A Shot of Pretty Poison (Pretty Poison Trilogy #3)

by Kelsey Clayton

“Please,” I beg. “Ten minutes. That’s all I need.” “Ten minutes?” he asks, and I nod. “See, that’s where we differ. You only need ten minutes with me, but I needed the rest of my life with you.”

But the shitty thing about life is that there is no redo button. You can’t rewind. You can’t go back. All you can do is drown in the aftermath of the choices that were made, even if they weren’t your own.

“There’s a part of me that still loves you,” I say honestly. “There’s always going to be a part of me that still loves you. But right now, there’s a part of me that wants to hate you, and I’m not sure which is stronger.” She sniffles, wiping away her tears and nodding. “I get that. I do.” I get up from the table and put my fist on it. “Just do me a favor?” “Anything,” she replies, and I know she means that. “Don’t go anywhere until I figure it out.”

“So, that’s her, huh?” she asks. “The girl who made it so you don’t believe in love anymore?” I let myself look at Laiken for a moment before I answer, feeling the way I still crave her like an addiction that never seems to fully go away. “I believe in love,” I say simply. “I just don’t believe in it with anyone but her.”

“That’s good, because I do,” she throws back. “You don’t deserve my brother.” Now that hits me right in the chest because I agree with her. It’s like having my worst fear spoken into existence and validated. And no matter how much I try to keep the tears down, they come anyway. “You’re right.” My shoulders sag. “I don’t. But that doesn’t mean I don’t love him with every goddamn thing I have anyway. I don’t expect you to believe that, but it’s true. He’s it for me.”

“I don’t hate you, baby,” I whisper. “I just hate that I wasn’t enough.”

“I think it all comes down to whether or not you’ll be able to trust her again,” she tells me. “If you can’t, then trying again won’t go well. But if you think you can, if it’s at all possible, I don’t think you should let a love like that go. It’s too special.”

Hayes is the love of my life, but Mali is my soulmate.

The only thing in the room is his primal need to claim what’s his, and there isn’t a single part of me that’s not okay with it. Not when it feels this good. And definitely not when he’s looking at me like I’m the only thing in his life he isn’t willing to lose.

Losing a love like that leaves an emptiness behind, and no matter how hard you try to fill it or what you try to fill it with, you can’t. It’s a bottomless pit in the center of your heart, formed perfectly in the shape of them.”

“I would’ve much rather dealt with the fear of losing him again than the emptiness of not having him at all.”

“What did that stool ever do to you?” I groan as I sit up, feeling the twinge in my back. “It’s fucking unreliable.” Cam chuckles. “Man, really? I specifically ordered the ones with the loyalty feature on them! Those lying bitches.”

If I have gray hairs, it’s because I married half of this generation’s Thelma and Louise.

I exhale because this is what I needed. What I’ve always needed. It’s her.

Taking my time, I press one kiss to her eye, followed by another one over her heart, and lastly, one more to her lips. It may be cheesy, but the way she giggles makes it worth it.

“Please, God,” I beg as the tears start to fall. “Please don’t take her from me. Give her back. I just want her back.”

“You are not allowed to fucking die on me, Blanchard,” she scolds between sobs. “I swear, if you don’t wake the fuck up, I’ll make sure everyone you’ve ever known thinks you have a tiny dick!” In the best timing known to man, Cam stirs, finally coming to. Laiken and I exhale in relief.

There’s never going to be a time where I let her go. There can’t be. We need each other, and maybe that’s unhealthy and codependent, but I don’t care. She’s my entire fucking world.

Luck has a way of rarely being on my side, but I think that’s only because I must’ve spent it all on her. Laiken Rose Wilder is the best part of my day. She’s my present, my past, and my future, and because of that, I’ll never regret a single thing.

I will spend the rest of my life being incomprehensibly in love with her. And if there’s a life after this one, I’ll go to the ends of the earth to find her again, because her soul and mine are two halves of a whole. There’s no me without her.