Page 77 of Western Waves

Around two in the morning, Stella barged into my office.

“You really think I’m good enough?” she asked with a glass of wine in her grips. Obviously, she’d been a bit intoxicated because sober Stella would’ve never barged in without an invitation. Plus, her question seemed to be extremely random, as if she pulled it out of thin air. But I knew how thoughts worked. She’d probably been overthinking that for hours now.

“Yes,” I replied.

“Why?”

“It doesn’t matter why I think you’re good enough. It matters that you think you’re not.”

She sat across from my desk and slouched over in the chair, making herself ridiculously comfortable as she sipped at her wine.

“Why do I think I’m not good enough?” she asked me.

“I don’t know. Most of the time, those kinds of thoughts come from listening to other people’s opinions.”

“Have you ever felt that way? As if you weren’t good enough.”

“Most of my life.”

“How did you overcome it?”

“I changed the type of people I surrounded myself with.” I shrugged. “I met a person who told me I was good enough. And he kept doing it until I started to believe it myself.”

“Connor?”

I nodded.

“He’s your best friend.”

“He’s my family.”

She smiled and thumbed the rim of her glass. “How was he able to get close enough to you to the point that you trusted him? You seem very hard to get to know.”

“He was a relentless pain in the ass who didn’t take no for an answer. When I tried to push him away, he moved in closer. He didn’t give up on me, even when I gave up on myself.”

“A UB.”

“A what?”

“A universal blessing. It’s something Grams made up. It’s a person or thing that feels like a gift from the universe. Something that’s almost too good to be true. It’s the brightest of bright spots in someone’s life. A universal blessing. That’s what Connor is to you.”

Interesting concept from an interesting woman. “Something like that.”

“Maybe someday you’ll let me that close.”

I released a low chuckle. “Most people give up pretty early on.”

“Yeah, but I’m not most people.” She downed her wine and went to stand to her feet. As she did so, she stumbled a bit forward, and I reached across my desk to steady her.

“Careful,” I warned.

She giggled and repeated my words, looking down at my touch on her skin. “Careful,” she echoed.

My heart did a weird pulling thing.

That was odd.

I removed my hold from her, and she stood straight.