AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I grin.
“Shall we?”
I nod as she gestures for the door, walking over to open it.
“Just don’t go falling in love with him.”
I flinch, swallowing as her words roll over my back like ice water.
“Oh, yeah, no?—”
“Although, if you did…”
Meredith steps into of my peripheral vision, moving in front of me and meeting my eye. She winks.
“I’d be your biggest cheerleader.”
A big grin spreads over my face.
Gabriel frowns, both of us stopped at the steps up to his townhouse’s front door. Half the lights in the building are on, with Taylor Swift blaring from inside, loudly.
“Expecting company?”
“No,” he growls, his jaw set. “I’m not.”
Inside, the music only grows louder. We follow the sound of it and girls’ voices laughing and yelling and wander into the kitchen. Four teenaged girls with their backs to us hoot and holler as they flail their hair to the music and sprinkle toppings on the pizzas they appear to be making.
“Please, make yourself at home, Maeve.”
I’ve only met Maeve, Gabriel’s eighteen-year-old aunt by way of Gabriel’s, Alistair’s, and Tempest’s asshole grandfather and his much, much younger trophy wife—yes, I know, it’s a mind fuck—a few times. But I instantly recognize the dark-haired, blue-eyed girl who whirls at his voice.
“Oh—hi!” she chirps, reaching over to turn down the music coming through the Bluetooth speaker. She blushes as she turns to smile at me. “Hey, Fumi.”
“So…” Gabriel lifts a brow at the pizza party.
Maeve winces as she grins. “Sorry, I totally should have called ahead. But we were in the neighborhood, and I still have a key?—”
“It’s fine,” Gabriel smiles. “You know you’re always welcome here.”
A few months ago, Gabriel and Alistair removed Maeve from a bad situation where she was living with their grandfather Charles and his awful wife, Caroline. Never mind Charles’ criminal connections and his meddling in the firm, it had also come to light that he and Caroline were being pretty abusive to Maeve.
After they got her out of that mess, she lived here at Gabriel’s for a few months while she finished high school. Now, she’s got her own apartment with some friends and is starting college in the fall.
“I mean, you do have a pizza oven,” she giggles.
“Mi pizza, su pizza.”
“Hi, Mr. Black!” one of Maeve’s friends chirps with a friendly wave.
“Guys, for the last time,” he sighs. “It’s just Gabriel.”
I grin as I turn to him. “I’m going to go change out of this dress.”
He nods. Maeve’s face goes a little pale before she rushes over.
“Um…” she follows Gabriel and me out of the kitchen, her lip twisting in her teeth. “The girls want to stay over…” She gives Gabriel a sheepish look. “I mean, they love this house. But the problem is…”
“Sleeping arrangements?” Gabriel growls.
