Total pages in book: 135
Estimated words: 132933 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 665(@200wpm)___ 532(@250wpm)___ 443(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 132933 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 665(@200wpm)___ 532(@250wpm)___ 443(@300wpm)
I look at him. “You’re sayin’ Luna and I can’t be together.” The cruel reality is sinking in, and I manage to add, “Not how we’d want to be.” Without fear of something imploding on us. And it’s not her father carrying malice and forcing us apart.
It’s been my family. Attached to me.
I peer just a foot out of the foyer. Sitting on the couch, Xander and Maximoff are laughing about something on a phone, and Kinney is shushing them while the movie is playing. Ripley is giggling and hanging on to his dog Arkham where Farrow sits with Lily, chatting together and watching Baby Rip.
I smell the homecooked meal again.
I see the shelves and shelves of comics.
The fireplace is even lit.
Lo and Lily built something alive, something brimming with youth and happiness. A home I didn’t know could exist beyond movies. This is what Lo is trying with everything inside him to preserve, and right now, I’m attached to an ugliness that could destroy it.
“It’s going to end,” he suddenly says.
I step back into the foyer, confused. “What?”
“There’ll be an end to this.” His eyes haven’t exactly softened, but Lo is staring at me in a way he never has before. Like he’s trying to reach out to me. “We’re going to get rid of them. We have to. You’re just going to have to do something for Luna in the meantime.”
I cage breath.
And then he says, “You wait for her.” He stares further into me. “This is the way.”
To wait for her.
Until I’m detached from the thing that could hurt her. Until it’s nowhere near this house.
His family.
People that I love, too.
I’m choked for a second. I can’t see myself moving on from Luna, and I can’t tell if he’s afraid I might. But that’d mean he wants me to stick around.
“You don’t want to send me to a dude ranch anymore?” I ask him.
“The only way to take them down is through you.”
Right. I’m the weapon.
Or the bait.
Maybe both.
I nod, but then Lo adds, “And my daughter has feelings for you, too.” He grimaces. “For whatever reason.”
I laugh as a small burst of light glimmers inside me, but the sound fades. Dogs are running as Lily suddenly moves out of the living room.
Slipping beside her husband, she smiles at me. “Donnelly. Stay for dinner.”
“He’s leaving, Lil.”
“Lo—”
“He’s right,” I interject. “I gotta head out.” I lock eyes with him, and we share a deeper understanding. For once, we’re on the same page. I hand Lily the bag of Tastykakes. “Can I say goodbye to Luna before I go?”
“Yes,” Lily emphasizes so emphatically at her husband that Lo doesn’t even dare contend. I’m not sure if he was planning on it. “You can take as long as you want, Donnelly. She’s upstairs.”
“But not too long.” Lo gets the last word in.
I find Luna outside her childhood bedroom window. She’s on the roof, lying on a knitted blanket that covers the rough shingles, and I climb out into the night.
As I lie beside her, her head turns to me. She’s searching my features for answers. “What’d my dad say?”
She knew I was gonna ask Lo for permission to date her.
I open a pack of cigarettes. “He said, not yet.”
Luna frowns. “Not yet?”
I reach over and slip a cigarette behind her ear. “I gotta figure this thing out with my family first.” I explain everything, which takes a few minutes, and I finish with, “I can’t let anything happen to you, Luna.”
“I’ll be here,” she whispers, her voice tender and fragile. “I feel really protective over you and me and what we have…but I have the strangest feeling…like I erased us somehow.”
“You didn’t.”
“What are we then?”
I’m unsure how to define us. I just know we aren’t done yet. We aren’t over. “Look up.” I pull out my sketchbook from my back pocket.
Luna lifts her gaze to the star-speckled night.
Knees bent, I rest my sketchbook on my thighs. Edged closer to her, our arms touch but neither of us shifts further away.
“Sagittarius and Leo, their compatibility. You only told me about sex. So I thought you must’ve been leaving out some bad news,” I say. “Something that’d tell us to stay away. But I looked it up, Luna, on twelve different sites.”
“Twelve?” Her eyes glass.
“I was surprised,” I breathe, “that every place said the same thing. That it’s inevitable. Get one Leo and one Sag together and they’d inevitably—”
“Fall in love,” Luna finishes, her head turning to me again. Close enough that her lips practically touch mine. Our gazes sink deeper.
My chest rises. “What are we, space babe? It’s been written in the stars. And this—it can never be unwritten.”
Luna wipes at her watery eyes.
I clutch her cheek, pressing a tender kiss to her lips, not letting her deepen it this time, and I sit up, quickly tearing off a page from my sketchbook. If I loiter any longer, it’s gonna be harder to leave.