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A thought rolls through my head while digesting what Emma said, one voice so clear against all the others.
Can I kiss you, Blue…?
It hangs inside my mind whispering with the answer I’ve always wondered, the voice still there when I follow Emma’s stare to watch Blue walk into the kitchen.
Amélie
“Can you help me bring some of the platters out to the pool deck for lunch? I think I made way too much food if it’s just us girls.”
Luca looks across the kitchen island at me, her brown hair falling over one shoulder as she chews at a fingernail while surveying the feast she’s prepared.
As far as I know, it’s only supposed to be five of us girls eating, but by the amount of fruit, cheese, lunch meats and other finger foods that Luca’s prepared, one would think she’s catering a large party meant for fifty people.
Damon and I arrived at Tanner’s house a few hours early. We’d driven straight here from my mom’s. During the drive, I was still exhausted from the emotional breakdown I had, and Damon was oddly quiet, but I brushed that off as him being tired from the late-night drive.
It’s not like we spent a lot of time recovering this morning. By the time I woke up, Damon was in the kitchen talking to Mom while Kane was starting breakfast.
I looked at Mom and couldn’t manage what I was feeling. All the questions from last night resurfaced, my body stilling in place as anxiety crept up my spine, threatening to take me down with an early morning panic attack or worse.
Mom took one look at me and smiled, the expression sad as if she were disappointed to see me.
Releasing Damon’s hands, she’d stood from the table and approached me, stood in front of me like she was going to give me a hug, but I flinched back at the contact, too upset at that moment to stay strong and finally face her for the first time in two years.
“I love you, Amélie,” was all she said before making an excuse to head back to her bedroom for a nap, and I knew it for the excuse it was.
After that, there was no convincing me to stay for breakfast. I wanted to go, get the hell on the road and back to the city to escape everything seeing her had brought back.
Before we left, Damon and Kane made plans to meet up regarding the flash drive, but I was already in the car, my eyes locked on the road that would take me away from a situation I was not ready to handle.
On the drive back, I didn’t let Damon bring it up, couldn’t listen when he tried telling me his secrets as if that would work again.
I was incapable of facing either of our pasts.
Anger at my life had completely devoured me. That storm around Damon was now around me, and I couldn’t allow him to stand beside me within it.
By the time we reached Tanner’s, Damon and I weren’t talking, but thankfully Luca snatched me up as soon as we walked through the door, her calm demeanor washing over me enough that I could snap out of my bullshit to help her with lunch.
We both grab one of the many platters then I follow her through the house toward the back pool area. The silence between us is awkward, so I paste on my fake persona—the happy, smiling woman who has no problems, no family issues, no mom who has torn me up completely.
“Sorry about what happened last night,” I say, attempting conversation.
Luca turns just enough to glance at me, her knee helping balance the platter so she can free a hand to open the back door.
“What do you mean?”
“The thing with Shane and your dad. That must have been rough.”
Her cheeks blush a shade of pink. “It was a misunderstanding, and I’m embarrassed you had to witness all of that. Shane didn’t kill my dad. We worked it out late last night after you left with Damon.”
Ah … well. There went the only topic I really had to talk about that didn’t make this awkward.
Luca places her platter down on a long table near an immaculate pool, the water glimmering beneath sunlight.
“Did you two have any luck with your brother and the flash drive?”
I place my platter down on the table a little too carefully.
“You’ll have to ask Damon about that. He talked to Kane more than I did.”
