I mock wince and shield my eyes. “Christ, Lil, you blinded me with Team Raisin.”
“Raisy,” she corrects me with squinted eyes. She’s so fucking adorable.
“Raisin.” I drop my hand and draw her body to mine. “It’s my favorite ship name. Let it be.”
Her jaw unhinges. “Your favorite—” I cover her mouth.
“Not my top favorite.” And my lips brush her ear. I can’t stop smiling. Not anymore. “My absolutely, without a doubt, favorite…” I pause with a breath. “…is ours.” Then I kiss her.
I kiss her like I need her soul tangled with mine.
She kisses back like it’s happened already for years.
I almost forget about the last couple of steps I have to take with Hale Co. I almost forget about someday soon needing to beat my brother. But the unwritten future still lingers in the back of my mind.
{ 51 }
LILY CALLOWAY
“You did what?” Lo gapes at Connor, and my eyes threaten to pop out of my head.
We’re surrounded by bottles of Ziff, stacked in pyramids on tables. September gusts of wind threaten to knock them over, but many Fizzle employees stand guard. A one-hundred-and-fifty-foot, terrifyingly tall cliff towers behind us: all gray rock and green foliage. Ryke stands at the base with Daisy and my dad before the media and public appear to kick-start the Ziff event.
However, my attention remains strictly on Connor, who cradles Jane while she naps. It’s not his daughter that’s alarmed me either. It’s the words he just uttered.
“Whaa…” I actually begin to say aloud.
“I know,” Rose says, crossing her arms. “I already yelled at him for not bringing me along.” She purses her lips like that’s his greatest offense.
No. That’s beside the point.
“Next time, I’ll tag you in, darling.” Connor uses his free hand to comb Rose’s hair onto one shoulder, and then he kisses her bare neck lightly. It’s a regal, effortless kiss that has Rose almost flushing.
“Good.” She raises her chin.
My mouth is on the floor. Or rather, the earthy ground. Are Lo and I the sane, mature ones here? The world is really upside-down.
“You’re both officially insane,” Lo beats me to that comment. “We agreed not to confront the teenagers or their parents.”
Connor’s brows pinch in this conceited fashion. “By history alone, I’m the most qualified to reason with their parents.”
“We should’ve talked about it,” Lo snaps. “This affects everyone, Connor.”
Connor’s jaw muscles tic, a single sign of his true emotions. “No offense, but I didn’t feel the need to ask for your permission or for Ryke’s when my wife and my daughter were shot with a water-gun on our front porch.”
“Fruit punch, not water,” Rose corrects him. “And they owe me a new fucking dress.” I didn’t see it happen. Yesterday, Rose was alone with Jane, switching out the welcome mat to a fall-themed one. She had Jane in her arms when the teenagers sprayed her with fruit punch.
I kinda wish I saw Connor’s reaction when he returned from work and learned about the ordeal. But maybe this was it. He was livid enough to storm over to the house and confront their parents.
“I said a water-gun. I didn’t say that water was filled in it,” Connor retorts.
Rose whips her head to him. “One detail, Richard. You were wrong about one small detail.”
“If that were true, I’d agree with you,” he says smoothly, his lips beginning to rise. “But it’s not, Rose.” Normally I love a good flirt-fight, but the nerd stars need to cool it right now because we’re still partially in the dark about the teenagers and parents.
Rose sighs heavily and glances at Jane in his arms. “I pray that your narcissism isn’t seeping into our daughter.”
“Narcissism can’t seep. It’s not tangible, and who are you praying to, darling?”
“Any god that will tell me why I procreated with you.”
He grins fully, a blinding million-dollar one. “Because I love you just as you love me.”
Rose presses her lips together, but she shifts closer to him. “That wasn’t meant for you to prove that you’re a god, Richard.”
He laughs into a brighter smile and then he kisses her forehead.
“Can we please get back to the real problem here?” Lo asks with a narrowed stare. “You talked to the Patricks, and you haven’t even said how it went.” All Connor mentioned was that he spoke to the Patricks that live three houses down from ours, and that was enough to put my mind in a tailspin.