“Do you want more from him than that?”
“I do,” she said. “But I don’t want to be another person holding something hostage.”
“But you can’t keep being his emotional surrogate either,” Fia said. “He’s always had you, and he’s never had to give you everything.”
Both were good points.
“Maybe there’s not a right answer,” Bix said. “Because people aren’t math problems. And life is just a confusing shitshow. Believe me. I know.”
“We all know,” Fia said. “And I guess that’s the one piece of wisdom we all have. In the end no matter how you handle it, if it’s right, you’ll find your way together.”
Arizona smiled. “Remember you asked us if that meant you had to forgive Asher? Because we had forgiven Landry and Micah. But that wasn’t the lesson. The lesson is that the right man is the right man, even if it doesn’t come together for thirteen years.”
“And sometimes the right man is the right man even if you’ve only been sleeping with them for a month. But it changes you forever,” Bix added.
“I guarantee you that sometimes the right man is the right man even if you’ve known him since you were seven years old and it took all that time for the two of you to find each other,” Fia said.
“I just love him so much,” she said.
“Show him,” Fia said.
“Love is a risk, there’s no way around that. But it’s the best risk I ever took. And sometimes it is a fight to get there. But in the end, it’s worth it,” Bix said.
Bix was so young, but she had a world-weary spirit about her, a fighter’s attitude. She wasn’t a romantic. Hell, none of these women were. They had all lived, and had scars. They had all seen their share of hardship.
And they were all saying that love was worth fighting for.
She wasn’t entirely sure it was what she wanted to hear.
But the pursuit of comfort was what had seen her nearly marrying Asher. And it had been the wrong thing to do. If it was the right one...
Asher hadn’t been the right one. She hadn’t been heartbroken, not for one moment. In fact, all of it had only driven her closer to Justice. She thought back to when she had tried the wedding dress on, and they’d linked arms and looked in the mirror. She knew then that it was right. That that was the life she was supposed to be moving toward. But it was too scary.
It wasn’t being good that had landed her in this place. It was being scared. How had she not realized that until now? She hadn’t been well-behaved; she had been terrified.
Terrified had only ever gotten her half of what she wanted. Half of what she deserved. She wanted everything.
Oh, she wanted it all.
It was getting close to auction time. Her house would be sold. But the house didn’t matter any more than Asher did. Not anymore.
She hatched a plan, then and there. One that was all about who they were now. Lovers, and friends.
One that was about sex and talking and sharing.
She might take a little while to tell him that she loved him, but in the meantime, she was going to show him exactly what she wanted. She was going to figure out a way to give him all of her in a way she hadn’t before.
Because she couldn’t be afraid. Not anymore.
Not now that she knew.
Now, she had to take what she wanted, once and for all.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Something had sat uneasy in his gut for the last few days. And he realized that it was the way the lines were getting so blurred with Rue. She texted him, but he didn’t look at it. Instead, he picked up the phone and called the bank. “When exactly is the auction for the Whippoorwill Road property?”
“It’s at 9:00 a.m. on Tuesday.”
