Tangled Like Us (Like Us, #4)

by Krista Ritchie

First thing people know about me, I’m tall. Second thing, I’m a twin. Third thing, I’m a pain in your fucking ass. If you’re not giving a hundred shits at rest or in high water, I will hammer you.

Broad-chested and shouldered, muscled and toned, towering and relentless at six-foot-seven.

Stay focused. On her. Jane Eleanor Cobalt.

She straightens up. “Thatcher.” The top of her head barely reaches my shoulders, but she lifts her chin and looks me right in the eye.

blasting a slingshot at my own forehead. I possess the unfortunate inability to run away from my own mortification.

Thatcher is like a sacred text. I’m tempted to rush through the pages, but something has compelled me to draw out each line, each word. Reading so slowly and carefully so as to never miss a syllable. So a single book, a single person, could last me forever.

My mom is a brilliant, ball-busting woman who takes no shit from anyone, especially not from her husband.

I won’t devalue her achievements just to find value in myself. My mom is brilliant and beautiful. And so am I. Just in my own way.

As your mom always says, do or die.”

I’m not a sad little cub about to be eaten. I’m a motherfucking lion.

“You’re prettier without it,”

“I’ve got your six, always.”

I’m so close to a smile, it fucking alarms me.

“The horn is said to ward off the evil eye. It’s Italian superstition tied into tradition.”

“It’s said if you have a headache or migraine, then someone has put the evil eye on you.”

Because at the end of the day, I’m not supposed to mean anything to Jane Cobalt. I shouldn’t be a thought she goes to sleep to.

“While this entire pseudo Criminal Minds episode is entertaining as fuck, what’s the endgame here?”

“Just date Moretti,” Oscar suggests so suddenly, and the room explodes in two exclamations: “What?!” “Oscar?!”

Thatcher. Thatcher. Thatcher. His name is a heartbeat in my head.

“No, they won’t think it’s unprofessional if I fake-date a bodyguard.” I smile in thought. “I’m sure they’ll actually think it’s a bit of fun strategy. Like chess.”

“I’m pro-Jane.”

“I could bench press you all night.”

“You’re meant to be in my arms, Jane.” She pulses against me and sets her laced fingers along the back of my neck. “I…um.” She shakes out her scrambled thoughts. “We’ll be experts in the art of fake-dating in no time. Don’t you think?”

Thatcher grabs at my collar with two hands and like the fabric is made of paper, he tears my shirt into two pieces. Oh… My… I think my heart just came, if hearts could cum. Mine just did.

He nods. “I love your voice.”

“I have you.”

It’s been clear to me that we’re kerosene together. And we’ve finally lit the match.

“It seems we are dreadfully tangled, you and I.” Couldn’t agree more.

“Honey.”

“I want to know all about you, but I can’t ask fast enough—and when I think about you, I wonder what your hands have held. What your eyes have seen.” My pulse has skyrocketed, but I keep speaking. “What your ears have heard and where your feet have landed.”

You’re safe with me, honey. That’s a lasting promise I’ll always make.

“Tom called you an honorary Cobalt this morning on the phone,”

“Ensemble,” I tell him. Together. All four of my brothers repeat the word. And then Eliot grins, mischievous twinkle in his eye, and he says something I’ve heard him recite a thousand-and-one times. But tonight, it’s never felt truer. “‘Let me play the lion too…I will roar.’”

Not why I was staring, honey.

I think Maximoff Hale is a better man than I’ll ever be.

It’s my honor to be with you in everything.

We exchange this look that reaches into me. Acknowledgement. An I understand you and I’m here.

In a form-fitting black dress, long matte black nails, and dark rouge lipstick, Rose Calloway Cobalt stands pin-straight, her posture stiff and rigid. And cold. But she wields such deep love for me in her piercing yellow-green eyes.

Daisy plucks a cat-ear headband off my mirror and places it atop her head. Blonde hair chopped bluntly a little below her shoulders. She smiles at me, radiant like the sun.

My mom finishes my hair. “You’re done, gremlin.”

“And if they don’t like you, then that says more about them than you.”

I love that she doesn’t tell me they will love me and give me a false sense of confidence. She lays battle armor on my shoulders.

“To eat my heart,” my dad says smoothly, “is to have me with you always.”

Don’t make my mistakes, my heart.

Witches of Philadelphia,

All three are witches. Green faces, black dresses, black hat, and black leather fucking boots. Which I’m still unlacing.

“You would’ve been my Tarzan, and I would’ve been your Jane.”

We’re together in love.