They're Strictly Friends (Tough Love Spinoff Book 1)

by Chloe Liese

  “Dude,” Zed grumbled, “this is a friendly game of poker. What did you have?”

  I kept mum, eyes fixed firmly on shuffling the cards.

  “Asshole,” Zed muttered into his beer.

  I laughed. “That hurts, Zeddy.”

  Zed’s face was already inscrutable as he picked up his cards. “Yeah, well, Princess, sometimes the truth hurts.”

  Just like that, my momentary reprieve was lost. The truth did hurt, I knew it all too well—I’d become an expert at avoiding it.

  “Woah, you just took a nosedive, Luc.” Teo set down his cards. “What’s wrong?”

  I took one look at my beer, threw its remaining three-quarters back, then told them exactly what was wrong. How my anger kept spilling over into Elodie’s and my shared life. That imminent blindness had revealed a whole new sinister side of myself that I’d had no idea existed—raw, unbridled anger, resentment, frustration, and yes, despair. How despite my therapist’s and doctors’ insistence, I refused to go to some blind program, to leave my world behind and immerse myself in darkness. That I needed to learn how to start living with the limitations I had, and the ones that would come. That I knew I couldn’t keep living like this, yet I didn’t know how else to live.

  Zed and Teo looked at each other.

  “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Teo said somberly.

  Zed sighed. “I wouldn’t wish that woman on anyone but my worst enemy, but she’s damn good at what she does.”

  “What woman?” I asked.

  Zed and Teo answered in unison, “Noli.”

  “Noli?” I repeated incredulously. “What kind of a name is that?”

  “A weird one,” Teo said. “Short for Magnolia, which really doesn’t suit her. So she goes by Noli. Holy Noli. Rolly Noli. You get the idea.”

  Zed patted my hand seriously, and picked up his cards. “Teo will handle the details, and she’ll have you whipped into shape in no time. You’ll hate us for a while, but one day you will thank us, Lucas.”

  Teo sighed as he pulled out his phone. “One day.”

  Twenty-Six

  Lucas

  I took a cab home, staring out the window, soaking in the tiny fragments of light I could as my driver took the roads mercifully gently. After he dropped me off out front, I walked tentatively down the pavers, praying there was nothing like to trip me up, because I was walking in near darkness.

  Suddenly, the darkness grew to a dimly lit haze. I frowned as I noticed a bright LED light shining from the lamp over the doorway. It did make it easier, since it was obnoxiously bright, but it definitely was not the one I last put in.

  When I stepped into the house, some kind of woman power rock music was playing while Elodie stood on a stepladder, her brow furrowed in concentration as she pressed the electric drill into one of the overhead kitchen cabinets.

  The side of the kitchen she was working in was a wreck—hardware and instructions and wrappings littered about, but the part closest to me appeared free of clutter so I proceeded in cautiously.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  Elodie jumped, nearly falling off the ladder but catching herself. I lunged forward, as she steadied herself. “Lucas, wait! I have a mess on the floor. Just—”

  She stepped off and briefly out of my eyesight. I heard the rustling of plastic and cardboard being folded. When I glanced down, right at my feet was a warzone of items. One more step and I’d have taken a pretty little spill. I’d been totally unaware of the danger.

  Elodie stood, arms full of trash as she turned and emptied it in the bin. “There,” she said.

  Spinning back my way, Elodie walked toward me, smiling. Her hair was pinned up, sun-streaked curls popping all around a kerchief that was tied to hold them back. She wore an old shirt of mine and a pair of sinfully scanty ripped denim shorts, but none of it held my attention like it normally would because my familiar friend of late, abrupt boiling anger, was rising to the surface.

  She stepped toward me, arms reaching up, but I backed out of her reach. “I asked what you’re doing.”

  Elodie frowned, cocking her head to the side. “I, um—” She glanced over her shoulder. “I installed hardware on the cabinets to make them fall closed on their own. Sort of like a screen door, with that hinge?”

  My jaw clenched so hard it felt like it was going to crack. I breathed deeply through my nose. “Why?”

  I knew perfectly well why, but apparently, I was a glutton for punishment.

  Elodie’s eyes crinkled in confusion. “It’s dangerous. They’re outside of your view, and you keep smacking your head. One of these times it’s going to be a concussion, and I just—”

  “You just thought you’d go behind my back and do this? Without asking me?”

  Her face scrunched in disbelief. “Not behind your back, no. You were out for the night, I thought of it when I was running errands and decided to do it after dinner with Nairne. What’s there to ask? It’s a small modification to our cabinetry so you don’t have to worry about hitting your head.” She shrugged. “It made perfect sense to take care of it, so I did.”

  I glanced around the kitchen, anger coursing powerfully through me. “You’d no right to do that, Elodie. This is my home, and you’ve—”

  “Excuse me?” Elodie stepped back, hands on her hips. “Your home? Why, thank you, Lucas, for reminding me where I really stand. Because, foolishly, I took your proposal of marriage to mean this was now my home, too. Last I checked, you asked me to marry you, to build a life together.” She scoffed sarcastically, throwing her arms up and walking back into the kitchen where she balled up further detritus off the floor and began slamming tools into the toolbox. “For some ridiculous reason I thought that meant doing things that demonstrate how I plan on sharing my life with you, in our home.”

  My nostrils flared as I closed in on her. “You know what I mean. You’re picking at my words, twisting them. What I’m saying is you made a unilateral decision, without my input.”

  Elodie growled in frustration and threw the hammer into the box. “Lucas, listen to yourself. You’re angry because I put hardware on cabinets that is invisible from the outside, doesn’t change the aesthetic at all, just simply makes them close on their own. When I caulked around the sink or bought a fresh bin for the kitchen, you didn’t care one bit, but this?” She blinked disbelievingly. “You’re livid.”

  “Yes, I am! Because it was meddlesome and high-handed. That’s my realm.”

  She laughed, but it wasn’t a happy sound. “Lucas, how is it meddling or high-handed to make a small alteration to this room so it’s safer for the person I love?” she yelled back, walking toward me and glaring. “And if that’s exactly what you do, why can’t I do it too?”

  “Because I’m the protector in this relationship,” I seethed, hauling her against me. I grabbed her jaw and made her look at me. “You’re mine, to cherish and care for, and you’re padding this house like I’m some truant nipper.”

  She shoved against me, but I held her face. “What the fuck is a nipper?” she hissed.

  “A baby, Elodie. A fucking baby,” I snapped. “You promised me you wouldn’t do this. Emasculate me in my home, faff and coddle me—”

  She got her arm up and chopped my hand away. “I’m not coddling you, you idiot, I’m making changes to our home that are essential to your safety and our future. If you hadn’t walked in while I was doing it, you probably wouldn’t have ever known I did it, for how distracted you are lately.”

  I stepped back. “Just pull a fast one on the blind fellow, then. If I can’t see it, it doesn’t matter.”

  She sighed, rubbing her face. “No, it does matter. That’s not what I meant…I’m sorry.” She stepped toward me and dropped her forehead against my chest like it was so natural. As if it were the only thing to do even in the midst of another fucking row, for her to touch and fall into me. It softened the edge of my heart that was sharp with pain and humiliation.

  “L
ucas, I’m not covering you in feather pillows and babying you—just making a tiny adjustment that makes you safer.”

  “I don’t want you responsible for my safety, Elodie.” I was trying monumentally not to bellow, but it was all I wanted to do. I wanted to shake her and beg her to stop pushing me every step of the way.

  “Loulou…” She sniffled.

  Fuck, I’d made her cry again. Women crying always unnerved me, but making Elodie weep felt like my heart was being bludgeoned. Her tears hurt me most.

  “I just wanted to make the kitchen a place where you want to be once again,” she said. “Where you don’t get hurt when you get your coffee and yogurt in the morning, where you and I can cook together without you bruising yourself. These are small changes, Lucas; they’re miniscule ones by comparison to what’s down the road—”

  “Yes, thank you for that cheery reminder,” I snapped.

  She shuddered, and I knew she was crying silently. I felt her tears soaking my shirt. She was slumped against me, weeping, as if I who wounded her could be her comforter, too. Poor woman. Didn’t she know what a monster I was becoming? I didn’t deserve her affection anymore.

  “Elodie,” I groaned. I brought my hand along her back, the comfort of touching her warmth soothing me in spite of myself. “I know it’s worrying you. And I know you want me to move faster, but I’m just not ready.”

  “When will you be ready, Lucas? When will you stop fighting every change that makes your life accessible? Life keeps moving, and you won’t go with it. Where can we go if that’s what you do?”

  I pulled my other arm around her and rocked her against me, empty of the words she wanted to hear. Ready? When would I ever be ready?

  I shook my head, my jaw clenched tight. “You’re making an enormous deal out of this. I cook still, I’m fine in here. I’ve clocked myself once or twice, now you’ve got to change everything so I can be blind. I’m not ready, Elodie, I’m not!”

  Elodie stared up at me for a long, silent minute. Then slowly, she raised her hand and flipped off the light, sinking us into absolute darkness.

  No, only I was in absolute darkness. Elodie had a degree of night vision. Moonlight would work in her favor, and she’d still be able to see her way around the room.

  As if she’d read my mind, she whispered, “My eyes are closed, Loulou.”

  I choked on a swell of rage and tears. I wanted to throttle her and kiss her senseless. “Why are you doing this to me? I hate it.”

  Her fingers slid along my chest and crested my cheeks, tracing the bones and contours of my face. “Touch me, Lucas. Find me.”

  I burst a growling sob and wrapped my hand around her throat. My thumb found her pulse at the base of her neck, where it tripped frantically. “You’re frightened.”

  She exhaled shakily. “A little. I’m…I’m at your mercy. And you’re angry. You could hurt me.”

  That admission was an icy blow that quelled the heat of my fury. “Elodie, never. I would never hurt you.”

  Tears punctuated her every word. “Then, stop this, Loulou. Stop punishing me for trying to stay by your side, for trying to find my way with you.”

  Dad’s words came back to me, thundering through my head and heart.

  “Until you acknowledge and seek to better understand it yourself—your darkness and pain, your soul in its totality, which includes the sharp, frightened, angry corners of your existence, mate—it’s not yours to give her. You must go there first yourself. It’s the only way.”

  I must go there first myself.

  This moment meeting those words, was the key that slipped into the lock of my acceptance. The door of my future creaked open and revealed itself: if I couldn’t stop hurting Elodie until I faced this, and if facing this wounded her when she stayed in the thick of it, there was only one logical conclusion. I knew what I had to do, to shoulder the door wide open and cross that terrifying threshold. I must make this journey alone. And the next time Elodie saw me, it would be on the other side of it.

  As it was for the protagonist before every epic battle I’d read in Shakespeare, fantasy, folklore—dread and determination flooded my system. Now that I knew inexorably what I was doing, my focus tunneled to one last, essential need.

  Elodie.

  I hauled her against me. My body shook, my heart was pounding. Every inch of my skin crackled with electricity. I needed to be grounded, to find Elodie and fuse with her.

  Clothes were a criminal offense. “Get out of everything. Now.” I tore off my clothes, then reached for her in the darkness, yanking hers off because she wasn’t going fast enough. Her breath was warm and nearby, stuttering with emotion. I found her shoulder and yanked her to me, her full soft breasts crushing against my front.

  “Oh God, Lucas,” she wept, clawing into me.

  “They’re still closed?” I whispered, kissing her madly, without regard for what it was or if it was right. My perception was erotically amplified by the blanket of darkness. I had to taste her, feel the slope and curve of her body. I smelled her flowery scent, the sweat on her skin.

  “Yes, Loulou.” She dropped into my arms as I slid my hand against her entrance, dragged her arousal over her clit.

  “Listen to me, Elodie.” I rubbed her furiously, bent and bit her breast until she gasped and yanked my hair.

  “Yes,” she choked, dragging me to her other breast, where I tortured her with equal ferocity. She buckled, and we fell to the floor into a black puddle of fabric and hard floor.

  I threw her leg open and impaled her, grasping her shoulder and rutting into her brutally. She cried with each thrust, anguish and pleasure intertwined as she hooked her ankles around me and dug her heels into my arse.

  “Fuck,” she gasped, scraping her claws down my back.

  “You listen here, Elodie Bertrand—” I pushed her leg off my hip, pressed it into her chest, and sank myself deeper than I’d ever gone. She moaned as I pressed against her womb, and shot her hips toward me.

  “Lucas, please!”

  “You are not responsible for me. I will not rely on you to overcompensate for my bullheaded obstinance. Not anymore.” I pounded into her, the sound of skin slapping skin echoing with each unrelenting drive.

  She was weeping and pleading, shredding my back and meeting me thrust for thrust.

  “You will let me fail. You will let me learn and make it right.” I slammed into her and felt her begin to clench around me. I ground myself against her clit, trying to give her everything I could. “Answer me, Elodie. Promise me.”

  Her face was lost to me in the blanket of darkness she’d wrapped us in, but I saw it in my mind, every detail of her face, grimacing in ecstasy and emotion. “Oh God, Lucas, I promise!”

  “What? What do you promise?” I reared back and thrust into her once more. She detonated around me and sent white-hot current traveling on a circuit from my spine to my legs.

  “I won’t—oh God!” I flicked her clit unrelentingly, building her up to another shattering orgasm. “I’ll let you do this in your own way,” she stammered. “Just don’t turn your back on me, don’t push me away, Lucas!”

  She wept, and I had to find her face, I had to make her see—in this blackness and in every moment forward—I would never emotionally abandon her as her parents had, never again keep her at arm’s length as I once did, even if for a moment in time we had to be apart. She knew. Of course she did. She’d read between every word I said. She knew where this was going.

  “Never, darling. I might be slow and stubborn, but I won’t push you way. I’ll figure it out, I promise, love.”

  Elodie sobbed and pulled me to her, until the boundaries of our bodies didn’t exist. Chest to chest, legs entwined, I poured into her as her release flooded me.

  “Stay with me,” I whispered, clutching her to me. Our breaths seared the air, painted the dark with the love and pain connecting our lives.

  She sighed as her lips found mine. “Always.”

  Twenty-Seve
n

  Elodie

  I woke to an empty bed. It was only faint light, frost still on the windows, and I shivered. Something wasn’t right.

  “Loulou?” I threw on my robe and ran downstairs, searching for him. “Lucas?”

  Not in the kitchen or the sitting room. I pounded back upstairs, checked the office, the guest room. He was nowhere. Suddenly I heard the scrape of metal on pavers and a muttered oath. I ran to the back window. There he was!

  Flying down the steps, I rounded the corner, sprinted through the sitting room and wrenched open the patio doors. Lucas froze, a lawn chair half-folded in his hands.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  He glanced down, eyes trained on his task. “Tidying up out here. It’s time these were put away until spring.”

  “It’s not even sunrise, Lucas. Why are you out in the garden?”

  His eyes met mine, and they were guarded. “I didn’t think you’d be awake for a while. There’s…I wrote a note. It’s in the kitchen.”

  My stomach dropped. “What kind of note?”

  Sighing, he peered up at the sky, looking like he wished it would open up and transport him away. “I’m going away for a little while.”

  I launched myself at him, making him drop the chaise while I wrapped my arms around his waist. “You promised me last night. You promised you wouldn’t do this.”

  “Elodie.” He held me tight in his arms. I breathed in his woodsy scent, soaked in the warmth of his body. “I’m not turning my back on you, nor am I pushing you away. I’m briefly isolating myself because I’m emotionally unsafe for you, and I refuse to be that any longer. I’m going to figure this out. I’ll be gone for a little while, but I am not leaving you. I promise.” He sighed and his shoulders sank. “That’s what the note said.”

  I was suddenly very angry. He’d been planning to sneak away rather than face me and tell me himself. “How long were you going to be gone but not leaving me, Lucas? Without even saying goodbye?”