Page 40 of Ash Fall

Love for her squeezes my heart, and that's a problem I've been avoiding for a long time. Wanting Luna isn't new for me. I knew years ago that whatever I felt for her had stopped being simple friendship, but there was always a reason not to touch it. Her grief, baseball, the distance, timing, and the big one, the other guys. Then the world cracked apart before any of us had a chance to figure out what came next. Now there are no games to get back to and no twelve-hour drives between us. There's absolutely no fucking excuse left for pretending I don't know what happens inside me every time she reaches for my hand. Unfortunately, there are still the other guys who feel the same way about her. And now there's Mars.

Jesus fucking Christ. I don't have enough mental bandwidth for that mess today.

"That's Jules's place?"

Luna leans forward as I turn into the long circular driveway next door.

"Yep."

I shake my head at the size of it. "Rich people."

She glances at me. "You say that like Reid and Jules haven't been buying your broke, baseball playing ass dinner for years."

"That's friendship. Completely different."

"Uh huh."

I follow the drive around, thinking rich people must be morally opposed to backing out of places based on all these circular driveways they all have. Jules's house is every bit as excessive as the Channing place next door. The motorhome is parked near the front steps, and by the time I pull in behind him, Jules is coming outside with Gage and someone else.

I put the truck in park. "Who's that?"

Luna leans forward to look past me. "Where?"

"With Jules."

The third person is a girl younger than us, from what I can tell. She's standing beside a growing collection of boxes while Jules points toward the motorhome and says something to Gage.

Luna shakes her head with a frown. "I don't know."

Behind us, the Escalade and Jeep pull into the drive. Mars parks first, then Reid swings in behind him. Luna releases my hand and reaches to open her door. The loss of her touch shouldn't bother me as much as it does, but I ache for it now more than ever.

Everyone starts piling out at once. Gage is already opening one of the motorhome's storage compartments when I walk around the front of my truck. Jules has raided his house just as thoroughly as Reid and Kara raided theirs. Boxes are stacked across the driveway along with bags and a few things I can't identify from here.

The girl stands in the middle of it all with her arms crossed. Then Kara gets out of the Escalade. She takes one look at the girl and stops dead. Her entire face changes. Not dramatically, because Kara doesn't do dramatic unless she's choosing to. Her mouth tightens slightly, her eyes narrow, and every bit of her body goes rigid.

Well, that's promising. Exactly what this apocalypse needs.

Luna comes around the truck and stops beside me. "Who is that?"

Kara shuts the SUV door harder than necessary. "Jules's little sister, Briar."

Luna's face immediately softens. "What? How did I not know Jules had a little sister. She's so..."

"No." Kara holds up one finger before Luna can finish. "Whatever sweet, nurturing thing that is about to come out of your mouth, stop it immediately."

Luna blinks at her. "I was just going to say she's so young."

"Your face was saying more."

"My face doesn't talk."

"Yours absolutely does, with a full range of subtitles. Whatever adorable little sister scenario you're building in your head, destroy it immediately."

"I wasn't building a scenario."

"You have the face."

"What face?"