Page 97 of Insidious

Fae has outright stopped pretending to garden now. She looks like she needs popcorn.

I don’t care.

“There is no version of my life,” I say, each word glacial, “where you and I end up together.”

Chloe flinches like she’s been physically struck.

“No version,” I repeat. “Not in uni. Not now. Not twenty years from now.”

Her breathing is ragged now.

“I don’t love you,” I say. “I was never in love with you.”

That one hurts her. Good.

“Have some self-respect,” I tell her with what I hope is enough steel in my voice. “And get gone.”

For a second, Chloe just stands here, staring at me like she’s waiting for me to tell her I am joking.

But I am no longer the idiot she could pull around with tears and obligation and my mother’s disappointment. I know it, but Luna needs to hear it as well.

And Chloe finally sees that I am not changing my mind as I step back, forcing my wife to back up and close the door gently.

Through the little screen on the door, I watch as she turns blindly and walks away down the pavement.

Fae suddenly becomes very interested in pruning again.

I hear Will’s kitchen window slam shut.

And I just stand here, breathing hard, hoping it is finally over.

Luna is giving me a very strange look over her shoulder. Then she whispers, with a smile that makes me straighten up, “Too bad we are not fucking, because if we were, I would take you upstairs and ride you till your eyes cross.”

Chapter 26

Luna

The second we see her walk away, a particular kind of silence sizzles between us, broken only by our daughter’s gurgles. An awareness we took for granted has been absent for a while … until now.

For a moment, we stand here, me in front, peeping into the screen while Isaac is behind me with his hands braced against the door on either side of me. We both savour the tension that used to be second nature to us.

Then I turn, and Isaac is right here with this expression on his face.

His arms come around me and Amelie, pulling us against him so tightly that I let out a startled breath. Our girl, the world’s cutest and most effective contraceptive, squawks indignantly between us, trapped in the middle of whatever emotional breakdown her parents are apparently having.

“Don’t say things like that,” he whispers roughly into my hair.

“What things?”

“About riding me …” His arms are gentle, but there is no give. “Don’t say it unless you mean it. Don’t even joke about it.”

Up close, I can see how blown his pupils are, eating up almost all the blue of his eyes. Adrenaline makes the vein in his neck throb, and a flush rises from his neck up to his cheeks. He looks furious and shaken and something else entirely.

His gaze drops to my mouth with intent to derail my thought process.

Let’s face it, there is absolutely nothing sexy about me right now.

I smell faintly of baby sick. My hair is a disaster. There’s probably dried milk somewhere on my shirt.