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Descending, she whispers, “You okay?”
“Getting there,” I whisper back. “You see Farrow?”
Her gaze falls. “Yeah.” She edges closer. “He seemed really upset. I could tell he wanted to be alone with Moffy.”
Farrow was only defending me, but he ended up trapped in a place that I know he would never want to be.
When we’re alone on the 30th floor, Oscar and Charlie are gone. Walking down the hall together, Luna says, “I didn’t think Farrow would be that upset. It’s not like he took Charlie’s bait.”
“Me and him have high bars on what fathers should be.” I glance over at her. “Because we haven’t had great ones, and I doubt he wanted Ripley to see or hear that at all.”
Luna looks saddened. “He’s such an awesome dad. Ripley loves him. He’s always trying to imitate Farrow.”
I think back to Ripley’s adoption. How I got Scottie to terminate his parental rights, knowing that the baby would be raised by my best friend. Wouldn’t have chosen anyone else. Ripley deserves to be raised in a household with unwavering love, and that place is with Maximoff and Farrow.
I’ve never questioned that.
I never will.
Luna suddenly says, “I don’t think you’re diseased. Everything Charlie said about you was wrong.”
“I know,” I nod once. “I’m not bent out of shape over it. He can call me a landfill, a walking STD—doesn’t mean I am one.”
“Even though it’s a Cobalt who said it?” She knows how much I respect the Cobalt Empire, and being shit on by one of them isn’t giving me heart eyes.
“He was just looking out for you,” I say. “Can’t fault him for that.” I lived up in New York with him and Beckett. Charlie’s always been direct. Blunt. He shoots shotgun shells at close range, so you have to pay attention, but someone usually gets hurt. Gun was aimed for me this time, but I just feel like he took out my best friend instead.
I slow our pace, not ready for Frog to splice into my time alone with Luna.
She’s in deep thought. “Sometimes I think Charlie wants to feel a kinda pain that he can’t reach, and he targets people who he believes can take it and give it back.”
“Like your brother?” I realize.
“Yeah, like Moffy.” She shrugs. “It’s just a theory.” She adjusts her backpack. “Considering he doesn’t go after me at all and just tried to warn me against you, he probably thinks of me as a sheep.” Luna baaahs like a lamb.
I smile over and baaah right back. “I called you hot if you didn’t get that.”
She grins, cheeks flushed. “Understood it, since I called you a hot lambchop. Guess we’re still speaking the same language.”
“Guess so.” God, I’d love to fling my arm over her shoulders. Can’t. Feels intimate. So was calling her hot, but fuck me, I see a clear path to her, it’s more unnatural to swerve into traffic. “Joke’s on Charlie though ‘cause you’re definitely not a sheep, but I’m fucking glad he thinks you are.”
“Why?”
“Because if he went at you, I’d be in his face.”
Can’t even imagine how Farrow has felt watching a guy repeatedly go at the love of his life. I’d lose my mind.
November sunshine beats down on a fancy garden, complete with marble fountains, white rose bushes, and autumn flowers. Never been to this place. It’s outside Philly with no city noises. If I strain my ears enough, I can hear chipmunks rustling beneath manicured hedges of a maze we’re currently navigating.
Feels like I stepped into Alice in Wonderland, and I’m not particularly fond of mazes. They’re harder to escape, and I’m mentally trying to file every twist and turn we’re taking.
Comms are quiet in my ear.
Jane and Luna are several feet ahead of us, which makes me uneasy. Frog and I should be out front, not strolling behind ‘em at a leisurely walk-in-the-park pace, but Jane was adamant that she chart the course.
“I’m trying to find the best spot for cocktail hour between the ceremony and reception,” she said.
It’s hard to deny Jane.
Hell, it’s hard for me to say no to most girls.
“You’re not missing much at the apartment,” Frog chats with me while we walk and watch our clients from a distance. “Unless you count the inescapable sounds of Quinn screwing his girlfriend. I swear they’re even louder than her crying gerbil.”
“I remember those days where Quinnie got laid.” I try not to study Luna more than Jane, who I’m supposed to be protecting. “Didn’t think he was that loud though.”
“It sounded like furniture got knocked over.”
Never heard anything that aggressive through his door. “You sure they were having sex?”
Frog peels her gaze off Luna, just to side-eye me. “It doesn’t take having sex to know what sex sounds like.”
“I didn’t ask ‘cause you’re a virgin.” I hold her gaze for a half beat.
