Page 179 of Pucking Sweet

I sigh and kiss her forehead. Idoknow. I catch her crying all the time. Sometimes she still sleeps in his shirts. We’re a pair of lovestruck fools, hopelessly pining after an emotionally unavailable wannabe playboy who walked away from us and didn’t look back.

Actually, he ran. Like he was on fucking fire.

I frown, my mind humming as it tries to latch onto something, some glimmer of an idea.

“Colton?” Poppy takes my hand. “What is it?”

“What if we’re going about this all wrong?”

“Going about what?”

“Lukas. What if respecting his wishes, and giving him space, and waiting for him to come to us is the wrong tactic?”

She squeezes my hand. “Honey, we can’t force him to want to be with us. He knows how we feel. We both told him. Repeatedly. And, frankly, it would hurt my heart too much to keep trying and get shot down. A girl can only take so much, you know?”

“Yeah, but what was it that he said at that benefit? The silent auction thing?”

A smile flits across her mouth. “He always says rather a lot. Usually it’s inappropriate.”

“You told me he said something about Leos and Scorpios.”

Now she really smiles. She looks up at me. “He said Leos love at first sight and stay loyal until they die…which seems to be true.”

“And Scorpios?”

She sighs. “That they’ll want you at first sight, and fight it till they die.”

Oh, fucking hell.

“Babe, I have to go.”

“What?” She slips off the exam table. “Col, you were my ride here.”

I groan. “Fine, I’ll drop you off at home. But then I really need to go. I might not be back for a little while.”

“What are you doing?”

I brace my hands on her shoulders. “I don’t know,” I admit. “Something…maybe something crazy. Possibly even illegal. But it feels right.”

Anxiety flashes in her eyes. “Oh god. Colton, what are you gonna do?”

I smile, set on my course. Bending down, I give her a quick kiss. “I’m gonna go be a Leo.”

67

My doorbell rings. Groaning, I roll over in my bed, reaching for my phone to check the time. It’s only ten minutes after eight. God, I’m so fucking pathetic. Lukas Novikov in bed before nine o’clock at night?

Yep, this is my new normal. I wake up, play hockey, eat, go to sleep, repeat. Hey, hockey players love a good routine, right? If I’m not traveling, eating, or playing hockey, I only want to be sleeping. Why would I stay awake, when my reality is a fucking nightmare worse than anything my subconscious mind could ever conjure?

My life now is just one long horizon of endless fucking loneliness. I feel like Matt Damon’s character inThe Martian, only that guy got to say he went to Mars.

Emptiness. Isolation. A primal, raw ache.

I did this to myself. I didn’t just walk away from the two best things that ever happened to me, I fuckingran. I bolted. I bailed. It’s what I always do when things get just a little bit tough. For me, the fear of losing something I want has always felt so much scarier, so much harder to bear, than the pain I feel at choosing to let that thing go.

After a lifetime of this shit, I’ve perfected the art of self-sabotage. The rationalizations come so easy now. All my usual standbys play on a loop in my mind:

I was no good for them anyway.