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“Can I see?” I reach into my back pocket where I stuffed a half-empty bottle of water. The plastic crinkles as I pull it out.
“It was an elbow to the mouth.” She lowers her hand, her bottom lip swollen and bloodied. “I just got in the way…I was trying to help.”
“Consequences of being a ride-or-die, I know it well.”
She smiles a little.
“Can I touch…?” I motion to her lip.
She nods, and I gently peel her bottom lip down, seeing a tiny gash in her gums, made by her teeth—which are all intact. “Doesn’t look like you need stitches, but I’m not a doctor.” Blood still stains her teeth, so I pass her the water to swish. “If you don’t want to swallow, you can spit in the plant over there.”
Her flush inches higher with her smile, and it makes me grin back, especially as she says, “You never know what powers you might get by swallowing.”
I smirk. “You seem pretty powerful to me already.”
She grins into a gulp of water. “I am a swallower.”
I make a rock on gesture.
“Donnelly,” Ian reprimands, still in earshot. He acts like I’m crossing an invisible line. One I’ve seen him hurdle plenty of times. He’s taken whiskey shots on-duty before with the manager of Tom’s band, and I said nothing.
As long as he wasn’t slurring or stumbling, I figured he could still do his job. Now Epsilon is becoming a buncha Thatcher Moretti clones, and there should only be one of him.
“Dude, he’s fine,” Tom tells his bodyguard. “They’re friends.” He gestures between Luna and me.
That’s all we are.
Reality grates at me, and Luna’s smile is gone. She slowly caps the water bottle. I run my fingers through my hair, looking her over—wishing I could draw her into my chest. Still wishing for more.
How greedy do I need to be? It feels like I’ve already been granted a hundred second chances, but I know those were of my own making. I ran after them.
Fought for them.
I don’t even know if I believe in miracles as much as I believe in persistence.
Ian bristles and looks between Luna and Beckett like he’s thinking no one should be friends with me.
“Can you wait outside?” Beckett asks SFE as a collective whole. “I know there’s some tension between both firms, but I want to talk to Donnelly in private. You can give me that, can’t you?”
Ian scowls. Vance and Novak narrow devil eyes on to me. I’ve seen spoiled ham hoagies that are scarier. They do comply and start to exit, but on their way out, I hear someone mutter, “Fucking Donnelly.”
As soon as the door clicks shut, Luna fills me in quickly. “Eliot, Tom, and Beckett know about the fake headline. I told them it’s not real, but they were wondering about the why.”
The why.
Why are Connor and Lo trying to make the world believe I’m halfway out the door? That I’m close to being canned? Too easily, I could just say it’s because of the assault—brush it off as if it’s only to protect the families, but it’s so much more than just that.
14
LUNA HALE
Evading the whole truth, nothing but the truth, is a skill that Donnelly and I seem to share, and for once, it’d be wiser if we remain vague. Even if my heart wants to explode a million honesties.
“What’s going on?” Beckett asks Donnelly directly. There isn’t malice in my cousin’s eyes for everything that’s gone down, just confusion. Like Donnelly has trapped him in defenseless fog, and by the knitting of Donnelly’s brows, I can tell he hates that. I doubt it’s something he’d ever purposefully do to a friend.
“It’s a lot,” Donnelly says vaguely.
Smart.
Wise.
He is a Ravenclaw after all.
My pulse goes haywire, catapulting up and down, but this is good.
It’s good. It’s practical. It’s the right thing, and I do want to do the right thing for everyone. The best thing. I don’t want to be selfish, but the selfish pieces of me are crying.
“Great, I love excess,” Eliot says, still hunting for answers. “I love complicated, messy. Where’s the fun in safety?”
“No fun at all,” Tom agrees and waves Donnelly on. “As you were.”
My best friends can be relentless.
Donnelly scratches the side of his jaw, and I try not to imagine running my palms over his stubble. The way he exists is sexy. It’s the confidence in himself, in who he is. His biceps look cut and sculpted in his tight black AC/DC shirt, and I have trouble not picturing those arms snug around me.
Sometimes, in quiet moments, I pretend we’re a rare species that needs physical touch from a soul mate to survive. Connecting and reconnecting forever. And recently, I’ve been dying, starved, and longing for Donnelly to run his hands all over me.
To stop my speeding pulse, I chime in, “Donnelly is right. It’s a lot. Maybe we should just talk about this another time.” Without Beckett here.
