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)
Original Luna is still lost in my mind, but she’s also in the pages of the diary. I found her in manuscript-form today. Hope glimmers brighter. I also try to hang on to Donnelly’s words about Ripley just being timid around everyone.
The nearly two-year-old reaches up for the popsicle, and I place the stick in his hands. He holds tight.
Farrow asks him, “What do you say to your Auntie Luna?”
“Thank ew.” Ripley licks the popsicle, beaming up at me like I’m the coolest, best aunt.
I smile back. Okay, maybe I’m not such a lame OG Luna replacement. I slide on a barstool at the kitchen island, the glittery hard-bound diary before me. While I might be able to learn a lot from myself in those pages, I also never want to stop building on the relationships that mean something to me.
So I ask Farrow, “Did the two of us talk a lot about Donnelly?”
He tilts his head back and forth, considering. “Not too much.” His sleeves are rolled, revealing a cascade of tattoos, and little Cassidy is in his inked arms while he feeds her a bottle. “I have a feeling you kept the majority of your thoughts about him to yourself.”
With the diary in my possession, it’s not as frustrating hearing this.
Farrow adds, “It’s not like I was an over-sharer.” His face tenses while chewing on a piece of gum. “I could’ve told you or anyone else how much I love that shameless motherfucker—that he’s been my family. But I never even came close to that.”
“You just did,” I say quietly.
Farrow takes a slow breath.
I lean forward. “I wonder if I was scared that you wouldn’t like me with him.”
His brows lift with a barbell piercing. “I wouldn’t have been unhappy about it.”
I start to smile. “Really?”
“You make sense together,” Farrow says. “You’ve likely always made sense since you first met him, but I didn’t really see it until later.”
He knows Donnelly better than I do, maybe even better than I did. “You’ve seen him with other girls, right? Did they make sense with him too?”
Farrow arches his brows again. “No.”
No is a good answer but not a completely satisfying one. I want a million words of explanation. “Why not?”
“Because most of the girls I saw him with—they just wanted to get laid. You’ve seen him.” He jerks his head to the door. “He looks like a fun night. Not like someone you take home to Mom and Dad.”
It’s hard for me to see only the surface of Donnelly.
My first glimpse of him at the hospital—he was more than just the sexy scattered tattoos, the intriguing piercings, the sculpted muscle and lush chestnut hair. He was loving in the way he approached me. In the way he held me. He was daring. In the way he fought to stay at my side. And his magnetic, luminous smile always seemed to touch his blue eyes.
I could write a thesis on the Attractiveness of Paul Donnelly, but it suddenly hits me.
“I never took him home,” I realize.
“You tried,” Farrow refutes.
My dad didn’t want him here. Not until it was safe, I’ve gathered. But it is now. “He’s here now,” I say, more to myself. Please let him stay. My mind reels over what Farrow is telling me. “Donnelly said he doesn’t really go slow, but he wants to try to go slow with me.”
“Yeah?” Farrow adjusts the bottle against Cassidy’s little lips, but his eyes are mostly on mine. “You don’t want that?”
I say nothing at first. Guilt washes over my face, burning my cheeks. But I let it out, “I want fast. Like super-sonic speed fast. And maybe I’m just like all the other girls he’s hooked up with—because I, too, would love to get laid by Donnelly.”
Farrow’s lips stretch in a smile. “It’d be more disconcerting if you didn’t want that from him.”
“So…maybe you could tell him that it’s okay to go fast? Step on the gas pedal? Don’t locate the brake.”
Farrow sucks in a breath between his teeth. “Luna—”
“Farrow,” I plead.
“—he’s eight years older than you. You can’t remember having sex. I’m not telling him to do shit if he thinks it’s too soon. The one thing Donnelly is careful with is you.”
I groan, my forehead pounding the counter. “Idon’twanthimtobecareful,” I slur together. “Not with this. I want him to destroy me. In the sexiest, hottest way.” I say it to my lap but loud enough that Farrow hears. I lift my head.
Farrow chews slower on his gum. “Whatever your kinks are—you need to tell him, not me.”
I don’t even know if it’s a kink. It’s not like I have experience in the realm of sex or relationships, and I suppose that’s the issue. I trace my fingers over the glittery diary cover. Did Original Luna document all her sexual exploits?