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)
“Raiding my pantry?” he asks Donnelly with a disapproving cock of his head. Uh-oh. “Go ahead. Help yourself to the eggs, the stale Froot Loops, the curdled milk. Don’t forget the good stuff. Rat poison, top shelf.” He flashes a half-smile. Rat poison? My mouth falls open.
Donnelly grins. “Appreciate you sharing your favorite food with me, Papa Hale.”
“Luna’s dad,” he corrects, then shakes his head at me, like I’ve chosen to fall in love with the most grating specimen on planet Earth. On the contrary, Donnelly is the most mesmerizing earthling I’ve met thus far.
I doubt anyone could trump him.
“I’m making your daughter food,” Donnelly tells him. “That alright?”
Dad wears another dry smile. “Only if you fear my every waking move while you do it.”
“Dad,” I say with widened eyes.
“What? He’s in my house. I’m your father.” He unspools a bag of bagels and slips one in a toaster. “No guy you’re dating should feel at ease while they’re here. They need to know with one wrong move, I will have them sobbing in their ugly little pickup trucks with their testicles rolling halfway down the street and into the sewer where they belong.”
Donnelly glances back from the sizzling eggs. “I don’t have a pickup truck, Luna’s dad.”
“I’ll put you in one.”
“Now you’re buying me a car?”
Farrow bursts out laughing which makes me smile, especially as Baby Ripley giggles, and even my dad can’t hide the rise of his lips.
Dad asks me, “Are you spending the night?”
I rushed to my childhood house to show Donnelly the diary, and I hadn’t given much thought to plans afterward. My first thought: Wherever Donnelly is, I want to be. But I hesitate to even draw attention to him in relation to this question.
Too obsessed. Too attached, he’ll think. Then he might pull us apart tonight.
“I…” I start to answer, but the door breezes open again.
This time, my mom appears, splotchy-cheeked and hobbling on crutches. Her reddened eyes instantly find Dad. “Lo, I—”
“It’s okay, Lil.” In a blink, they’ve collided, his arms woven around her gangly frame. He speaks quietly to her, and both Farrow and Donnelly say sorry for your loss, Lily.
She wipes at the corners of her eyes. “It was just unexpected…no one saw it coming…” Moffy abandons the bacon to hug Mom. I hop off the barstool to give her one too. She asks us how we’re doing.
“Fine,” Moffy answers.
“Okay,” I nod.
“That’s good.” Her voice shakes a little but she intakes a breath. “Sorry, what were you saying, Luna? Before I walked in? I cut you off.”
“Dad just asked if I was spending the night,” I tell her.
Mom perks up like a reinflated helium balloon. “Yes, you should. Farrow, Moffy, and the babies are already staying. We’ll all be together. Wouldn’t that be nice?” She smiles at Dad like it’s the warmest picture she could imagine. All her kids under one holiday-lit roof.
It’s not so comforting for me, not if Donnelly isn’t in the picture too. The urge to look at him is too strong to resist now. He’s half-turned towards me while he babies the scrambled eggs in the skillet, pushing them around with a spatula.
Does he look as glum as I feel?
I turn back to my parents. “Can Donnelly stay?” I ask.
“No,” Dad says the same time Mom says, “Yes.” Their heads whip to each other. “Lily.”
“Lo,” she counters. “She’s twenty-one.”
The sharpest lines of his face seem to twitch. But he looks straight at Donnelly. “You stay, you’ll be in the guest room. The lawn saw enough kissing to last a lifetime.”
Mom makes a confused face.
“From them,” Dad clarifies. “This house loves when we kiss, love.” He nuzzles into her neck with playful kisses, and Mom flushes, clinging tighter to him.
While they’re in their own world, my lungs have already expanded in a deeper breath. Especially seeing Donnelly’s emerging grin. He slides a bowl of scrambled eggs to me. “How’s the bed in the guest room?” he asks me quietly, leaning on the island.
My heart pitter-patters. He’s accepting the invitation to spend the night. I take the fork from him. “I’ve never tested it out,” I admit, and if my eyes say, I want to, with you, I sincerely hope he can read them.
5
PAUL DONNELLY
“My house rules. No sex under my roof. Do not break it,” Lo warns with a cold glare. He shoves a bed pillow in my chest. He can’t be any blunter.
“Dry house,” I say. “Got it.”
He’s unamused. Not tickling his funny bone tonight, also got it. “You want your dick wet?” he asks. “Don’t even think about my daughter. Think about the freezing pool I’m going to drown you in. It’s right outside.” He points to the window that faces the backyard and then flashes a half-smile. “Night, Paul.” He pats my shoulder, leaving me alone in the guest room.