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)
I ask him, “Why can’t you just ditch?”
“Too many reasons. My mom. My aunts. My conscience. My sister.”
I try not to tense. Maybe he’s talking about his younger sister. “Why Kinney?”
“Luna,” he corrects, eyeing the phone, then me like I’ll be the first to surface what happened in his parents’ kitchen. Everyone in the family knows about me eating Luna out. It’s my unlucky day, but I’ve got a large stash of those.
“Luna?” I play dumb, scrunching my brows. “That’s a cute name.” I lean forward and scope out the end of the hallway where his family have been entering the viewing room.
“I’d hope you like her name,” Xander says, “seeing as how you’ve been…” He cringes. “Don’t make me say it, Donnelly. She’s my sister.”
“You don’t have to say it.” I’m not embarrassed, but I’m not trying to turn my elf a shade paler.
He taps his phone to his thigh. “I thought you wanted a relationship with Luna.”
I give myself whiplash snapping my neck back to him. “I do want that.”
“Yeah, but…” He shoves at the sleeves of his black button-down. “You two make out at the bar. You come home and hook up again. Then at the Fanaticon Convention, there was the late-night call into her bedroom. It sounds more like sex, man.”
I knew he thought it was a booty call at the Con in San Francisco. He cautioned me then to play hard to get, and I have been trying to go at a slower pace. But not so Luna can chase after me. She’s been through enough, and the last thing she needs are mind games.
It’s the last thing I’d want in her position.
I glance over at him. “What I have with your sister, it’s not…” It is physical. I can’t deny that. “…it’s more than sex.”
“For her too?” Xander asks in a whisper. “She’s only known you for what, a month?”
“Think so, yeah.” I check the hall again, then whisper, “Why do you think she’d only want to sleep with me?”
“I’m cautious about it.” His eyes flit to me, then away. “Look, most people in my life are more interested in having sex with me rather than getting to know me.” His homecoming date comes to mind. “And I’m not saying my sister would do that to you, but before her amnesia, you had a friendship first, and now you have a…” He struggles to find the term. “Friends-with-benefits thing?”
“Nah, it’s not like that.” I don’t think. No, I know it. “We’re dating.”
He nods repeatedly. “I think I’m just nervous you two won’t last as long if she doesn’t remember the past three years.”
He’s casting sparks of doubt my way, and I’m not loving this kind of Hale magic. I want to reverse this feeling. “We’ll last,” I tell him. “She’s already fallen for me twice.”
Xander nods again, glancing over at me and I glance back. We share a fleeting confident look.
He’s been harboring guilt over his negative reaction towards Luna liking me, so I tell him, “There’s no universe where you’re at fault for us not dating sooner. Hope you know that.”
“Yeah,” he says under his breath, his voice strained. “Yeah, I’m trying.” He lifts his phone. “Luna is supposed to text me when she’s done looking at the open casket. We’re riding together to the gravesite, and maybe you can sit next to her.”
That’s why he’s at the funeral home for Luna. Xander is putting me in his sister’s orbit. I love circling her—would do it all day—so I’m not complaining.
But I thought he’d give this up after the Con. I start to say, “You don’t have to—”
“I want to,” he interjects. “I’m still afraid there is a universe where you’re not endgame anymore. And the Luna before the amnesia needs you around if she comes back.”
She’s all one Luna to me.
One girl to love over and over and over again.
“…we gather here today to honor the life and legacy of Greg Calloway…” Connor Cobalt addresses the mourning crowd at the cemetery—a sea of black dresses and black suits and morose eyes.
Not everyone is staring at the casket or the dewy grass.
I have my arm slung around Luna, and I suppress the urge to tug at my tie while people cast “looks” at me and her. Really, though, I think they’re mainly looking at me. Like I’m the bad influence corrupting a young Hale. I desecrated this holy ground with my bad deeds.
Friends-of-friends-of-friends of the Calloway sisters think I have no shame or respect because I made out with Luna Hale the night Greg died.
Family of the Calloway sisters just learned Lily walked in on me performing award-winning oral on her daughter.
So any which way you turn it, I’m getting side-eyed.
The ceremony feels short. I keep thinking about Luna and our future, about everything but the grief surrounding me. I can’t say how much time passes, but more than one person says a few words. From Daisy, to Lily, to Rose, and to Poppy—the Calloway sisters. Tears are shed. Tissues are handed around.