THE FOUR OF us stand outside the resort, a car waiting to take Lily and me to the airport for our final destination this summer. The last place I’ll get to call her mine before our agreement expires.
“I can’t believe you’re leaving.” Avery wipes away the slew of tears brimming in her eyes despite the smile on her face.
“You have all that fucking to get back to,” I joke.
My brother backhands my head. Alright, well-deserved for being highly inappropriate, but the stories I heard while hiding under Lily’s bed when we arrived were enough to traumatize me for years to come.
I pull my sister-in-law into a hug. “I’ll get Lily back in one piece.”
“I know you will. Nico…” Avery hesitates. “Don’t give up on her. She needs some time.”
The kick of encouragement is not exactly unexpected, but still, I appreciate the gesture. If there’s anyone who knows Lily better than I do, it’s her best friend. Maybe there’s a chance she shared more than the truth about Zoe Mona with Avery, and that’s enough hope for me to cling to for the next few weeks. We unravel our hold and exchange a quick nod.
I won’t give up on her. Ever.
Luca pulls himself out of a half hug with Lily.
“Tianna, the intellectual property attorney, will send over some documents next week to start the litigation process. I’ll walk you through all the legal speak until you’re comfortable moving forward.” My brother gives her a reassuring pat on the shoulder. “We’ll get this guy.”
“Thank you for all this.” Lily sighs, looking between my brother and Avery. “I know it’s—”
“Don’t even say it.” Avery yanks her best friend into one final hug. “You’re never a lot or too much.”
“Bro, I’ll see you back in New York.” I reach out my fist, expecting him to bump it. He stares at it as though I’ve presented him with a wad of trash.
“Come here.” Luca wraps his arms around me, clapping his palm between my shoulder blades. “Me equivoqué,” he whispers.
“What did you say?” I try to mask my excitement. Luca admitting he’s wrong is a once-in-a-millennium occurrence.
“You heard me.” His grip on me reaches a point of strangulation. “I’ve never seen you happier than you are with her.”
“What if she isn’t ready?”
Our driver honks. I glance down at my phone. Okay, we really should get going, or we’ll miss our flight.
He considers me for a moment, loosening his hold and settling both hands on my shoulders. Luca’s eyes dart over to his wife and return to mine. “If she’s worth it, you’ll wait forever.”
I look over at Lily, who’s already sliding into the back of the cab. When she notices me watching, she flashes one of her smiles at me, and I know, as intuitively as breathing, I’d give a lifetime for her.
 |
“Good mor—”
“You slept with someone else.” Lily’s voice is curt as she flies out of bed.
“Come on, Lil, get back into bed.”
“I had a dream that you slept with someone else.” Her arms fold over each other. She frowns at me as if I’m meant to provide further explanation. “A s*xy dream?” I prop myself on my elbow and reach over to drag her
back into bed, but I’m swatted away like a garden-variety gnat.
“No, it was that night in Brazil,” she says as though it’s obvious. “You left me on the beach and went off with Suzy.”
“Susana?”
She scoffs as the look of pure evil encapsulates her face. Fuck, that was definitely the wrong thing to say.
“See?” Lily rolls her eyes and yanks open the curtains of our one- bedroom suite in the waterfront hotel in Cyprus, flooding the room with light.
This is not how I imagined our first morning sharing a bedroom would go. We were supposed to get up for coffee, tea, room service, and s*x overlooking the ocean, not discuss my imaginary cheating in her dream.
The quicker we can wrap up the absurdity her mind has conjured, the faster we can return to the easy days in London before the plagiarism.
“Alright, I apologize for the actions of dream Nico.” I hold my hands up in defense, collapsing back onto the pillows. “While I was wreaking havoc, what did you do?”
“I poisoned your drink, then hopped onto a leaf and sailed into the ocean.”
“A leaf?”
“Yes,” Lily says plainly. One of her hips pops to the side. Black strands of her hair wave around in the humid breeze.
Even when she’s mad at me, she is so fucking perfect.
“Come here, princesa.” I lift the covers and shift aside to make room for her. “I’d never do that to you. Never been a cheater, never will be.”
A grand jury seems to debate in her head. If she lies in bed with me, it’ll confirm she believes me.
“It felt real, Nico, and in a few weeks, you’ll go back to being with other people.”
“I won’t. I don’t want anyone else, Lily,” I promise. “What can I do to assure you of that?” A twinge of frustration tickles the pit of my stomach. I’ve never acted in a way that would make her lose trust in my commitment to her.
Yes, I used to sleep around, but she did as well. Those times feel as distant as the list of rules we made.
There has to be more to this lack of trust. Maybe the ex-boyfriend cheated on her?
The spell of frustration bursts into anger.
Fuck.
If reassurance is what Lily needs, I will give it to her. Patience may not be my strong suit, but what’s the point of rushing something I want to spend the rest of my life savoring?
“Trust isn’t exactly a muscle I exercise frequently.” She sighs, sitting at the foot of the bed instead of the spot I carved out for her.
“Why? Can you tell me what happened?”
A familiar ringtone echoes through the room, likely an email from the new legal team my brother connected her with.
Lily immediately leaves the spot and grabs her phone.
A long breath passes. I watch how she chews on her thumb, how her forehead creases, how her foot taps nervously on the floor.
“Professor Miller made over a hundred thousand dollars in sales overseas.” Lily slams her phone on the bed. She catches her face in her hands, letting out a frustrated groan. My heart shoots into my stomach. “This entire summer was such a mistake. If I’d been home, I could’ve caught this so much sooner.”
No. That’s not right.
Abandoning the blankets, I rush over to her, using my arms to shield her. “Don’t say that, love. If you didn’t come on this trip, you may have never discovered that prick is ripping you off.”
“True, but I feel so ridiculous.” She wipes a stray tear off her cheek, collapsing in a pile on the bed. “I didn’t even want it, Nico. I didn’t want Zoe or writing or any of it like this. Now I have to decide whether or not I’ll fight for something I don’t care about anymore.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m ready to be done with that part of my life.” Lily looks at me. Her eyes are desperate, and the agonizing torture of not being able to take her pain away returns. “No publicly claiming Zoe Mona as my own. The legal docs spelled it out loud and clear. I’d have to use my real name to sign the documents, linking the identity to me forever.”
“Lil—” I brush away a loose strand of hair. She leans her damp cheek against my palm.
The tears fighting to stay put in her eyes reflect the sun as she looks up at me. “I don’t know what place writing has in my life anymore because the forces that pushed me to write all these years have shifted. I know that if I go back to school, and graduate before getting a real job, one without so much uncertainty and chaos, then everything will be simple. Easy.”
“Your stubbornness is getting old.” I hold her cold hands into my own. “Writing is a real job. Your best friend knows. Luca knows. I know.
Everyone who matters supports you and wants you to be happy doing what you love. What are you so afraid of? Take a risk.”
The accusations are enough to cause her knees to tremble.
It’s unfair, I know it is, to pretend a lawsuit isn’t a big deal or that exposing a hidden identity she’s kept buried for a decade isn’t traumatizing. All that aside, Lily’s insistence on holding herself back because of whatever esoteric views she’s dreamed up in her head is so much worse.
“But the lawsuit could be a bust, and all I’ll have to show for it is this small part of myself. That’s why I’m getting my degree. I need a back up plan.”
I don’t know why she keeps insisting a business degree will provide her with more stability than writing.
My lips trace the pattern of creases on each of her knuckles. “A small part to show for it? You’ll have some justice and peace for yourself. Whatever happens, you can always keep writing as Zoe or as Lily. You keep doing the thing that makes you happy.”
“It’s easy for you to say—you’ve never had anything plagiarized or stolen.”
How I wish that were true.
“Code gets stolen all the time, Lily. I’ve fought countless lawsuits trying to take down Flight Falcon knockoffs before my app was acquired. Did those moments make me want to give up? Absolutely. Did I have someone fighting the fight with me every step of the way? Yes.” There may have never been an acquisition without Klaus or my parents’ network of lawyers keeping me on my feet. “You’re not alone. Please, please rely on that. Please believe me.”
Lily’s green eyes search my face for something, whether preparing to fight or trust me, I’m not sure.
“I can help prevent this from happening again. No one will ever be able to steal your work like this. I’m already working on the app I told you about. I really think there’s something there.”
Building a centralized printing database with a plagiarism checker seems pretty straightforward and, surprisingly, doesn’t already exist. Still, the publishing industry isn’t part of Viggle’s core products, I’ll need to get the concept approved by Anthony and find a team interested in helping me.
There’s no use in revealing the obstacles to Lily. The last thing she needs is more stress. Whether I can do this at Viggle or have to go at it
alone, I’ll build this for her. It’s the first step to protecting her dreams.
“No, Nico, it’s not your problem to solve. You’ve already overextended your responsibilities as a friend, truly.”
The word is a silly attempt at a barrier I’ve learned to brush off these past couple of weeks.
Lily gives me a kiss, but the touch of her lips is distant, as if she’s floating outside her body, looking down at herself. “I need to clean myself up. I’m a mess.”
“Your problems are our problems, princesa, whatever label you want us to wear.”
