Knock Love Out (A Sensual New Adult Crossover Romance) by Pella Grace Page B

You’re completely different.”
    “Is that good or bad—that’s all I’ve been trying to ask .”
    “I don’t have an answer to that.”
    “Shit, Lilla, do I feel good or not? It’s not that complicated.”
    “It’s extremely complicated because the answer to that question is yes . It’s the most perfectly-imperfect wrong-right feeling I’ve ever felt.”
    The force behind her words, lined with dirty marks on her cheeks from her liner running—black smudges of hurt—truth … it speaks to my feet, moving closer. It reaches my hands reaching for her sorrow, with the bottom of my shirt.
    “Don’t make my mother a liar, Lilla.”
    A heavy retraction, sniffling back everything she has spilled in her boss’s driveway to me.
    “What are you talking about?”
    My shirt is smudged with her make-up as I wipe it all way.
    “She said you were incredibly beautiful.” Her eyes ask an obvious question. “You’ll see.”
    One last swipe across her dirty cheek with my thumb.
    I sit in my car and watch as she leaves, but, she’s right here, marked all over my shirt, my hands. It’s an odd, alien feeling. It’s a slow burn that is igniting quickly. I feel too full, like my insides will begin to bubble over, warm milk on a hot stove left unattended.
    I always believed it was possible.
    My parents are a fine example of love. I’ve said it before to girls. I’ve truly thought I felt it in my soul. I’d thought I’d seen it in another. And perhaps, I had loved them. And perhaps, it was simply that. Love. How many times do you say ‘I love this bed.’ ‘I love this movie.’ ‘I love these cookies.’
    Love.
    Yes, you can love without lust.
    Yes, you can love without being in love.
    The difference? I know there’s one.
    So simply I spoke those words, only a few minutes ago.
    The irony … ah.
    I almost want to punch myself. Pinch.
    The fire. A burn. A wound that won’t heal.
    Nowhere within twenty miles of myself and she sits right here at my side. My reflection in the rearview mirror. The song on the radio. A vision I can’t blink away.
    Love.
    Love .
    Love .
     

 
     
     
     
    PART FIVE
    LILLA KING
     

 
     
     
     
     
     
     
    Chapter Fourteen
     
     
    Two things happen when you realize your heart has abandoned you.
    One: you question everything you have ever done, ever been, ever thought. You have no answers. You have nothing.
    Two: if you’re smart, you try to figure out all of the above, with  a new pair of feet leading the way.
    At the beginning of my day, I knew none of this.
    Two tickets greeted me on the dry-ease board when I woke up this morning, pressed into the corkboard on the left-hand side. Black words scribbled poorly asking me to meet Adam for a movie date this evening.
    I am …
    Perplexed.
    Looking over my shoulders.
    Expecting someone to pop out and yell, “ Gotcha !”
    The house is quiet as quiet gets and I am its only companion. My cell beeps as I head upstairs and it’s him, asking if I saw the tickets. I send a text back saying yes, too afraid to call my own husband because I don’t even know how to sound on the phone anymore. It’s as awkward as awkward gets.
    “Was sleep an asshole to you too last night, Lil?”
    Cash pulls me from my reverie.
    “Yeah. No. Actually … it’s … I think I’m being tricked.”
    His lips wrap around the mouth of a water bottle, taking a long sip, before offering it to me.
    “By who?”
    “Adam asked me out on a date. Well, he actually invited me. I think. I don’t know.”
    His eyes squint. “Okay, let’s try that again, but with a story that makes sense, Honey-girl.”
    “Adam left tickets for me to go somewhere with him and he’s just being creepily nice. My brain is seriously not right, I’m telling you. I want him to be romantic and nice and just like this, and then he does and I’m questioning every single motive as to why and trying to come up with an illness that will allow me to wiggle my way out of going.”
    Cash