The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue (Montague Siblings, #1)

by Mackenzi Lee

The great tragic love story of Percy and me is neither great nor truly a love story, and is tragic only for its single-sidedness. It is also not an epic monolith that has plagued me since boyhood, as might be expected. Rather, it is simply the tale of how two people can be important to each other their whole lives, and then, one morning, quite without meaning to, one of them wakes to find that importance has been magnified into a sudden and intense desire to put his tongue in the other’s mouth.

A small shift in the gravity between us and suddenly all my stars are out of alignment, planets knocked from their orbits, and I’m left stumbling, without map or heading, through the bewildering territory of being in love with your best friend.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea to go courting trouble, is all.” “We’re not courting trouble,” I say. “Flirting with it, at most.”

“Ladies haven’t the luxury of being squeamish about blood,” she replies, and Percy and I go fantastically red in unison.

“I think I’ve been shot.” “You have not been shot.” Felicity pulls the oars into the boat long enough to peel my fingers away from my head. Her face goes pale, then she presses my hand back where it was. “Fine, you’ve been shot.”