Once Ghosted, Twice Shy (Reluctant Royals, #2.5)

by Alyssa Cole

New shoes point toward the future, sweet daughter. You cannot keep wearing that which you have outgrown.

Likotsi had imagined what would happen if she ran into Fab, especially since Naledi had mentioned how often she randomly encountered people she knew in this city teeming with strangers. Likotsi had fabricated a million droll put-downs. She’d mentally practiced the iciest cut direct known to humankind, one that would make everyone in the vicinity wince for Fab’s bruised ego.

Now that the initial shock had faded, Likotsi found that the chasm of months that separated them felt no larger than a crack in the sidewalk. She wanted so badly to smile, to ask Fab how her day was going or why she was wearing a horrid mass-produced hat and coat.

She’d thought that Fab had smashed their connection like a smartphone beneath a car tire, but all their data had been saved on a cloud drive somewhere, it seemed, and was happily downloading and ready to resume where they’d left off.

Her role as repository of wisdom had apparently also taken the weekend off.

Likotsi stared at Fab, weighing her anger against her yearning, and though hope was a thing with feathers there was nothing insubstantial about it.

She had never understood the veneration of these men, who took their own biases and made them into a country’s laws, but Americans were quite strange, after all.

I saw you stepping through those train doors this morning, my heart cracked even more because I realized the web was unbreakable. That you could walk into my world, at any time, and that love would still be there, clinging to me. That I’d still want to give you everything.”

“I’m not sure anything will come of it, but I’ve been at this job for a few years now. I’ve seen people with power use their privilege for ill gain. If I can use it to help someone, it would behoove me to try.”

“My shoes are pointed at you.”

“Yes. Let’s both of us see where this love leads. And when we are afraid, because we will inevitably be afraid again, let’s run to each other instead of away.”