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“I think every girl needs to spend a day with the four of you.” Lily points to each of us in turn. “They need to know the power they hold as women. The strength they have. And that they can do, and be, anything they want to be without apology.”
I love Lily. I love the way she sees the world.
“Here, here.” Carmen lifts her glass over her head, obviously inebriated, but aren’t we all?
Rosalie joins in. She lifts her glass, kicking ass and taking names. I worry about her integrating into our little group of three.
Kaye, Carmen, and I are tight. We shared four years as undergrads, with all the trials and tribulations that brings. Rosalie’s led a rough life and she’s only now able to do, be, and become what she wants to be.
She and Carmen grew up together, but she’s only now integrating into our little group. For me, I find her fascinating. What she endured is tragic. I have maybe a tenth of the strength Rosalie’s displayed in getting here.
Unlike her, a girl who grew up in a tiny rural community of subsistence farmers in Nicaragua, I grew up privileged in the United States; part of the elite, wealthy zero-point-one percent. I’ve never known a hard day in my life. I’ve never had to hunt for my food. Go hungry. I’ve never had to worry about a roof over my head, or whether my clothes would fit next season as I grew. My hardest day was the day that sex tape leaked.
Rosalie’s hardest day was the day she was taken from her family at the age of ten, raped, and forced into subjugated labor as Carmen’s maid. Only because Carmen is the person she is, and because of the influence of her governess, Lucinda, did Carmen breach the divides of class and wealth to befriend and welcome Rosalie as a sister.
“Is that why you don’t date?” Lily asks.
“Excuse me?” I shake my head as Lily pulls me from my thoughts.
“You were talking about Steffen.”
“Pretty much. I pulled way back from romantic entanglements to avoid experiencing that degree of shame and humiliation ever again.” I turn toward Lily and fix her with a fierce stare; more fierce than she deserves. “It was a life changing moment for me.”
“I see that.” Lily dips her head and presses her hand over her heart. “And I feel it here. Thank you for sharing that with us.”
“Is Alec making you reconsider?” Jinx runs her finger slowly around the rim of her glass. “Guardians have a way of turning our lives upside down. As for going away on missions, I don’t have any good advice, except to say you can choose to let it eat away at you, or you can trust in your man.”
“How?” The moment she says ‘missions’ my heart goes into full on palpitations. If something were to happen to Alec, I don’t know what I’d do.
“Trust that he’ll move heaven and earth to get back to you.” Jinx fixes me in a stare that consumes me. It burns me from my insides out, searing her message into my soul.
But still, I resist.
“I don’t know if we’re at that stage in our relationship. If what we have is anything other than fuck-buddies.” The more I say that word, or hear it spoken, the more I detest what it means.
But as I look around at these fierce, strong women, maybe it’s time to take a chance on something real? Maybe Alec can be more than a physical connection? Maybe he’ll be the one to break down my walls and show me love is worth fighting for?
That’s a lot of maybes.
The next night, however, a terrible truth is exposed. The men of Bravo team return from their mission minus one man.
FIFTEEN
Barbi
Carmen and Rosalieare out on a double date with Rafe and Hayes. Kaye is at the library, getting a head start on her studies to become a vet.
Leaving me to sit alone in the townhouse, feeling the heavy weight of emptiness amplified by the silence all around me. With a sigh, I curl up on the sofa, hugging a pillow close to my chest, as if it can somehow fill the void left by Alec’s absence.
Every time I close my eyes, all I see is his face—those piercing-blue eyes that see straight into my soul and that crooked smile that makes my heart skip a beat. There’s hesitation and fear there too; whispers inside my head, telling me Alec will hurt me.
Because that’s what men do.
“Damn you, Alec,” I whisper into the silence, my voice cracking with emotion.
Unable to sit still any longer, I get up and pace back and forth across the room, my thoughts racing as I try to make sense of his disappearance.
Where is he? Why hasn’t he answered any of my many texts?