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

by Alyssa Cole

and though hope was a thing with feathers there was nothing insubstantial about it.

If she stayed, her shoes might never point forward.

“Took you long enough,” she said, finally. Somewhere, the polite part of Likotsi’s mind chided her for blocking the flow of pedestrian traffic, but she didn’t start walking. She slowly adjusted the lapels of her coat and then the hem of each cuff. “Well. I’m certainly worth the wait.”

hope had flashed in her, like sunlight catching on a precious stone.

There was a certain . . . regard in the tilt of her mouth, a mix of courteousness and insinuation. Like she would ask politely before giving you the best head of your life.

“Come. Your profile implies that you enjoy math. Four is only one-ninth of thirty-six. That’s only a little bit!” Likotsi lifted one shoulder in a move too smooth and refined to be called a shrug. “I’m trying to fall a little bit in love with you.”

“What happens if you end up asking me thirty-six questions, though?” Likotsi brushed a couple of stray locs behind an ear with one hand. “Let’s find out.”

“What?” Fab swiped gently at the corner of each eye, making sure there was no crud. “I was just thinking, Goddess, I’m going to regret that swipe.” Fab raised her brows and lifted her almost empty glass of seltzer. “Wow. We haven’t even ordered alcoholic beverages yet and you’ve already fallen a little bit in love with me and started regretting it?” Fab tried to look cool and unfazed even though the way Likotsi was staring at her—like Fab was the most interesting woman in the world—had her at fazed level: SHOOK. “Yes,” Likotsi said firmly. “Because I have one night to learn everything about you, and that isn’t enough time. Not nearly.”

her red-gloved hand beckoning like a spring rose that had confused the seasons and bloomed in winter, bright and beautiful and defiant.

she stepped closer to Fab until there was no space between them except the wrinkles of their clothes bunching as they pressed together.

she told herself that her vertigo was from being up so high and not because she was a little bit in love, too.

Likotsi’s list was still in her pocket, but she didn’t have to look at it because she’d created a new one in her mind. In her heart. This list had one task, and she didn’t have to write it down because it was the one thing she had wanted for so long: be with Fab.

Maybe a single flower had survived that spring storm, a miraculous bulb that could bloom from beneath the ice on a cold winter’s afternoon.

“My shoes are pointed at you.”