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.

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.

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 knew that many people would ask what the point of something like this was, would find it precious or pretentious, but Likotsi adored things that took time and care to produce results that weren’t entirely necessary but added something special to the world.

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.

Likotsi was upbeat because it was her personality, but also because if she didn’t, the dark underbelly of her job might drown out her light.

“Besides, it was ridiculous.” Fab’s voice was shaking with emotion. “Who falls in love in, like, three days? Who gets so fucking caught up in someone they barely know?” “Me.” The word came out harsh and Likotsi cleared her throat again. “It was one day for me, actually. It was ‘at first sight’ as they say.”

If they both felt it, if they’d both been stomped by it, how was it different from love that grew slowly and with careful cultivation? Maybe this love was a beanstalk, sprouting up overnight and reaching for the sky.

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.”