Lotus: Second Chance Love with Romantic Suspense

by Jennifer Hartmann

Gabe Wellington is my best friend. We’re like siblings, having grown up together over the past twenty-six years.

Gabe grew up in the house next door with his father and stepmother. And Oliver. But we don’t talk about Oliver anymore.

think he’s about to say my name, but instead, he rasps out, “Queen of the Lotus.” What?

“Smile.” “Oh.” Oliver nods knowingly, then swallows the rest of his bite. “I enjoy your smile as well. It makes me want to smile more.” Charming. One-hundred-percent charming.

Oliver releases my hand and lifts his own to the side of my face. I remain still, breathless and speechless, my eyes following his hand as it connects with my cheek, his index finger extending and drawing an invisible line along my bruise. His touch makes me shiver, mostly because I didn’t expect it, but also for reasons I can’t quite explain. Goose bumps tickle both arms, sheathing me in a flurry of new sensations and an unexpected feeling of…contentment. Fulfillment. Belonging. Home.

raise my own hand and place it atop his, cupping his fingers in my palm as our gazes remain locked in a cogent clutch. I ask him softly, timidly, our hands still connected, “Will you be my friend, Oliver Lynch?”

Damn. “I’m sorry for my indecency,” Oliver forces out, a crack in his tone. “I wasn’t aware there was a lady present.”

Sorry that my whore eyes just drank you up like a tall glass of water.

“Taken?” he wonders, eyebrows raised in question. “Was she alluding to my abduction?” “She assumed we were sleeping together,” I explain, a smile lifting. “Oh.” The question doesn’t leave his face. “That’s an odd conclusion to make.”

“There is beauty to be found everywhere…even in the things that scare us.”

I fail to see the point in setting an alarm for a specific time, knowing you will not abide by the time you set it for. A strange habit, indeed.

on my mind, a concerned frown in place. “If you saw that I worked at a library on the ‘getting laid’ database, would you swipe right?”

“Because we’re a fucked-up, complicated species prone to self-sabotage, baseless insecurities, and the notion that there’s always something better around the corner. We’re constantly chasing imaginary destinations, thinking we’re missing out, wanting more. We’re never truly present.”

“Like every star in the galaxy tumbled to earth and crawled beneath my skin.”

Sydney settles beside me on the sofa and tucks my trembling hand between both of her palms. She rests her cheek against my shoulder and whispers, “Those are the best kind.”

“Don’t apologize, Syd. You wear your heart in your eyes, and it’s clearly taken.” A faint smile crosses his lips. “And as much as I’ve been trying to fight it…so is mine.”

“Oliver’s walls are a lot thinner than yours. It won’t take much to break through them.” My fist squeezes the end of my fork as I pin my steely gaze across the table. “What does that mean?” A sharp look, and then, “It means…you hold the sledgehammer, Syd. One wrong swing and he’s going to fall.”

One week. One week without his closeness, his quirks, his charm, his beautiful soul radiating into me, and it felt like a part of me had withered away.

“I’m Tabitha. Tabitha Brighton. This is my friend Cora.”

“Yes,” Oliver says softly, his gaze still fixed ahead. “But not all love is meant to stay. Sometimes it only serves a temporary purpose.”

“Missile’s toe?” Oliver inquires, spinning his glass between long fingers, then taking another sip. He winces through his gulp. “It’s a Christmas-kissing thing. Ignore her, she’s a child.” “Oh.” Another slow sip. More processing. “I’m unsure what a projectile with feet has to do with kissing. Or Christmas, for that matter.”

“You’re going to lose me by trying too hard not to lose me, Syd.” A quivering gasp echoes in my ears. “Good night.”

“You heal me. Every day you put another piece of me back together,” he insists, crossing the room, cautiously approaching. “Why do you associate attachment with suffering and loss?” I’m openly crying into my palm, shaking my head. “God, who hurt you, Sydney?” “You did!”

Chin quivering, I suck in a sharp breath and swallow down his words, tasting his truth. “Oliver, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry I’ve confused and hurt you when all I’ve tried to do is protect your beautiful heart,”

The truth is, I didn’t have a heart to give. My heart was with a ghost.

“Remember when you said I wore my heart in my eyes?” He flashes me a knowing smirk. “Let me guess. Your heart is sitting two stools to the left on his third strawberry daiquiri, looking like he’s working up the courage to ask you to prom.”

Me and my boys—my sweet, beautiful men, smiling and alive, together, vibrating with genuine joy. The last two decades wash away like a message in a bottle—the one that housed a desperate plea from inside my heart, a letter to the man in the sky, holding my wishes in his capable hands.

“I’m hard to hold,” I confess, my words pulled from the coil of fear inside me. But Oliver’s smile only swells as he lowers my cheek to his chest, his palm still cradling the back of my head like I am cherished—like I am his missing piece. “Nothing worth holding is ever too hard.”

“For so long, I was just a name carved into a stone wall. I was a picture on paper, created by my own muddled mind,” he confesses, and there’s anguish woven into his words, evidence of his years of loneliness. But then his eyes find their way back to mine, and I see a shift. I see hope. “You make me feel like I’m…someone.”

“I’m right here, with you, and I’m still holding on to your heart. Please don’t ask me to give it back.”

love you,” I whisper against his lips. Oliver crushes his mouth to mine, as if he’s trying to inhale those words, suck them down, so they live inside him forever—so he’s never lonely again.

Sydney loves me. And I love her, so entirely, so painfully… I always have. I tell her in the way I hold her, in the way I look at her, in the way I say her name. She is my favorite part of me.

“You always deserve what is meant for you, and if anything is meant to be, it’s us,” I tell her earnestly, with whispered passion, my thumbs drifting over her cheekbones. “You’re too good to me,” she croaks back.

love you, Syd. I loved you then, I love you now, and I’ll love you until my dying day.”

A swallow grips my throat when I look down at my arm, the familiar word staring back at me: l o t u s

“Oh, my God…” she rasps out. “Oliver…I didn’t write ‘lotus.’ You were looking at it upside down.”

“It’s our initials, Oliver. I wished for us.” There it is, in plain sight, gazing up at me: sn + ol

Gabe smiles, sensing my momentary drift in thought. “Anywhere I want to be?” Leaning into my friend, head dropping to the side of his chest, I smile back, exhaling a thankful breath. “Nah. We’re good right here.”

“Will you be my wife?” I tackle him. I throw my arms around him and nearly steal the air from his lungs as we both topple backwards, and I pepper his face in a thousand tiny yeses.

“I love you. I love you so much. Yes, yes, yes. Please marry the shit out of me.”

I stretch out my hand, watching as the lotus diamond sparkles and gleams with every burst from above. I think about its meaning and how it represents our love story in the most exquisite way. The Lotus will bloom into the most magnificent flower, even when its roots are in the murkiest of waters.