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She’s slumped, face torn. “It doesn’t feel like it is.” Her amber gaze drifts around the neon-lit bowling alley, seeing the bodyguards and family members who keep their distance. “They all have the right idea, you know,” she whispers. “It’s dangerous to be around me. I’m not saying the right things anymore.”
I tip my head towards Luna, catching her gaze. “Maybe I like a little danger.”
She gives me a look. “Really? Because it didn’t hurt when I said I barely knew you?”
I don’t break her gaze. “Not gonna lie to you. It hurt like hell.”
Her face shatters, and she blinks back tears. “I’m horrible. Horrible. Horrible,” she mutters.
“You’re not,” I say so quietly, my voice aches. “You’re not.” I rest my arm against the back of her chair, but Luna bows toward me. I can’t tear my eyes off her, and she’s so locked into me, the bowling alley might as well be empty. Colorful lights strobe over her features, but the greens and blues soften the despair on her round face.
I barely pick up her whispered words, “It hurt me too.”
“I know,” I breathe.
“How?”
“It was written on your face.”
Her fingers graze the rip in my jeans on my kneecap. I stop myself from holding her. She barely knows you. She knows me. She’s looking at me like she sees all of me, and I can’t explain how she could.
“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 shrillest voice 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 unusually nice, 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 for pleasantries and 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. Fuuuuck him. “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 you to say,” O’Malley glares, sizing me up. “You wouldn’t know anything I’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’t lie to 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 much bullshit have 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? That he could 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’Malley likes Luna, and a territorial heat blankets my whole body. What’s he doing—trying to get with her?
O’Malley tries to look at her again. 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.
