Where There's a Will (Lost Boys, #1)

by Jessie Walker

Grief was like a fever, she said. I just had to let it run its course. Sweat it out, just sweat it out, baby.

There’s only so much time a person’s allowed to grieve before it becomes an inconvenience, I’ve come to learn.

No. If there’s any hope of me keeping my secrets, then I shall remain the coolest cucumber that ever cooled.

Grief is a bitch like that. Taking all that was once good, it cuts through like a knife—leaving a scar that is vile and ugly and permanent. Leaving memories that were once pure and light, forever stained by the bitter taste of loss.

There’s something about Will Foster that makes me want to throw his head in a blender.

“Will? I grin up at him. “Only on one condition?” “Yeah?” “Neither of us can die.”

Because that’s the thing about life. It doesn’t have to make sense. It doesn’t have to come full circle. We just like to believe it does.

I have a rule about Sundays—if I can’t do it from the comfort of my couch, then it’s not getting done.

I might have the palate of a child, but I’ve been blessed with at least some decent genes. And anxiety. #winning

I clear my throat and flash him a megawatt smile. “What can I say? I’m a Scorpio. Blame it on the stars.” He gives me a funny look. “Your birthday’s in May, dude. You’re a fucking Taurus.” I stare at him.

Whoever decided there’s some arbitrary age constraint on finding your damn soulmate is clearly just as much of a dumbass as whoever decided that the weight of death couldn’t be measured. Because they’ve clearly never had to witness their best friend fade to nothing more than skin and bones, hoarse sobs and bloody knuckles.

“It’s kind of funny, don’t you think?” Mason asks, chuckling hoarsely, eyes shining with bitter amusement. “She fucking kisses me without my consent, but you’re the one who gets the verbal beatdown for getting her away from me.”

“Because in the end, the only thing we have to fear in the dark are the things we run from in the light of day.”

“I hate you.” I smile a sad, breathy smile against his bared teeth. “Show me.”

“I hate you.” If this is hate, baby, I think, licking across his teeth, I don’t know if I’d survive your love.

Living isn’t prolonging the inevitable; it’s simply prolonging the acceptance of the truth our minds keep from our bodies.

“Where there’s a will, there’s a way, right?”

“My will to live. That was on me and only me. I could end it at any moment. It’s the one thing he couldn’t control. Couldn’t touch. The only thing that was in my hands. So long as I had the will to make it through another day, I’d be okay. There would still be a me. A Way.”

Enough for me to choose me, for once in my life, and have it not be a means to a disastrous end.

“Acknowledging your trauma in no way invalidates mine. Okay?”

I cup his jaw. “Your story is yours and yours alone, as is mine.” I drag my gaze back and forth between his. “It’s not a contest of who had it worse. I don’t see it like that. And you shouldn’t either.”

The guy who makes me want to fight—who makes me believe I stand a chance. The person who makes me want to stay, when there’s no guarantee that one day, when I go to reach for him, I won’t just find empty air.