Chapter Forty-Two
Rayne
It’s almost midnight when I get home. I shower away the studio make-up, slide into my satin pjs, and tuck my hair beneath a silk bonnet. The noise of the party is now replaced by the low timber of DK’s voice.
“You were exceptional, Loo-nah.” His velvety rasp comes through the phone lying on my pillow. “Masterful. Brilliant.”
“Mhm.” I curl deeper under the covers with a sleepy half-smile. I’m too exhausted to put up much of a fight. “Don’t think a little late-night flattery is going to get you off the hook. I know all about your secret little powwows with my dad.”
“They weren’t secret.”
“Oh, really. So I just missed the memo on the father-boyfriend meetings?”
“You had a debate to prepare for. I wanted more information on Hollis’s patterns, and I wasn’t going to distract you or drag you back to that dark place while you were trying to focus. So I went to your dad. We’ve been mutually venting, which keeps usfrom doing something illegal, and getting to know each other in the process. Win-win.”
“That’s incredibly low,” I groan. “How am I supposed to maintain my righteous anger when your gesture is kinda romantic?”
“You’re not really mad about it, are you?”
“No,” I assure him. “I’m glad you two are bonding. I just wish Hollis wasn’t the catalyst. But I’ve already given him enough of my energy tonight.”
“You didn’t, Luna,” he says, and I hear that same fervent pride I caught in his eyes earlier. “You took his energy, repurposed it, and claimed that entire stage for yourself.”
Tears sting my eyes. “Have I told you lately that I love you?”
“Not for sixteen hours, twenty-three minutes, and forty seconds.”
“Boy, stop. You did not just calculate the exact timestamp.”
“I might be off by a few seconds,” he says with a grin, the sheets rustling in the background.
That’s always the hardest part. The reminder that he’s in his bed and I’m in mine. Six blocks away, connected only by a phone call.
“I miss you so much,” I sigh, tracing a finger over the empty space on the mattress. “I don’t know what’s worse, not seeing you at all, or you standing right there looking all fine in your suits and pocket squares while I have to keep my hands to myself.”
He makes a rough, gravelled sound. “It’s pure torture for me too, but I have some good news.”
“What?” I perk up, the exhaustion forgotten.
“Neo said the lake house is available this Sunday. Someone shortened their stay.”
My pulse kicks.
“We could spend the whole day together,” he continues. “And if you can swing it, the night, too.”
A breathless thrill shoots through me. Total privacy. No chance of getting caught. Just time together. And a shared bed with DK’s solid warmth pressed against me all night.
“I’m sure I can move around some things on Monday morning,” I say, already mentally rearranging my schedule.
“I can’t wait to have you all to myself, Luna.”
I smile into the darkness and start the three-day countdown.
We decided on separate cars to eliminate even the slightest risk of anyone seeing us together. Lot keeps me entertained for the last hour of the drive, regaling me with the latest Queenie escapades. I’ve never been much of a cat person, and living with Queenie for a few weeks when Lot was in town hadn’t changed my mind. That diva was a demanding, snarling, holy terror that Lot swears has toned down thanks to cat play therapy and chamomile drops. Personally, it sounds like too much trouble, but her feline stories crack me up.
“So, I was styling a vintage shirt for a client…” Lot says through the Bluetooth speakers. “And Queenie gets hold of the crafting glitter. Ray, she lapped that stuff up like it was premium catnip. I told Dice to take it away from her, and do you know this two-hundred-pound grown man had the nerve to tell me he wasn’t about to tussle with no lit’l bitty cat, and get his pretty face clawed off?” She kisses her teeth, dragging the sound across the dashboard. “Girl’s been shitting glitter for days. Litter box looking like she was at a rave.”
My laughter fills the interior. “I’m with Dice on this one. I would’ve let that hellcat eat the whole container, too.”
