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“Best friends number 15 don’t rat each other out.” I pressed my lips together. “I moved you up on my list after today. Don’t get too excited, but you might just make it to the number 14 if you get that unicorn for her.”
“My girlfriend already has a Hello Kitty. Do you want this one?”
“You don’t take care of the kid, he’ll grow up and come after you in the future. Come on, Alex, you’re better than this. You probably don’t read comics, but everyone knows this. The Electro-Man movies are really good; you might enjoy them if you gave them a chance.”
“Yeah, I might.” His smirk got even bigger. “I just might.”
There was a multi-tool inside. A Swiss Army knife on steroids. “For me?” He slid me a quick glance. “No, it’s for the other demon that insists on sleeping in my bed.” Now he was calling me a demon, and I was about it. “That was you who went into the room when I was asleep and got into my bed.”
“I thought the multi-tool was my favorite thing I’ve been given, but I think… I think you saying you can talk shit with me just beat it. Not that long ago, you didn’t even want to make eye contact with me.” Eyes with blue contacts slid to me. “A lot changed since then.”
could have done a lot worse than ending up in your yard.” I laughed. “Thank you?”
Slowly, oh so slowly, a long, thin hand extended toward me. Was I supposed to kiss it? “Just shake it,” Alex muttered under his breath.
Alex was The Defender. His grandmother would have been some evil villain deity that it took heroes twenty-five comics to try and vanquish, and then, they would have only found a way to contain her for 100 years or something like that. And here I was. The country bumpkin with a stomachache that made me slightly interesting to them.
this hell? Are we stuck together forever?” I whispered. His scowl was monumental. “You’d be lucky to be stuck with me for eternity.”
had a dream of you the night you were born, and I’ve followed you loosely over the years, child.”
“I’ve had visions of my children and their children’s mates.”
He was a good best friend number 15 or wherever we were at. Whatever he wanted us to be. I’d take anything. That realization had me thinking about his grandmother’s vision again.
“Best friends number 10 don’t lie to each other.”
“What did she show you?” he asked again,
“You were holding a baby.” I shrugged a shoulder. “You asked. What else did you see?”
His eyebrows went a little up, pink suddenly tinting his ears.
“You were on your hands and knees,” he said. What the hell did that mean? What was I doing on my hands and knees? My face went even warmer. Hotter. So hot.
kept my eyes on his wide frame. I thought about the vision I’d seen. Him holding a dark-haired baby with my eyes, smiling. Alex’s hair was longer than it was now. There had been something different about his face though. He’d looked a little older? Or maybe just… less grumpy? More… happy?
“We can argue about it later.” “We can argue about it now.” The son of a bitch grinned.
something. It was everything to me. “You can be my number 9 best friend regardless of what happens, all right?”
Then he said it, sounding almost disappointed, “You make it really, really hard to not like you.”
“I had faith. You told me you wouldn’t let anything happen to me, remember?” He tensed for a split second. “I remember.” I felt his exhale. “I’m never going to let anything happen to you.”
“I’m pleased to see that Alexander has been helping you. Soon enough, you’ll be healthier than ever.” It was the subtle amusement in her voice that put me on edge. Was she smirking?
“Grandma said you and Uncle Lexi are gonna get married,” Asami whispered with a gleeful look in her eye. “Can I be the flower girl?”
“I think you’re going to have”—she held up two tiny fingers—“two boys.”
“Wow, you weren’t joking. Uncle Lexi got really lucky.” This family and their fucking secrets.
As grumpy as he was, the man had a heart of gold and the face of an angel. And the body of a superhero.
One of the tendons at his neck popped right before he said, “Sure.” I blinked. “Sure what?” “You can kiss me.”
“Why not you?” “There are about a million different reasons,” I answered seriously.
“Maybe there are two million reasons why it should be you.”
kissing The fucking Defender for the first time? But he was so much more than that, and I knew it. He was Alex. He was my hero. My friend. My protector. At least a handful of other things first before he was The Defender to me.
“Only 1,999,999 other reasons to go.” His nostrils flared. “Your mouth is pretty too.”
I was watching him. Well, more like I was watching that tight ass move around the kitchen. It was an obsession really. I tried to look away, I really did, but I couldn’t stop. I was weak. My inner horny stalker had been unlocked. Did his sweatpants have to be that tight?
you’re still my number 7 best friend. All I wanted for years was that. For someone like you. For you. You Alex, not you The Defender.”
He kept going. “But so we’re clear, you being upset about something is important to me,” he told me. “Just as important as saving people from a nuclear meltdown.”
“Just as?” I echoed. He tipped his chin down, those eyebrows flat on his smooth forehead. “More. What’s wrong?”
“Gracie, do you think there’s a future for you without me in it?” Why would that get his panties in a twist? “Do you really think there’s a future for me without you in it?”
“It hurts my feelings that I’m right here, that you’re right there, and you still think that you’re ever going to be alone again.”
“I always like you the most.”
He took a step closer and wrapped an arm around my lower back like it was the most natural thing in the world—it felt like it was—and he said evenly, in his Super voice, “I always like you the most.”
“Not just sometimes. Not just when I tell you that you annoy me or when you make me laugh or when you’re talking back to me. Always.
More then,” Alex told me quietly. “Do you understand that?”
“We both know what my grandmother showed you.”
If I thought that maybe you would have been open to liking me a little, maybe more in the future. Do you know how many marriage of convenience books I’ve read, Alex? They’re my favorite. It’s not that crazy of an idea to me.”
He was no ray of fucking sunshine. He was the moon. A full fucking moon so bright no amount of clouds could fully block him out.
“Meeting you has been the best thing that’s ever happened to me—” He had the nerve to smirk. “I think that was the whole point of having my back broken.”
“I want you in my life, this mate shit aside. Don’t come up with a million different bullshit excuses why I don’t. I care about you. I worry about you. And I’m going to come back as soon as I can so we can finish this conversation, you got it? We’ve put it off long enough,” he whispered fiercely.
“I missed your three thousand questions and the way you hold my hand. I missed my little monster. Missed her a lot,”
“It isn’t, but I know you. And you’re not supposed to be anyone else’s Gracie, you’re my friend. My Gracie. I’m too heavy to be a good swimmer, but I’ll never let you drown. I’ll never leave you. I’ll never keep secrets from you again.”
