Truly Madly Deeply (Forbidden Love, #1)

by L.J. Shen

I thought about what Mom said when I went to bed in my childhood room later that night. Darkness clasped me like loving arms. It was like being cocooned in a time machine. My obsession with the nineties was a result of acute longing for a time I hadn’t been here to witness. A time without social media. Before the internet took off. It represented anonymity and serenity to me. Two things I cherished more than anything.

And this room? This room almost made me believe I was right there, in the nineties. The faded purple walls. Beverly Hills 90210 and Green Day posters. Heavy quilts piled up on my single bed. Polaroid pictures of Dylan and me were pinned onto a detective board, strung together by red string. Dylan and me roller-skating. Dylan and me in a snowball fight. Dylan and me at prom (as each other’s dates, obviously). Dylan and me at a Death Cab for Cutie concert. Dylan and me doing cartwheels in the sun.

I stewed in memories and regrets for a few hours, wide-awake and tormented by all the time lost, before flinging my blanket off and padding barefoot to my closet. The clock signaled that it was two thirty in the morning.

Bucket list: bungee jump —Cal. Bucket list: visit all 50 states —Dy. Birthday wish: the perfect ’90s CD, burned especially for me —Cal. Bucket list: flash a president —Dy.

Birthday wish: make me the best dessert ever using only ingredients that start with an M —Dy. I went through the box the entire night, alternating between giggling and sobbing. Bucket list: kiss Stephen Henry. And Kyle Cowen. And Ray Mohringer —Cal.

A miserable smile slashed my face.

Zeta was as tall as treetops and as glamorous as the sun.

The door slammed in my face. I proceeded to dance in place in an attempt to dodge the rain. Spoiler alert—it did not work.

If holding a grudge was an Olympic sport, Dylan’s neck would break from all the medals. A minute passed. Then two. Five minutes melted into seven. The rain fell down harder, in thick sheets. God, what was I doing here, soaked to the bone, pining for a childhood friendship that had collapsed in a spectacular fashion? This was silly. It had been five years. It was time to let go.

Twenty. Whole. Minutes.

Her dark locks danced in the wind, thick and glossy. She was waving a white shirt in her fist. A white flag? “It’s like that time we went to the regional hockey finals and you bailed ten minutes in because there weren’t any hot players.”

“Actually, I am pissed. You let me stand in the rain for twenty minutes and watched?” My mouth hung open in disbelief. “Hey, you let me have sex with Tucker Reid.” She pointed at me. “I would never.” I clutched my chest, staggering backward as if she had shot me. “You shunned me from your life, so I couldn’t be there to remind you that you are all that and a bag of chips and deserve so much better. You betrayed both of us.” “Not me, my vagina.”

“Whoa.” Dylan puffed her cheeks. “Was he really that bad?” “Not bad! Not at all!” I pretzeled inside my soaked clothes. Great. Now I had offended her beloved brother. “He was great! Wonderful.” She made a gagging sound. “But…?” “But he is…uhm, gifted.” “Like, talented?” “Like…the length of my height?”

grabbed the foiled dish and made a beeline for the door. She opened it before I could knock, and we were face-to-face, flushed, panting, shaking with exhilaration (and me, possibly also with hypothermia).

If Tuck had two brain cells to rub together, he knew Dylan was eons above his league. Unfortunately, I seriously doubted those two cells were in existence.

Five years. Sweet Jesus. “But he also has a terrible temper, is about as intellectual as an expired bag of trail mix, and we can’t agree on anything other than the indisputable fact that the worst LaCroix flavor is cherry blossom.”

Rage scorched through my body. Dylan was clearly unhappy, and that made me want to use Tucker’s arteries as shoelaces. The jerk.

know.” She worried her lip, sitting upright. “But Chris Hemsworth is married. And lives in Australia. I’m not built for long distance, Dot.”

which looked like a prosthetic glued onto a supermodel’s body.

“Hmm.” I pinched at my puckered lips. “You have a point. If only kidnapping children wasn’t illegal and stuff.”

type.” “I know, right? I’ve met plastic utensils more charitable.” She popped her head up from her pillow, patting an empty space on her bed. “It’s probably an ego thing, but at the time I did not complain. But enough about my life. Let’s see what you brought over. It better be good.”

I had made her marshmallow cupcakes with milk, M&M’s, and Maltesers. Yeah, I’d had to cheat and use eggs, butter, and flour, but overall, I had brought my M game.

“It is amazing.” I flipped my hair—black-tipped, for obvious, morbid reasons. “And there’s more of them coming—including foot massages and doing your nails if you forgive me and take me back as your BFF.” “A foot massage can get you into premature labor.” Dylan’s eyes widened in horror. “Hard no to that one.”

“Siri, play ‘Material Girl.’” I slapped her hand away when she tried to snatch the bag from around my body, laughing. “Siri, play ‘My Best Friend Screwed My Older Brother.’” She finished her cupcake in one bite. “Oops. Never mind. No one wrote a song about a betrayal so cutting and deep.” “I’m sure there’s a country song about it,” I muttered. “It’s not like I slept with your boyfriend.”

You can’t squeeze any of the Hemsworths into a bag so small, so I already know it’s not what I want.” “I sincerely hope you are not on any FBI watch list.”

“This better not have ‘Isn’t She Lovel—’ Oh!” She jutted her lower lip out and nodded, impressed. “‘Plug In Baby’?”

“Epic intro,” I confirmed. “‘Baby Got Back’?” Her gaze skated my way, eyebrows arched. “Fun, right?” I beamed. “‘There Goes My Life’?” Dylan gasped, punching my arm. Hard.

my heart galloping happily in my throat.

piece of her hair with my fingers. “No. The only thing I wanted to send you over the years was anthrax, and I was too scared to get caught.” Dylan shook her head. “Not me. Sorry, Dot.”

She leaped up, grabbed one of the red-and-pink cupcakes, and shoved it in my mouth. She missed by a few inches and it landed on my ear and hair. I gasped audibly. This was a declaration of war if I ever saw one. I picked up a cupcake, hurling it in her face with surprising force. It hit her eye. Dylan’s jaw slacked. “No, you didn’t.” “Did too.” I crossed my arms over my chest.

They think the baby’s gonna come out the size of a Saint Bernard. Like, ten-pounds big. I’m the poster child for safe sex, Dot.”

We were laughing like there was no tomorrow, a never-ending giggling sound, when the front door slammed downstairs, and I heard the voice of the man who had nearly made me come in my dress on my kitchen floor a few days ago.

Row had said we sounded like distressed seals trying to communicate carnage.

his eyes swinging between us with a frown.

He made my hormones go wild. In fact, even though I thought he was a prick, I never feared him like I did most men. He...

“Yeah.” Rhyland’s eyes ping-ponged between us. “But he sure as fuck would touch Cal, as history has taught us.”

“Behave yourself.” Row’s voice was a lot of things: calm, menacing, and blood-chillingly threatening. Surely, he didn’t know I feared men. Even if he did, why would he care?

Wow. Way to make me feel like a Labrador getting trained to be a service dog.

“The person who can toss you out the window without breaking a sweat,” Row recommended dryly. “And has every inclination to do so.”

“The person whom you’d like to make amends with.” Dylan dipped a finger into my bra and sucked some icing into her mouth. “And is also on bed rest and shan’t become upset.”

Row shot him a pissed-off look, which, in my humble opinion, was the only look he was capable of. “Hey, shithead, don’t you have new staff to find me?”

“Ugh. So romantic.” I fanned my eyeballs, feeling teary-eyed.

My eyes ticked like crazy.

But I couldn’t imagine him doing something so straitlaced. He was more the type to bull-ride and axe-throw. Run away from a burning castle with a princess tossed over his shoulder. He had always been too charming for his own good.

He wiggled his brows and looked at me just a moment longer than he should.

“Besides, she is the only person who would agree to work for you.” Dylan laughed evilly. “You’re dead to everyone else in this town, and I’m too pregnant to pull doubles like yesteryear.”

Why was Dylan vouching for me? Did that mean our beef was officially squashed? Or was working for her brother her idea of a cruel punishment for me?

Dylan sat dutifully on her bed, looking like a birthday cake had exploded on her. I was by her side, Rhyland was standing next to us, and Row was on the other side of the room, looking fifty shades of pissed off.

“You’d be crazy not to hire her.” Zeta tutted, palming her cheek worriedly. “No one else would work for you in this county.” “I think you missed the R in country.”

won’t let you in.” Row marched toward Rhyland, fury rolling off him like vapor. “She isn’t hired.”