Heartless (Chestnut Springs, #2)

by Elsie Silver

“Sounds like her loss, because you might be the coolest kid I’ve ever met.” She doesn’t use a sad voice, or a baby voice, she just talks to him like a normal human being. “Fucking hell,” I curse under my breath because she just practically hired herself.

Lots of people have walked through that front door. But somehow this feels different.

“Eaton. You grumpy motherfucker. You just laughed,” I blurt. “Yeah, Red. I did.”

“The joke’s on you though. I wouldn’t last ten minutes and just because you’d be quiet doesn’t mean I would be.”

pour myself a cup, and it tastes better just because he made it.

And in a family of wildly successful people, I’d rather be the flighty wildcard than the failure.

“I watched her die that day. I watched my dad hold her. I watched him sob.” My teeth grind, and I drop my eyes for a moment. “I think my childhood kind of died that day too.”

Too scared to want something that badly, too scared to care about something that deeply.

Cade points at us, spinning his cap backward and hitting me with a wink. Dick. He knows it kills me when he wears it like that.

I’m trying hard not to scare the shit out of her by being so sure about everything. But the fact of the matter is, I am sure.

I know that none of those maybes would have been right.

“In the coffee shop. I was standing behind you and couldn’t stop thinking about how incredible your laugh was. All fucking light and warm. It made me want to laugh too.”

“You got something against condoms?” “Dad.” “Some sort of breeding kink I don’t know about?”