Page 152 of Dream On, Ramona Riley

Dylan managed a weak laugh, then shrugged. “We just…” She trailed off, shook her head. “I fucked it up. Wasn’t honest, was destructive. The usual self-sabotaging behavior.”

Iris pursed her mouth. “I know something about that.”

Dylan perked up at that. “Do you?”

Iris laughed. “Oh my god, yes. My partner and I had a rocky road to getting together.”

“Stevie Scott, right?” Blair asked.

Iris grinned, as though just her partner’s name filled her with light. “That’s her.”

“So what happened?” Dylan asked, suddenly ravenous for some camaraderie.

“I fucked it up,” Iris said, smiling at Dylan. “Wasn’t honest, was destructive. The usual self-sabotaging behavior.”

Dylan smiled back, and then Iris told them about her and Stevie’s journey, which started out as a disastrous one-night stand,turned into fake dating so Stevie could save face in front of an ex, and resulted in falling in love.

“That’s wild,” Blair said, “but I went through something similar with my partner.”

“You did?” Dylan asked.

Blair nodded. “When Harlow suggested moving in together a few months ago, I totally freaked out.”

“Sounds about right,” Iris said.

“It’s just so huge, you know?” Blair said. “A million doubts flooded my brain—what if they didn’t like me once we lived together? What if they hated the way I made coffee, or that I need, like, three blankets when I sleep even in the middle of summer?”

“Oh, that is annoying,” Iris said, but nudged Blair’s arm with a smile.

Blair grinned. “Letting someone in is always a little scary. No matter who you are or what you’ve been through. But it’s always worth it.”

“AndIwill cheers to that,” Iris said, lifting her glass.

Blair laughed, clinked her glass with Iris’s again, but Dylan was lost in thought. Maybe Iris and Blair were right. Maybe most people were just terrified that they wouldn’t be loved if someone saw them for who they really were. As Dylan sat there in Four Leaf, she realized that pretty much summed up her entire life.

She was scared.

All the time.

That no one would ever really love her.

Not Dylan Monroe. Buther.

And it wasn’t just Ramona. It was her parents and past friends Dylan shoved out of her life for that very reason, every lover she’d ever had.

“Well, shit,” she said, then gulped at her club soda, letting the bubbles burn her throat all the way down.

Chapter

Forty

Two days later,Dylan pulled through the gate and into the diamond-patterned driveway of a modern white house in Laurel Canyon. Greenery hugged the property, and myriad tiny plants were built into the wide stone stairs that led to the front door.

It was evening, and Jack and Carrie’s house in LA was softly lit and quiet, the sky a lavender blue. The glassed-in balcony overlooked an infinity pool, and a modern copper fountain burbled near the front walkway, succulents and greens nestled all around.

Dylan sat in her car for a few minutes. She assumed her parents had been alerted to her use of their gate code, but the front door remained closed. She hadn’t talked to either one of them all that much since her mother’s declaration at Dylan’s rental in Clover Lake a few weeks ago. She wasn’t even sure when they’d left Clover Lake. Her father, of course, witnessed her and Ramona falling apart, but the only direct contact she’d had with them was a text from Carrie the day after the breakup—We love you.

That was all it said.