Happily Never After

by Lynn Painter

“I guess I just want to remember the night I reconnected with happy for a few hours.”

Sophie swallowed and closed her eyes, but when they opened again, I just knew. There was a decision there, in the depths of those whiskey eyes, and I hated it.

“Please go.” “Please go?”

How the hell had I fallen into a pit of feelings for Max when I’d worked so hard to keep my feet firmly planted on solid ground?

Having my heart eventually broken by Max couldn’t feel much worse than it felt to not have him in my life at all, could it?

No one is objecting, Soph.”

Her smile was like a power switch that controlled the brightness of my universe all of a sudden,

I’d fallen so hard that I wasn’t even trying to get up.

I was terrified that I was foolishly in love with him even though love wasn’t real.

Because as it turned out, love was actually real.