Series: Like Us Series by Krista Ritchie
Total pages in book: 241
Estimated words: 236417 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1182(@200wpm)___ 946(@250wpm)___ 788(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 236417 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1182(@200wpm)___ 946(@250wpm)___ 788(@300wpm)
“Okay, friend. What’d your dad say?” He’s asking genuinely. He looks me over and there’s a sudden calmness in his amber eyes. I could make another joke.
The door is open to run away from this conversation. Run out. It’s so easy to take those doors. But Lo, Luna, the Hales—they’re the last people I wanna be running from.
“The hot dogs are burning,” I tell him.
“I don’t care about the hot dogs.”
Right. “My dad was giving me shitty advice. That’s what Luna overheard.”
He frowns but looks on patiently. He’s not begging for more. Not pushing.
It’s easy to hold his gaze. Even as sharp-edged as his features are, there is no malice in Lo towards me. No hatred. No anger or fury. I run my fingers through my hair a couple times. “You’re gonna tell me not to trust him.”
“Then maybe you shouldn’t.”
I wince, stopping myself short of defending Sean Donnelly. I smear a hand down my face, rotating away from Luna’s dad. Then I come back to say, “He told me to put a hole in the condom.”
Lo is all ice. He doesn’t even blink. “He what?”
“I would never—”
“No, no, no.” He raises a hand for me to shut up. “This isn’t about you. This is about your dad wanting you to get my daughter pregnant, for what? A cash-grab?”
“He knows I’d be set for life. It was advice for my well-being. I don’t think it was about what he could get out of a potential Hale grandbaby.” I’m hoping. “And anyway, it doesn’t even matter.”
He scrunches his face. “It will matter. Unless you don’t plan on having kids.”
“You want me to have kids with your daughter?” I ask like he’s flown to some planet I’ve never heard of or even read about in Luna’s fics.
“I want whatever my daughter wants.”
She wants kids. This is confirmation, but I’ve known how much she loves babies, so it’s not a surprise. My stomach churns. “Makes sense.”
Lo lets the hot dogs blacken to a crisp. “Do you think about your future with Luna?”
Do I think about our future?
“No,” I tell him. “I don’t need to think about it. She is my future.” It’s so clear. It’s so bright. “It’s all I know.”
I don’t care if there’s a white picket fence. I don’t care if there’s a four-poster bed. I don’t even care if we only have a hundred bucks to our name.
She’s all I really need.
But I’m not completely sure what she needs from me. I’m scared I won’t be able to give it to her.
These talks of our future haven’t come up much. She’s likely not thinking too far ahead anyway. She’s been concentrated on finding her footing in the present, and I’m just glad we have now, today, with each other. Anything more feels like we’re stealing sand from an hourglass.
Lo considers this, but he must be recalling what I initially confessed. He’s glaring at the pool. “I hate your father.”
“I wanna say ditto,” I tell him. “But there are times I think maybe I still love him. And it’s a fucked-up kind of love ‘cause I thought about murder when he told me that shit.”
Lo comes unglued, his shoulders relaxing. “You can love him,” he says. “Just don’t let that love give him the power to influence you.” He says it like he’s speaking from experience.
“He doesn’t have that kind of hold on me.”
Lo stares at me, uncertain. Only other person who’s looked at me similarly, where it concerns my dad, is Farrow. I shake it off and think about the fact that Luna let me share this information with her dad myself. “Luna’s a good cookie, you know,” I say. “We’re both doing this whole relationship thing for the first time together. I’d say she’s excelling.”
“You make it easy for her,” Lo says, and it sounds like genuine praise.
My lips lift. “Thanks for the compliment. Should I be expecting the fruit basket soon?”
“What’d you say you like? Dried prunes?”
Is he trying to give me the runs? “Granny smiths and green grapes, but I could down some prunes. They’ve never done me dirty.” Using a spatula, I scoop the hot dogs off the grill and onto a tray. They’re edible, at least.
He scrapes the grill plate with a brush. “If you ever change your mind and need to talk about that night, I’m here.” He motions to the tray. “Can you take those inside?”
I figure he’ll come in right behind me. After dropping off the hot dogs in the kitchen, I peek out the window. Luna’s dad is sitting on a wrought-iron patio chair, camped out in front of the TV like he plans to finish the game by the pool. Alone.
Without thinking, I grab two PuraFons water bottles from the fridge and head back outside. I pull a chair next to Luna’s dad and take a seat.