Page 15 of The Deception You Weave

"So what's the issue?"

"Once he realized what he'd done, he kicked me out."

"Ouch."

"Right? It was cold. His swimmers were still inside me and everything," she deadpans.

"Oh my God." I bark out a laugh and when I recall her words again, my giggles only get worse.

I lose myself for a good two minutes laughing at her expense.

"Fuck, I'm so sorry, but I really needed that," I say through the tail end of my giggle as I'm wiping the tears from my eyes.

"I'm glad something good came out of it."

"Oh, come on. Don't pretend like you didn'tcomeout of it."

"Okay, yeah. There was that. It wouldn't be so bad if he wasn't so damn good at it."

"You like him, don't you?"

"I like his cock, if that's what you mean."

I wrap my arm around her shoulder as she pouts, glad to be able to comfort her instead of the other way around. "You'll figure it out. If you're lucky, they'll win on Saturday and he'll want to celebrate."

"There's a party at the Delta house. Apparently, they're all going."

"Yeah? So you've got a week to figure out how you're going to show him what he's missing. Assuming he doesn't booty call your ass in the meantime."

"We should go shopping, get me a killer dress." Her face lights up and I can't help but feel a little of her excitement trickle through me as well.

"Sounds like a plan. Tell me when and where and I'm there."

"Yes." She hops up. "Are you going to be okay? I've got an assignment that I really need to finish for the morning."

"Yeah, I'm good. Thank you for this."

"Anytime. If you need anything, you know where I am."

I watch her walk to my door and she's almost gone before I call her name.

"Yeah?" she says with a wide smile.

"You heard, didn't you?"

She blows out a slow breath as she finds the right words. "I was standing right here ready to storm in and beat his ass for taking things too far." She gives me a sad smile. "When—if—you're ready. I'm right here." She blows me a kiss before closing my door behind her.

I thought I'd hate knowing that someone knew my secret, but as I sit there thinking about her confession, I realize that actually, it’s like a weight has been lifted that someone knows and that she's accepted that I don't feel strong enough to talk about it. I have no idea what I did to deserve Ella in my life but I'm grateful because I think she's going to become a very good friend.

I shower and spend ages blow-drying and straightening my hair just to give me something to do so that I don't find myself in my car and heading to where I know Kane is. I curl up in bed with my laptop to go over a paper I wrote at Mom's this weekend for tomorrow.

I'm halfway through when there's a knock on my door.

"Come in," I call, assuming that it won't be him coming back for a repeat of Thursday night. Although when the door starts opening, I suddenly panic that I might be wrong.

"Hey, Ella said you were back," Luca says, stepping into my room, closing the door behind him, and sucking all the air from the room.

He looks terrible.