Total pages in book: 138
Estimated words: 139147 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 696(@200wpm)___ 557(@250wpm)___ 464(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 139147 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 696(@200wpm)___ 557(@250wpm)___ 464(@300wpm)
“Stand back, man, you’re leaking your toxicity all over me,” Dream returned.
“You’re mistaking who brought the toxicity to the party, Dream,” Cap fired back.
Luna shifted between them, but not to ask Cap to stand down.
She said to her sister, “Go.”
Dream’s eyes rounded. “You’re gonna just let him get in my face like that?”
“Dream,” she said in a small voice that gave me the opposing reactions of needing to pull her in my arms and making my head want to explode, it doing this before I delivered a bitch slap. “It’s my birthday.”
Dream glared at her, then Cap, then me, then for some reason, Gabe, Liam and Knox, then she turned on her hippie sandal and stormed out.
I didn’t even try to hold myself back.
I was done with this.
So I went after her.
“Raye!” Luna called.
I stopped, whirled and ordered, “Stay here.”
Then I took off.
I felt Cap with me, but kept going and shouted Dream’s name on the walkway.
She stopped and looked back at me. “I’ve had about enough of you tonight.”
“Never again,” I warned as I pulled up in front of her.
“What?” she asked.
“I waited eleven years to have a sister again, and believe me, Dream, I do not know what your problem is, but no way in fuck I’m gonna stand by and watch you treat her like shit.”
“This isn’t about you and your sister, Raye. You don’t know what it’s been like to play second fiddle to Luna the Magnificent all my life.”
I knew for a fact she was now talking trash about Scott and Louise.
And that just pissed me off more.
“You’re right about me and Macy. You’re so very wrong about Luna. And you know it. You know it’s about you being confused, and not sure what you wanted in life, like all of us are, Dream. Then you thought you figured it out, but you found it wasn’t as easy as you expected it would be. And now you have to watch your sister throw parties and go to work at a cool place, and spend her money on things she chooses, her time doing whatever she wants, and you’re jealous as all fuck. And being you, still confused, and not knowing what to do about it, and being hella prideful, instead of sorting yourself out, you’re taking it out on Luna. And that’s what’s gonna stop, Dream.”
She shook her curls back. “I love my kids.”
“Maybe so, but you’re thirty, nearly thirty-one, alone with two kids, and it’s a lot. More than you bargained for. And now you got yourself pregnant again and that’s too much for you, so you’ve snapped, and you’re taking your shit out on your sister.”
I was guessing, of course, but what she said next proved it was a damned good guess.
“I didn’t mean to get pregnant,” she bit back.
Whoa.
“I can’t do it,” she said. “I can’t take care of another baby.”
And there we were.
“I’m sorry you’re facing that without it being in your plans, but it isn’t Luna’s fault,” I said much more calmly.
“It isn’t cool, inviting me to her big party knowing Mom and Dad are fed up with watching my kids, and knowing I don’t have any money.”
Somehow, she made it to the party anyway.
I didn’t mention that.
I said, “First, Scott and Louise love those kids. They’re fed up with you taking advantage of them, not their grandchildren. Second, you’re in control of your own life, you can say no to a party if you can’t come, and do something else for Luna to celebrate her. And last, she asked you not only because you’re her sister and she wants you here, but because you’ve created a situation where she can’t win. If she doesn’t ask you because she’s being sensitive to those issues, you’ll get ugly with her. If she does,”—I indicated where we were—“you got ugly with her. That is what’s uncool, Dream.”
“Of course you’d take her side.”
Oh my God.
“Right, I’m done and—” I started to finish it.
I didn’t get to finish what I started.
“Raye!”
The way Jessie shouted my name, I whirled, Cap put his hand to my back, and when I saw the look on Jessie’s face, my heart started hammering.
“Get in here!” Jessie ordered.
I didn’t even look at Dream. I glanced at Cap, then ran as fast as my high-heeled sandals would take me back into the apartment.
But we didn’t go to the party.
We went to Luna’s bedroom.
And weirdly, not only was Harlow there, but Liam, Knox and Gabe were too.
The men shot Cap stony-faced looks.
I went right to Luna, who was holding her flipped open burner.
Oh no.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
She looked from the phone to me and rocked the world under my feet.
“Jinx texted. Jumper is back. And he’s taken Cameo.”
TWENTY-THREE
YOU CAN SAY THAT AGAIN
Cap took one look at my reaction to that, then he took over, and I had zero problem he did.