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“I feel very protective over you and me,” she murmurs, and I try not to tense hearing her say something she’s spoken before. She blinks a few times. “I don’t know why I said that to Moffy.”
I tell her, “Same reason it was hard for us to tell anyone what we were the first time around.” Her hand is on my thigh, and I slide my fingers against her palm. “Whatever we were or are, it’s always been this fragile fucking thing. Anyone else got their hands on it, anyone else knew about it, it felt like it’d just shatter. I dunno. We’re mighty, you and me, but fuck we’re unlucky. And I think we always knew that.”
Her breath shortens again, but her fingers curl over mine. “You think we shouldn’t be together with our kind of luck?”
I open my mouth to reply.
And the shrillestvoice rips into our moment. “Happy Birthday, Luna.” O’Malley hovers over us with the fakest smile I’ve ever seen. Last we talked, it’d been in the hospital on Halloween, where he’d been unusuallynice, but I figured that wouldn’t last once he heard I’m trying to be with a Hale.
I’m not an idiot. He didn’t come over here forpleasantriesand a quick hello. But if he’s starting shit with me, he rarely does it in front of Farrow. I cast a quick glance to my left.Farrow is gone.So is Maximoff. Their son probably needed a diaper change or something.
Luna is confused, not completely recognizing O’Malley among the neon lights. He’s currently assigned to Beckett’s detail, but she would know him as Audrey Cobalt’s full-time bodyguard.
“He’s no one,” I tell her.
“O’Malley,” he says, ignoring me. “Epsilon bodyguard.”
“Oookaay.” She squints more at him. “Are we…friends?”
“Friendly, yeah.”
I glare. Fuuuuckhim.“You’re not friends.” I shoot up to block him from her. Not like I have any extra inches on him.
We’re the same height.
Same age.
“That’s not for youto say,” O’Malley glares, sizing me up. “You wouldn’t knowanythingI’ve ever said to Luna. You weren’t there.” To her, he says, “I’ve been your bodyguard.”
She frowns, “I think I remember you when I was sixteen…”
What the fuck is he trying to pull?! I sidestep so he’s forced to look at me, not her. “That doesn’t make you friends.” I grind my teeth. “Don’tlieto her, man.”
He’s an inch from my face. “Like how you’ve been lying to her?”
Luna freezes.
I’m boiling. “What’s your fucking problem?” I sneer. “You hate me,hate me.Don’t fuck with her.”
“I wouldn’t fuck with her. But you…” He skims me up and down like I’m lower than trash, worse than scum. “What’d you tell her? That you were in love? How muchbullshithave you fed her and why the fuck is she trusting you over her own family?”
Luna is eating air, confused beyond belief.
O’Malley cocks his head to see her. “I know you better than he would—”
“Fuck you,” I block him again, seething from the inside out. Does he really believe that’s true? Thathecould possibly be closer to Luna than I am? Or is this just out of pure spite? Then I remember at Philly Comic-Con, Xander mentioned how O’MalleylikesLuna, and a territorial heat blankets my whole body. What’s he doing—trying to get with her?
O’Malley tries to look at heragain.I push him back. He stumbles near the mechanical shoot of bowling balls near the lane but stays upright. If anyone watches us, I don’t see. He’s the only person in my field of vision, and I hate that he keeps putting Luna in his.
So I’m only a foot from him, the wooden lane beneath my feet.
“How was it being back there?” O’Malley asks, alluding to South Philly, the row house where I found Luna. I see her cuffed to the bed, and rage scrapes against my eardrums like aluminum foil. “Feel right at home? Maybe you should’vestayed.”
“You wanna see my family?” I sneer under my breath. “I can give you their number. You can get your ass handed to you again.”
His chest bumps against mine. I don’t back down. He’s in my face as he says, “You must’ve told her some story to get her to fall for a piece of shit like you. But you know what I think? I think you raped her—”
I slam a fist in his jaw, wrath exploding with that one accusation. The punch should’ve knocked him over, but he’s ready with one in my gut. Next breath, we’re brawling down the bowling lane in front of the famous ones. In front of our bosses. The only thing I care about in this hot-blooded, acidic second is inflicting sheerpainupon O’Malley.
