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

Likotsi adored things that took time and care to produce results that weren’t entirely necessary but added something special to the world.

“Finding a sexual partner is easy,” Likotsi replied. “Finding someone that makes you need to know more about them is not.”

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. That, too, was why she’d needed to repudiate her feelings for Fab once and for all. They’d taken too much of her energy and created too much shadow within her.

“After the breakup, I’d hoped that this ridiculous love would leave me as quickly as it had fallen upon me, but it didn’t. It clung like a spiderweb, invisible and impossible to extract myself from. And when 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.”

Fab leaned in and kissed her, a soft and tentative press of lips that reminded Likotsi that she wasn’t the only one with a broken heart. Fab whimpered, the sound one makes when holding their hands before a roaring fire after being lost in the cold.

Maybe this love was a beanstalk, sprouting up overnight and reaching for the sky.

“Exactly,” Fab said, dropping a kiss onto Likotsi’s mouth, tasting cinnamon, lemon, and rum.

“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.”