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)
You’re not special, Paul.
I grind my teeth, but the ache in my jaw subsides the second Luna pops her head in the room. It’s her. I feel my smile rising.
“Can I come in?” she asks.
“Only if you know the secret passcode,” I tease.
“Have I forgotten it?” She speaks so quietly that I question whether I was supposed to hear.
I shake my head slowly. “No. You didn’t forget.” I’m not dredging up inside jokes that she can’t remember. “I’ll give you a hint.” I bow forward, hanging my arms on my bent knees. “It’s in the top five greatest places on my planet.”
Luna hasn’t emerged fully in the room. I only see her cute round face. Her amber eyes are sweeping me in slow, meticulous strokes. As though engraining the surface and depth of me for future memory.
“Your arms,” she says.
Another smile edges across my mouth. “My top five,” I clarify. “Not yours.”
“Your arms are likely the greatest place to be for lots of humans,” Luna says, resting her temple on the doorframe. I look into her, her gaze tunneling deeper into mine, and the intensity surges a powerful feeling in my body.
I’ve never had someone believe in my worth the way that Luna does, and she’s staring at me with the same bottomless love she used to. Keep your shit together. I run my fingers through my hair. Don’t think about that night.
I check her out. “I only care about my arms being the greatest place for you.”
Her growing smile causes my lips to curve higher.
“Need another hint?” I ask.
“Uh-uh,” Luna shakes her head. “A great place on earth for you…might be…” She thinks hard, her mind probably circulating through all the conversations we’ve had since she woke up in the hospital. “…Wawa?”
“Winner winner, ham hoagie dinner.” I gesture her forward with two fingers. “Come on in, space babe.”
As she peels her face off the doorframe and enters, I take in her attire. Black baggy sweatpants, the waistband rolled, and a lime-green tank top, but it’s her sneakers and a sweatshirt bundled in her hands and a backpack on her shoulder that sound alarm bells in my brain.
‘Cause she isn’t dipping into my room looking to be eaten out. I know this is something else before she says it.
“Do you want to sneak out with me?” She searches my gaze, and I take too long to reply because she adds fast, “I don’t even know if it can be called sneaking out since I’m an adult…and it’s not like I live here, but it kinda feels like sneaking, I guess.”
I spin the ballpoint pen between my fingers. “You planning on inviting your bodyguards?”
“No, I was…I was actually thinking of going alone. Without them and without…”
“Me?”
Flush ascends her neck, and I try not to stiffen but my joints aren’t working right at all.
“Yeah, but then I realized that I’d rather go out with you. Hence, this pitstop.” She’d rather go out with me. My head whirls a mile a minute, recalling a talk I had with Luna pre-amnesia. She told me about a past I wasn’t a part of. Where she would sneak out. Where she would ditch her bodyguard. Where she would explore Center City late at night with no friend or family in tow.
This time, it’s different.
This time, she wants to do everything with me. And she has no clue she’s subconsciously replaying events of her life but including me in them. How do I even tell her? Am I supposed to? Don’t fuck up her recovery.
She watches me slide the pen behind my ear and climb off the bed. “Is that a yes? You’re coming?”
I slip her a smile. “Beats hanging out here alone.” I snatch my jeans off the floor. “Plus, the blue alligator chick won’t stop staring at me.”
Luna sees the X-Men: Days of Future Past poster. “Mystique is an intense bean.”
“Think her yellow eyes have been trying to penetrate my soul.” I collect my Scorpions band tee off the armrest of a brown leather chair, then find my boxer-briefs on the cushion.
“In that case, she’s the mutant enemy. No penetration of Donnelly is allowed on my watch.” She crosses her arms in an X formation, the sweatshirt hanging over her shoulder.
“You gonna fight her on my behalf?” I grin.
“To the very death.”
“No dying without me, Hale,” I say seriously and grin wider as she observes, with this adorable pensive expression, how I’m moving across the room. Luna has always been insightful, perceptive, but the writer-brain in her has materialized tenfold since her memory loss.
All the tools she’s used to create fiction, she’s been wielding to solve the mysteries of her life. She’s been hard on herself about finding answers, but I think she’s coped better than most would. I’m glad she has the diary though. Seems like it’ll remedy most of the things that’ve been frustrating her.