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“If I were a girl, I’d just bring a box of tampons everywhere with me.” Tony is the loudest, most obnoxious man I’ve ever had the misfortune of meeting.
IN WHAT POCKETS TONY
“Are you sure you don’t want us to snowshoe?” Donnelly wonders with a frown. “Positive,” Luna nods. “Don’t sacrifice your life for a tampon.” “More like your comfort, you know?” Donnelly shrugs.
“If you need me to shut up—” “Never,” he says deeply, and I’m glad he cut me off there. “Never stop talking, Jane.” He’s my everything and more.
“I don’t need a career to be a smart woman.” I go on. “I don’t need a job to be talented. I am both smart and possess talent, and the love that I give is just as important as the fashion empire my mom built. I am enough just as I am.”
Very deeply, he tells me, “I am in awe of you.”
“You’re a good man.” “You’re a better woman.”
“And Thatcher and I will absolutely let you two walk in on us to even the playing field.” “Jane,” Thatcher says strongly on the other side of the door. He’s not thrilled at that idea.
“If someone hurt my little sister, it’s not going to be a fucking fictional manhunt. I’m going to kill him with a switchblade laced in arsenic.”
“Luna asked Donnelly to go down on her.” They’re both staring at me like I’m speaking an entirely different language. “It was for science,” I add, unhelpfully. “She enjoyed it.” Yes, stick to this point.
I’ve expected Maximoff to be upset, so I’m not surprised when he charges for the door. Farrow catches his arm. “Where are you going?” “To have a tea party with a bodyguard, who apparently decided to play Bill Nye the fucking Science Guy with my sister.”
“Donnelly is good people. I know he has some rough edges, but he’d never hurt Luna. I’d swear on my life to that.”
Maximoff’s face turns to fire again. “I’m going to ki—lightly murder him. No arsenic.” “Still murder, wolf scout.”
“Choose her.” His eyes redden. It’s the easiest call in the book. “Choose her. She’s right there.” I point at his sister, knelt in front of his vice. “Choose your twin brother.”
“Banks to Farrow, barricade the door. Don’t let Beckett out.” “Done,” Farrow responds. I leave my post with a determined, assured stride, and I lower next to Jane on the floor. “Make me a line,” I tell Charlie. He frowns for a millisecond before smiling.
“We do this together,” I say. “You and me.”
“People do stupid things when they’re in love,” Charlie says, but it’s not in disdain. It’s warm, heartfelt and he looks at me like he’s acknowledging that I am stupid-in-love with his sister. And fuck it, that’s the best outcome there is.
Glaring at my phone. “He what?” “He jerked away after touching the hair on her leg.” I hold the phone to my mouth. “Fuuuuck this knuckle-fuckbag.” My blood is boiling. Akara laughs. “Shit. I needed that.” He means the laugh. “What’s he looking for, a two-holed plastic doll?” I shake my head. “He made her feel like shit, didn’t he?” I take a harsher swig of beer. I can’t stand men like that.
this is the start of somethin 😏
“Sul and I have never flirted.” They’ve flirted. Hell, I’ve flirted with the girl. She’s funny, competitive, a fucking smokeshow, and also very, very virginal but I wouldn’t call her naïve. I’m just not sure she understands when men are hitting on her versus when they’re just being friendly.
“You’re really gonna keep telling me you’re not attracted to Sulli?” He curses me out. “She’s like my…sister.” “Your dick gets hard for your sister?”
“Hey, at least she’s not fucking the Rooster.” He pauses. “If that’s who she loses her virginity to…” “I’d lose my shit.” “Not before me.”
I can’t let anything happen to those cats.
Fuck anyone who thinks they can hurt the people I love. Fuck them all.
O’Malley’s head is somewhere else because the first thing he says is, “I know everyone says I’m a shit driver, but I think I should at least be in a front passenger seat to navigate.”
💀💀💀
“No boy’s allowed!” my mom screams from the treehouse window. “Go away, Loren!” Uncle Loren glares up at her from the foot of the tree. “Fine, Cruella, I was just asking if you needed more blankets. Freeze your titanium pussy off for all I care!” “Go fuck a cactus!”
“Did he look cold?” My mom glares. “No. Your husband wasn’t even carrying blankets. He just wanted to worm his way up here like he always does.” Truth: 9 times out of 10, Uncle Loren will find a way to either pull Lily away or become a part of the PJ party. He might also be the biggest gossip queen of us all, so I don’t even mind the addition.
“Ryke wants us to let him know when we leave, so that we don’t have another…situation.” Situation is a kind word for all of us getting plastered last November and Aunt Lily falling down the third step of the ladder. She face-planted in a pile of leaves and sprained her wrist.
“My gremlin.” She gives me a look. “Do you really believe I’d have a good time calling florists, venues, and delegating out every last inch of a party? No, that you got from your father.” I’m intrigued. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that I’m more like him and a little less like you.” “You’re not more like him.” She sounds resolute. Definitive. “He’s hardly the type to celebrate love, let alone organize a party around the concept—unless it involves the very few people he does love.”
Lily nods in agreement. “Your big, overwhelming heart comes from your mom.” Into a sip of wine, my mom says, “Even though mine is hidden behind a layer of ice.”
My mom looks at me like I’m her daughter. Flesh and blood come to life. “You can do anything, gremlin.” Anything. I choose this.
“I shouldn’t need him so much, and I find myself aching to be swallowed whole too often to be healthy.” Setting the beer aside, I hug the binder to my chest and bend my knees. “I’m scared to love him, but God, I do. So infinitely and terribly.”
My mom leans forward and takes my hand in hers. Our eyes close, noses near, and I hang onto every word as she says, “You’re not two halves, Jane. You don’t lose when you love. You gain.” She draws closer to whisper, “You have all of him.”
“All this time, I thought love is a compromise of equals. 50-50. But it’s not…is it?” She leans back and gives me another pointed look. “With the right person, they’ll ensure you’re always whole.”
“I need you. I need you like the air I breathe, and I want you like ground beneath my feet. I’m not afraid—I’m not afraid, not even a little. You are the man who has respected all of who I am and protected every little piece of me.”
“You keep me whole,” I profess. “And love—that dreaded, beautiful word—love.” I breathe, “Love is two wholes. We are two-hundred percent—an illogical number, maddening, and I will forever embrace every illogical, maddening second with you.”
“I love you, I love you, I love you.” It pours out of me. “Je’taime, je’taime, je’taime.”
“Mr. Moretti, will you spend the rest of your life with me?” His mouth breaks apart. He looks stunned. “I’m asking you to marry me,” I clarify.
His eyes are reddened, and he holds up the paperclip ring. “Yes. My answer will always be yes.” He slides the ring onto my finger. “Sempre toujours.” Always always.
“Of course we trust Price, but that does not mean we’d put him above you. I’m sorry if your dad and I made you feel like we would.” She held her daughter’s hands. “We will always choose you first. You’re my blood and bones.”
But know now that there’s a hierarchy.” His lip rose in a grin. “Many people need me, but there are only a handful that I’d drop everything for—and you’re now among them.” He cocked a single brow. “Just so you understand: you rank higher than security, and I would lie for you, if needed.”
“Lastly,” Connor said, “don’t apologize for trying to deceive me, but I will accept an apology for failing.”
But the biggest reaction was Maximoff’s. Her best friend. He hugged Jane. Then gave me a hug. He said, “I’m proud of Jane for following her heart, and I’m glad you’re the guy on the other side of it.” I’d repeat that moment a thousand times just to see the happiness on Jane’s face over and over again.
Now I’m just left to follow. And that’s the easier part. I’d follow Akara into darkness time and time again.
“Jane?” I ask like a fucking idiot. Banks would be laughing his ass off if he saw me. She keeps nuzzling my hand. I draw in a deeper, stronger breath. It’s her. No one can tell me otherwise. “Fuck it.” I gently pick up the kitten. “Let’s go to dinner, Little Jane.”
Great first dinner impression—having to make Rose Calloway flea bomb her entire house. Didn’t think about that. Mainly because I thought Little Jane was a sign from the Real Jane. Rational thinking was chucked out the fucking window.
“I belong here,” I say again, “because I love deeply and I’m learning to feel deeply too, and I make no apologies for who I am.”
“And at the end of the day, the people I care about are the ones I would die for. No questions asked. I’m standing at the battle line.” Say more. Say what you feel, and I just go. “You’re a family of warriors—I’m a warrior too. We just have different weapons. You use words. I use a gun. And ever since I was a young kid, I wanted to be that Spartan hero for someone. I belong here. Not anywhere else.” Not because of Jane. But because when it comes down to it, I’m a fucking lion. I’m a shark. For the first time, I really believe I’m the same as them.
She’s about to reply, but Tom points at me with a steak knife. “What’s its name anyway?” He means the kitten.
“Jane usually picks the person who’ll name her cats.” She rests her chin on her knuckles. “Our cats.” Our cats. I hang onto that declaration. Looks like I’m a father of six—now seven—cats. This is bigger than Jane asking me to marry her. These cats are her babies, and she’s sharing them with me.
Happiness isn’t in the same stratosphere to the raw emotion that’s balled up inside my chest. I block out the mental image of my brot...
This highlight has been truncated due to consecutive passage length restrictions.
Maybe they never explained these dinners because you can’t. I’m twenty-eight, but here—no person is older or younger. Time is frozen, and a soul-bleeding feeling sings and screams—an experience that philosophers and mathematicians would fail to encapsulate. I’d try. But then again, I’d rather carry their secrets to my grave.
