Secrets of Us A Forbidden Love Romance (Alina) novel Chapter 174

I Need Them

I need to get out of the house.

The walls of my room have been starting to suffocate me and my head hurts from all the crying. Everything is closing in and I know I’m letting my thoughts go just a little too

crazy.

I can’t sort through them.

I make up my mind to go bother Nikki. She’ll listen without judging me and I think I need her overpowering personality right about now.

I text her before I even put my shoes on.

A: Coming over. Need some Nikki therapy.

Her response is immediate.

N: Door’s open. I’ll be waiting. <3

By the time I get to her house, she’s already in the kitchen, digging through the cabinets. She barely glances at me as she pulls out an old bottle of vodka, shaking it for emphasis.

“Something tells me we’re going to need this. Wait, you’re not pregnant, right? You’ve been ignoring my messages.”

I roll my eyes. “You mean the ones were you just send me the pregnant emoji with a question mark?”

She shrugs. “I didn’t think I needed to spell it out for you.”

I drop onto a stool at the kitchen island, exhaling sharply. “I’m not pregnant.”

Nikki freezes, then slowly turns to face me. Her lips part like she wants to say something, but then she just sighs, a deep sigh of relief: “Holy shit.”

I let out a breath of my own as she twists the cap off the bottle and pours two shots. She slides one toward me before raising hers.

“To not being pregnant.”

1/4

I Need Them

“To not being pregnant,” I echo, and we both throw them back.

The alcohol burns its way down, but I barely feel it. My mind is still too full.

I don’t even have to say anything before Nikki is studying me, her eyes narrowing. “Okay, what else? Because that’s not all that’s eating you up.”

I stare at my shot glass, running my finger around the rim. “It’s Zaid.”

Her brows shoot up. “Of course it is.”

I sigh and then just let it all spill out. The way he told me he loves me. The way it hit me like a freight train. How I don’t know what to do with it, how it’s all messed up because of everything he’s done right and everything he’s done wrong. The way he looked at me when I threw his words back in his face.

By the time I finish, Nikki’s jaw is hanging open.

“Alina,” she breathes, shaking her head.

I press my lips together.

“I’m so sorry.”

I let out a steady stream of air and reach for the bottle, ditching the shot glass and just taking a long gulp from the bottle.

She watches me, tilting her head. “You love him back.”

I hiss, grimacing from the burn down my throat. I fucking hate vodka. “Yes.”

Silence fills the room, and she plays with the glass in her hands before she looks right at me. “Do you love Jake and Aiden like that too?”

I blink, my heart aching in my chest at the thought. “I don’t know.”

She purses her lips. “I think that means you don’t.”

“It would be like losing my own self.”

Fuck, is it the alcohol making me so damn honest?

“Shit, that’s a lot, girl. How do you think they would all feel about that?”

I shrug. “Do I have to tell them?”

Her eyes widen. “Don’t you want to tell Zaid you love him?”

“I think I want to tell them all. I love them all. Ziad is just different. He sees me when I feel like no one else does. And it infuriates me that he finds it so easy to just brush me off sometimes. Is it possible for someone to love you and then treat you like they don’t all at

the same time?”

I groan, dropping my head onto the counter. “Why is this so complicated?”

“I know. I’m avoiding it because I’m scared. If I’m too honest, won’t it hurt them? I don’t want to let go of Jake and Aiden.”

Her brow furrows, and she takes another sip from the bottle before setting it down. “Why?”