later, our lips collide, and I recognize her touch as if we’d kissed a thousand times before. My chest expands, her light slipping through the cracks I never thought would be mended.
It starts out slow, tentative. Nothing more than a peck we’re too scared to turn into more. But unlike last time, she parts her lips, and my tongue meets hers.
The thin rope holding on to my restraint snaps with no chance of redemption.
She pulls me closer by the collar of my shirt, sighing against my mouth like she’s been waiting ages to do this. Because I have, I cradle her face with both of my hands gently, so at odds with the way we’re devouring each other.
Mine, mine, mine.
When we pull away, breathless, I’m the one who hoists her up until her legs are wrapped around my middle.
I’m the one who pushes her against the nearest wall, cradling the back of her head so she doesn’t get hurt.
I’m the one who bridges the distance between us once more, as if I’ll never get to kiss her again. My other hand rests on her waist as she holds my face, deepening the kiss neither of us should’ve started.
“Reed,” she whimpers, pulling away. The sight of her red, puffy lips makes me want to kiss her again, repeatedly, until I run out of air. “We should stop.”
My breaths are labored. “All right.”
A beat passes, and her lips are on mine again.
Passion ignites at the pit of my stomach, then climbs all the way to my chest. We kiss furiously but tenderly all at once, because we’re running out of time. Because the second she leaves my house tonight, I won’t get to have her like this again.
How can I miss someone I’m holding in my arms right now?
“Fuck, Lila,” I grunt, pressing my hard-on against her softness. Her breath hitches, and my cock jumps. “Look what you do to me, angel. Do you feel it?”
A throaty sound escapes her before she rubs herself against me like the little minx she is. My grip on her waist tightens; I want to mark her but know she isn’t mine to claim.
As much as I feel like hers, as much as she feels like mine, she can’t be.
I kiss her again, slower this time, before carefully setting her back on the ground. Twenty minutes or twenty hours could’ve passed. Time stops when I’m around her.
The air around us shifts, stiffens, like we momentarily forgot who we are to each other, and it all comes back now.
“That was…” She runs her fingers through the new tangles in her hair, lowering her gaze to the ground. “It can’t happen again.”
It takes everything in me to nod. “Okay.”
“I mean it this time,” she says in a firmer voice, looking up at me. “It’d be too complicated.”
I won’t argue with her on that one. It’s not only her credibility as a student that is at risk, but the continuation of my project as well. And while she’s my priority, I can’t deny that saving my own ass is important too. If we get caught, my position as a researcher at Warlington University would be as good as dead, along with my involvement in the project.
And that project needs to go through. I haven’t devoted decades to my education to throw it all away now.
“Promise me something, though,” I say.
At the end of the day, this is Lila. This is the woman who has woken something in me I thought forever gone, and I don’t want to lose her over this—or anything else.
“Don’t get awkward around me now, little criminal. All right?”
Her smirk gives me the tiniest bit of hope. And maybe it’s a lie, all wishful thinking, but when she says, “I said you’d never get rid of me, remember?” I choose to believe her.