The Worth Series: Complete Collection by Lyra Evans

Author:Lyra Evans [Evans, Lyra]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: UNKNOWN
Published: 2016-09-26T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter 15

The realization hit Oli like a felled tree, heavy and crushing, too fast and hard to bounce back. But the shock in his heart settled quickly, fading steadily to give way to the more resilient emotion—understanding. As though he’d known it all along, had the suspicion planted in his breast, Oliver found the revelation to be some kind of release. Like air hissing out of a punctured tire, the denial blew out of him. How he’d managed to ignore it all this time, he didn’t know. Maybe it was the surrealism of it, or maybe it was horror that welled within him that this was doubly his fault, or maybe—just maybe—it was the old Oliver, the one who loved so deeply and blindly, who fell fast and hard, and couldn’t let it go, that clouded his judgment and made him useless.

But the cause hardly mattered. At this point, reality was upon him, and he had no time to lose. He cast the phone aside roughly, exaggerating the movement, and turned back to Sky, a grimace on his face. He huffed hard, out of his nose, once, and heaved a humourless laugh.

“Oli?” Sky asked, making to rise from the bed, but Oliver took a step toward him instead, halting his progress. “What is it? A new lead?”

Oliver shook his head, biting down on his tongue as though fighting back tears. Something pricked at his eyes as he did, but they weren’t tears of sadness. They were a kind of hysterical frustration at his own stupidity.

“Not a fucking one,” Oliver shot, sinking down onto the bed next to Sky. The warmth of Sky’s body suddenly felt hostile, like a campfire transposed into a house. What was once welcoming and nostalgic suddenly became angry and threatening. “Just more bullshit from whackjobs. Rory found no useable letters to trace this guy.” Oliver shook his head. “So we’ve still only got Connor’s phone to go on, and that—” he bit off the end of the sentence, his throat closing around the effort to produce more words. “I can’t believe I’ve been so stupid!” Oliver cried out, pressing his forehead into his palms. The honest exclamation tore out of him before he could stop it, but Sky took it to mean something else.

“You’re not stupid, Oli,” Sky said, placing a soothing hand against Oliver’s lower back. He rubbed in gentle circles there, his fingers splaying wider with every motion. His pinky finger slipped briefly beneath the waist of Oliver’s underwear, and Oliver tried to extinguish the flare that resulted. “You’re just too trusting. You give people too much power over you.”

Oliver looked up slowly, his eyes half-lidded and his lips parted. Sky’s gaze followed the line of Oliver’s lips. They were only inches away now. “You mean like you?”

He said it without thinking, a thought called from his heart unbeknownst to his head, and it hung on the air between them, a stolen breath. Sky pressed briefly closer, his side pressed to Oli, and Oliver was acutely aware of his own nakedness, of the lack of clothing between him and Sky.

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