Series: Like Us Series by Krista Ritchie
Total pages in book: 241
Estimated words: 236417 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1182(@200wpm)___ 946(@250wpm)___ 788(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 236417 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1182(@200wpm)___ 946(@250wpm)___ 788(@300wpm)
After Donnelly takes a drag, he asks, “You remember everything?”
“Yeah,” I whisper.
He taps ash onto the ground. “Did they…they didn’t…?” He fights for the words. “You told me they didn’t try anything with you that night, and I just wanna be sure—”
“They didn’t,” I say fast. “They just left me upstairs.” Handcuffed to the bed. Where Donnelly ultimately found me.
Donnelly leans back, a long breath leaving him. His powerful relief washes over me, and I breathe deeper too. And then he snuffs the cigarette under his boot. Just to grab my hand and lead me to the fountain.
“The turtle is calling,” he says. “Guy looks lonely.”
I smile at the reappearance of light in his eyes. “How many earthlings can speak to turtles?”
“Just this one.” He helps me onto the fountain’s snowy ledge where he stands.
I balance with him, and he presses his hands to my neon orange beanie. Our smiles inch upward while we look deeper into each other. Despite the return of a bad memory, it’s a pretty night after a light snowfall. Stars twinkle above us, and the emergency lights in our spacecraft aren’t strobing as harshly.
I tell him about it. “There aren’t any alarms. It’s quiet and peaceful in our spacecraft, and the lights—they’re shades of purple.”
“And pink,” Donnelly says. “You’re bathed in pink.”
“And green,” I smile with him. “They’re the kind of colors you’d see at a club on Thebula.”
Donnelly grins into a laugh. “Turning an emergency into a dance floor. I love us.”
Us. There is an official us now. A Donnelly and a Luna bound together. It’s not a sad us. It’s a vibrant, grinning, buoyant us, ascending higher and higher. I haven’t thought much about where we’ll land. Staying on this voyage with Donnelly matters more to me.
“I love us too,” I tell him, just as our phones ping.
We check the texts from my bodyguard. Frog has sent a few photos of us on the fountain. Where we’re smiling at each other. Where Donnelly has his hands on my head and stares affectionately into my eyes. Snowy Philadelphia, the stars, and fountain are perfectly framed in the background.
It looks like a Philly love story. It’s beyond beautiful.
“Sorry!” Frog calls out. “I’m preserving the moment! Not trying to ruin it! Shit,” she curses to Quinn. Then shouts to us, “Continue as you were! Make out! Kiss. Do the deed. We’ll look away.”
“Frog,” Quinn groans.
“What? No one’s around. Let them get it on.”
“Thanks, Froggy!” Donnelly calls out, then smiles down at me, but a sudden, jarring thought kicks me in the chest. The wind is nearly knocked out of me. He holds my arm. “Luna?”
“Xander…”
Donnelly takes out his phone again. “What about him?” He’s scrolling through his messages, but I doubt my brother has recently texted.
I blink a few times, then focus on my boyfriend. “That night…they kept saying, Where’s Xander? They kept mentioning he wasn’t in the car with me and my mom. Did you know that?”
Donnelly shakes his head, his body tensing. “We knew the plan wasn’t to kidnap you though.”
“What’d they want with Xander?” I ask him quietly.
“No clue,” he breathes, “but I’ll ask my dad. See if he knows anything.”
49
PAUL DONNELLY
“You didn’t wanna bring your girlfriend around?” my dad asks, shelving new bottles of Hendrick’s and Jameson behind the bar counter. The Rhino hasn’t opened yet. It’d be dead quiet in this biker bar, if not for The Cure playing over the speakers.
He put it on for me. Said something like, “You loved them when you were a kid.” Couldn’t believe he remembered that.
“She’s sleeping.” I sip the glass of bourbon he poured me.
He gives me a weird look. “It’s two p.m.—is she allergic to the sunlight?”
“Long night,” I say vaguely and rotate the glass on the sticky wood. I could’ve gone back to sleep with Luna, but I craved answers more than shuteye. Feels like my duty to find ‘em, and I wouldn’t be able to sleep with this loose thread bothering me anyway.
“Huh.” He looks me over while unpackaging a whiskey bottle. “Girlfriend troubles?” His concern is unusual. Still don’t know what to make of it. “From where I’m standing, you have nuthin’ to worry about. ‘Cause if she’s still with you, after what our family did, I doubt there’s anything you could do that’d push her away.”
The wire is hot against my chest, but I’ve mostly stopped caring what security would overhear. I even thought about not informing anyone of this interaction. A big part of me wanted to go to my dad as a son first and foremost, but if he says anything important, I need it recorded.
Before I can respond, he’s adding, “But what do I know about relationships? Just been with your mother all my life.” He smiles like it’s some sweet childhood romance and not a horrific one.