Page 70 of Cognac Secrets
“I love you, too,” he said simply, and he let me go, stepped back, and pulled the door tightly shut between us. He stared hard at me through the glass and I deliberately threw the lock. As soon as it made an audible click, he turned his head and stepped away, and I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding.
I turned around and jumped, True standing there in the shadows just outside the kitchen.
She came to me and hugged me tight and said, “I’m so sorry. You have blood all over you. Go take a shower. I’ll get you some pajamas and if it’s alright find something for me, too.”
“Of course it’s alright,” I said gripping her back tightly. “I love you, girl.”
“I love you, too,” she said and she sniffed.
“In the end it’ll all be okay,” I said.
“And if it’s not okay?” she asked.
“Then it’s not the end,” I told her and we broke apart and smiled at each other.
“I hope you don’t mind me staying here,” she said.
I smoothed some of her hair back behind her ear and smiled, “Wouldn’t have it any other way, sis.”
“I don’t know,” she said with a little broken laugh. “After seeing that, I feel like a third wheel.”
“Never,” I told her. She shuddered.
“I just wanted to be up off the ground floor and with my bestie,” she confessed.
“Then get on upstairs,” I said. “Find us some comfy PJ’s and then come down and wash your face at the very least. You’re a mess.”
She laughed as fresh tears cut clean tracks through her dried and runny mascara.
“Should have said something sooner, bitch.”
I shook my head, “The occasion called for ruined makeup, babes.”
She looked crestfallen.
“I really liked him.”
“He really liked you, too,” I said, and then I did cry. I cried for Louie, and I cried for my friend, and I cried for what could have been – because damn it… they’d looked good together.
CHAPTERNINETEEN
Bennie…
I stood under my shower, forearms braced against the cool stone tiles, and let the hot water beat between my shoulder blades. I was watching the rust-colored water swirl at my feet and trickle down the drain.
I’d held it together for Sandy and for True, but on the inside, the screaming had never stopped. I sniffed and turned my face up into the shower spray, holding my breath as long as I could while the jet stream made me feel like I was suffocating and I bowed my head and tensed on the unwanted thought ofthat’s what I had done to Louie – made him feel like he was being strangled when all he wanted me to do was help him.
I let the survivors guilt wash through me and over me, and it wasn’t my first rodeo with it.
“Yo, Bennie, you alright in there?” Collier’s voice, outside my bathroom door. I jumped and called back, “Yeah!”
“Fuckin’ liar,” I heard him accuse. “Get your ass on out here, lemme have your six.”
Fuck.
“Gimme a fuckin’ minute, damn!” I called.
I scrubbed off twice and rinsed and got my ass out of the shower, stepping out into the bedroom with a towel slung low on my hips. Col was leaned up against the frame of the door to the rest of the house.
