Deep Surrendering: Episode Six by Chelsea M. Cameron Read Free Book Online Page A

commitment to stay with only me. That was good enough for me. Besides, I hadn’t asked him to call me his girlfriend. I didn’t need a silly word to define how he felt about me. He told me every time he called me. He told me yesterday when he planned that entire day. It was in everything he did and the way he looked at me, and how his voice softened and how he smiled. It was obvious.
    “No, it’s not like that. We’re both trying to keep things … I don’t know. It’s working for us. But the moment it’s not, I’ll talk to him about that. We have a very open communication.” At least I thought we did.
    Shut up, negative thoughts.
    “Uh huh. Well, whatever. Just make sure that you’re actually okay with it, and you’re not just telling yourself you’re okay with it.”
    It was definitely the former, and I told her that. She didn’t seem convinced, but she didn’t need to be. I wasn’t going to get on a soap box and defend what I had with Fin. It only mattered to the two of us.
     

     
    “You can all just shut up,” Rory said, her cheeks the color of a tomato. We were all teasing her mercilessly about her drunken declaration to Lucas. Or Lucah, as I learned he liked to be called. Weird, but okay. I’d call him whatever he wanted to be called.
    It was love, pure and bright as day. I tried not to be envious. It seemed so easy for her, with the exception of the work complications, and those could be fixed.
    But she was smiling and so damn happy.
    “How about we put the spotlight on Marisol instead? I’m not the only one with an interesting love life.” All eyes turned to me, but thankfully my interrogation was interrupted by Rory’s phone.
    “I’m going to take this,” she said, giving me a quick look before she headed outside. A young twenty-something took the stage and started to sing a Christina Perri song. Or at least that was what it sounded like. She slurred all the words together and didn’t seem to know how to enunciate.
    Rory came back in a few minutes and grinned at me.
    “That was Fin. He says to tell you ‘Tom Hanks.’” Really? Fin had called Rory? That was a little … okay. She had known him longer than I had and they were friends. I looked down at my phone, but he hadn’t sent anything to me. I rolled my eyes at the Tom Hanks reference.
    “Okay, explain,” Chloe said, gesturing with her hands.
    I shook my head. It was so stupid, and I didn’t think they’d get it anyway.
    “It’s nothing. Just a lame inside joke. Seriously, it’s nothing,” I said, tipping back my glass and finishing my sangria.
    My phone buzzed with a new text from Fin.
    Sorry I didn’t call you first. Talk later?
    I smiled to myself and sent him a message back that I was looking forward to it. My friends were still asking about the Tom Hanks comment.
    Telling them it was lame didn’t dissuade my friends. They bugged me and bugged me until I told them to stop and headed to the restroom to take a minute to breathe.
    Chloe was standing outside the door waiting for me.
    “What’s up with you? Normally you tell me everything, and you’ve been so closed off lately. The only thing I can attribute it to is this new relationship of yours.”
    I opened my mouth to deny it, but I couldn’t.
    “It’s complicated,” I said. Terrible explanation.
    Chloe crossed her arms. “Then explain it to me and make it uncomplicated.”
    She wasn’t going to stop, and I didn’t want this to drive a wedge between us. I didn’t think Fin would want that either.
    “Fin’s just got a lot of things … in his past that he’s been telling me about. I’m not going to tell you what they are, but suffice it to say that they’re heavy and not something you would share with just anyone. We’re building trust together, building a relationship. I guess I don’t want to talk about him because I’m afraid I’m going to say too much, or blab or something. That’s all.”
    Chloe listened and thought about that for a