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My eyes tapered to the image of my best friend Cal’s face on my screen. It was a photo of her with her head tossed back, laughing carelessly, my brother’s demonic face buried in her neck as he kissed her, with the Eiffel Tower as their backdrop. I chose this as her contact picture to remind myself of the one and only flaw in her otherwise sunny character: she was screwing Lucifer’s doppelgänger, a.k.a. my overbearing, controlling older brother.
“No,” I sighed, using the bases of my palms to rub my eye sockets. “All I have left is my pride.” “You sure you still have that?” Row drawled sarcastically. “Ha-ha. Fuck you.” “No thanks, Dyl. And for the record, your standards have plummeted in the past few years. Incest is not a cute kink.”
“Now, if you’ll excuse me, it’s been over ten minutes. They should be done by now. I must retire to my fainting couch.” “If you’re referring to the sofa in the conservatory…don’t. Row and I christened it last time we stayed over.” “Cal,” I barked out. “Also, the entire kitchen, guest room, and every shower in the house,” Row informed me lazily. “Really, stay away from the whole fucking house if the idea of people porking on its surfaces annoys you.” I hung up on them and screamed into the ether for two minutes straight.
The irony wasn’t lost on me. I’d made a career of fake-dating people, and now I had to pay for someone to fake-date me. Karma, you filthy little animal.
I was going to be brave, just like Row had been. Brave when my dad beat him whenever he was drunk, which was every day. Brave when, after nights of taking abuse from Dad, he smiled at me across the breakfast table in the mornings, passed me the cereal box, gave me lunch money, and pretended he wasn’t dead inside.
“Someone’s coming.” “That someone better not be you,” Kieran tutted. “Last time you came, it ended in an unwanted pregnancy, a runaway groom, and a small-town scandal.” “You’re being a prude.” “No. I’m being a bitter old hag,” Kieran corrected primly. “If I’m not getting some, neither should you. We need to start a Hot Sexless People club. We’ll be the founding members. We’ll have bingo nights—” “We’re abstinent, not eighty.” “Fuck that, Dyl. You and I both know bingo is a badass activity, and once you sit down for it, it’s the bomb.”
“I’m the kind of man who’s fun to fuck and dangerous to fuck over. Remember that.”
Rhyland didn’t know this was my dream ring. I cleared my throat. “I still need to see if it fits.” “It fits,” Rhyland reassured me. “How do you know?” “Because I’ve spent half my fucking lifetime studying every curve and measurement of your body.”
“Then he found out I’m thrice divorced.” “Thrice? Je-sus, man. You’re in your early thirties.” “When you know, you know.” “You obviously didn’t know since none of the marriages lasted.”
Tate was as nocturnal as a viper and twice as venomous, a cold-blooded creature best suited to dark places.
Rhyland: We need to keep it PG-13. Remember, Bruce is a person of faith. Dylan: So am I. Dylan: I firmly believe people who want to get their butt fucked should. It’s no one else’s business.
Her chin was propped on the back of her hands, and in that moment in time, she was that beautiful girl I left behind in Staindrop. The most beautiful girl in the world. Wild but soft. Brave but lost. Imperfect but whole.
She started crying and screaming. By the time we’d returned upstairs and unloaded the groceries, I was flustered, frustrated, and done with my day. How did parents manage not to become alcoholics? That was a case for the FBI.
“Tell you what, I’ll treat you to a Happy Meal, and you’ll forgive my potty word.” “What potty word?” Did she have memory issues? “Shit.” She giggled, bringing her small hand to her mouth. “You owe me five more dollars.” God dammit. Outwitted by a toddler. I was taking this to my grave.
“Thank you for today.” “Don’t mention it.” I shoved four fries into my mouth, taking a pull of my milkshake. “Seriously. Don’t. I’m fucking traumatized here. This is how people live with toddlers? Day in and day out? How are we not, like, extinct?”
“I said what needed to be said to make the little stinker eat. I don’t know where she gets all that energy from. She runs on pissing me off and applesauce,” I pointed out. “By that logic, it’s okay to eat turd, because that’s what your food turns into.”
I wanted her in the same way a starving man wanted his next meal. Some men were into ass, boobs, or legs. Me? I was a spine kind of person. And she had plenty of it.
Violence was sex’s ugly cousin, the Sweet’N Low to its pure, untainted sugar. But it’d have to do for now.
Dylan: Cosmos is such a terrible nickname. I get that you have to do this because of the fake engagement, but can’t you find something cuter? Rhyland: Such as? Dylan: Kitten? Baby? Sweetie pie? Rhyland: You’re not a kitten and you are not a baby (thank fuck). I’ve also met limes sweeter than you.
I’d trained myself not to dream for so long, not to dare hope for something better, that Rhyland posed a threat to my very existence. He reminded me there might be something more to this life. And hope was like crack. Risky but addictive.
This was the real deal. The edge of something wild and dark and different. This one simple kiss was better than a whole night of sex with someone else.
“I promise to be a perfect gentleman.” “That’s honestly not a selling point for me, but okay.” “Dylan, you have to stop doing this.” “Doing what?” She shot me a confused look. “Being all funny and smart and sexy. Tone it down a little. Be, I don’t know, more like Cal.”
“Would you call yourself a fan, Cosmos?” “Of my nickname? No. Of you? Absolutely.”
Gravity pouted. “Well, I want to see him all the time. I wove him a lot. Maybe even as much as Granny.” Girl, tell me about it.
Dylan: I hate you. Rhyland: Was that autocorrect? Dylan: No. That was a fart. Rhyland: Bless you, Cosmos. I’m glad we’ve reached that level of intimacy. Dylan: FACT. Rhyland:
“I told Dylan I’m backing off and letting her live her life,” Row said charitably, as if he had a choice in the matter. “But that doesn’t mean I’m not going to warn you off. She deserves the world.” “I will give her the entire goddamn galaxy,”
Rhyland: I’m not going to disappoint you, baby. Dylan: OMFG what is wrong with me? I totally believe you. Rhyland: Is this a love declaration? Dylan: Depends. Am I talking to your dick? Rhyland: Yes. Dylan: Then yes. Rhyland: And if you’re talking to the man attached to it? Dylan: Getting warmer, but not yet. Rhyland: Burn, baby, burn.
You can’t tell me this isn’t real.” He motioned between us. “Because it is, and even though you’re not ready to tell me you love me, I know you do. I’m here. I’ve been here all along. I see the way you look at me, the way you laugh with me, the way you fuck me. You don’t have to say you love me. You speak it with your entire existence, Dylan.”
“You knew we were lying to you?” I followed him with my eyes as he returned to the counter to grab his hat. “Yes.” He screwed said hat over his head. “And I saw you falling in love right in front of me. It was beautiful to watch. Best show in the world.”
“You must’ve been very scared.” Mama’s voice pierced the silence eventually. I pressed the cool glass of wine to my cheek. “I was,” I admitted. “I also had a feeling…I can’t explain it. Like Rhyland was going to come and save the day.” It was ridiculous, but when Rhyland explained he’d installed a tracker on Mr. Mushroom (RIP), I was relieved but not surprised. Subconsciously, I always knew that if there was a man on this earth who could save me, it’d be him.
“When your brother was younger, before he settled down with Calla, Rhyland took care of him. Moved around with him. I don’t think he’d ever admit it, but it was because he knew Ambrose was messed up here over what happened with his father.” She knocked her fist against her temple. “Row was angry at the world. Angry at what happened with your father. Short-fused. Rhyland was ready to save him from himself. He’s a nurturer. I think he fights it because he doesn’t want to be, but at his core, he knows how to take good care of people.”
“I’ll be out of your hair right now. Just let me see Gravity before I leave.” “She’s asleep.” “I know. I need my daily fix of inhaling her hair, and I’ll be on my way.” I was such a fucking red flag I was surprised no bull had assassinated me yet.
“What I feel for you is far greater than love and eons more dangerous.” I pressed my forehead to hers. “I want everything you have to give, Dylan, and I am an only child. Not good at sharing. You’re going to have your hands full.”
“I call you Cosmos, but not because of the sky.” Rhy brushed his knuckles along my cheekbones, tucking a stray lock back in place. “I call you that because of the flower. It is beautiful and resilient, a fighter for its species. It braves all weather and often reseeds itself without help. I call you Cosmos because you’re everything this seemingly gentle flower is—adaptable and tough while being graceful and mesmerizing at the same time. You are living proof anyone can blossom if they choose to, shitty circumstances be damned.”
“As I grow older and wiser, I realize people are made of memories and that my favorite memory is…well, you.”
