Page 187 of Devious Lies (Cruel Crown)
“Your Insta handle.”
The full-blown smile probably looked goofy and obnoxious, but I refused to tamp it. “You stalked me on Insta?”
“Of course not.”
My lips remained tipped up. I’d let this lie slide.
“Last night, I asked you a question. You told me to ask again when I’m sober.” My free hand toyed with the exam table’s paper. “Do you think this is just lust?”
“Ask me again later.”
“But—”
“If I say yes, you’ll feel like shit on top of being sick. If I say no, you’ll want me on you, all over you, in you. Do you really want to be sick when that happens?”
When.
Not if.
“I’m a master at healing,” I warned him, ruining it with a sneeze.
If he were the eye-rolling type, he would have. I think I’d seen him do it once in my fifteen—almost sixteen—years of knowing him.
“I don’t doubt it.”
I considered my next words. Ben was obsessed with penance. So was Nash… and he wanted my dad’s address.
“What will you do to my dad?”
The question sucked the energy out of the room and replaced it with uncertainty. I knew Nash needed closure, but it hurt that it had to come from my dad.
Nash tossed the sticks into the trash and tilted my chin up with a single fingertip. “I just need to talk to him.”
“You promise?”
“Yes.”
I shuttered my eyes, rested my forehead on Nash’s chest, and whispered, “He’s in Blithe Beach.”
Turns out, betrayal doesn’t sting as much when you do it for someone you love.
I bit into the turkey and Ruffles sandwich, tossing a chunk of the bread onto Dad’s grave. A bird waddled over and pecked at it.
Finally, life in this miserable place.
Blithe Beach, North Carolina.
A small town of humble, hardworking people. The town I’d grown up in before moving to Eastridge. Shitty houses. Shitty streets. Shitty beach, that’s more waste run-off than beach.
But the people didn’t suck.
They worked hard, raised good families, and did nice things for each other. Gideon could do worse.
Footsteps approached from behind. The shadow loomed over me, but I faced the tombstone. He sat beside me and leaned against some stranger’s grave marker. When he caught me staring, he shrugged.
“You think the dead care about sharing? If anything, they like the company.” He combed his fingers through his hair. “I take it Emery didn’t send me that email, asking me to meet her here?”
Nope. All me.
