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“Not yet. Not yet,” she gasped, sputtering with humor she could barely restrain.
Billy grinned. “Fucking clowns,” he whispered back. “Like, a whole fucking army of clowns.”
She held out her hand as if to tell him to stop, and finally they spilled out onto the front sidewalk laughing and crying and gasping for breath.
“The ghost…the ghost table. You should’ve seen your face when she yelled at you.” Shayna clutched her stomach and fell against his arm. Tears streamed down her face, which was red from how hard she was laughing.
She was so fucking pretty. Happy and funny and full of life.
“I know. ‘Bout had a goddamn heart attack,” he rasped. “But Shay there were bones in that jar, I swear to Christ.”
She burst into laughter again, so hard that she was leaning nearly all her weight against him, her face buried against his chest. And it felt so damn good.
“Those clowns come to life at night,” she managed. “You know they do…”
“Right? I thought that same thing,” he choked out, his cheeks hurting from how big and hard he was laughing.
When was the last time that’d happened? Fuck. He’d still been in the military. Without question. Not one thing since the ambush had made him laugh like this.
Until Shayna.
“If a clown shows up in our house we’ll know it followed us home from here and I will die,” she said, chortling and gasping for breath.
“A clown shows up in our fucking house and I’m burning that sonofabitch down.”
Our. They’d both said our.
Shayna nodded and wiped at her eyes. “Ooh, lordy. God, I need a burger,” she said. “Tell me you’re hungry.”
“Hell, yes. Food is immediately necessary,” he said, his brain still spinning on the ours.
“Yes. Yes, it is.” They started down the street away from the House of the Clown Army. For fuck’s sake.
And, Jesus this all felt good, even as it highlighted that he had this kind of easy, fun rapport with so few other people in his life anymore. Mo and Noah and Sean—they were becoming his new brotherhood.
And Shayna…what was Shayna to him?
Beyond being his best friend’s sister, Billy didn’t know.
All he knew was that he was feeling torn in two when it came to this woman—torn between letting her go before he crossed anymore lines, and staking a claim and letting the chips fall where they may.
Chapter Thirteen
It turned out, the choice wasn’t going to be his.
“Billy?” Shayna said after they’d finished their burgers and fries and sat contemplating splitting dessert.
“Yeah?” He looked up from the mile-long menu. “You know what you want?”
She dropped her menu to the table and looked at him with a too-serious-to-be-about-ice-cream expression on her face. “Yes. Um, yeah, I think I’ve figured out something that I want.”
He frowned. “This isn’t about dessert, is it?”
“No. It’s about you. Or us. Or, I don’t know, about the fact that we were together and then never really had any conversation about whether that meant anything,” she said in a rush.
Wait. She thought there was a chance that hadn’t meant anything to him? He’d told her how crazy she made him…
Oooh, fucking hell, had she thought he’d only meant physically? “Shayna—”
