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“What are you talking about?” Kell snaps. “This is a perfect solution, okay? From a lot of angles than the obvious.”
“Perfect?Not exactly what sprang to my mind first. Or even second.”
“As I can clearly smell.” Kell wrinkles her nose to match her forehead. “But look around. Who do younotsee, still circling their little wagons around your campfire?” She pushes back the edges of my jacket, still hanging around Kara like an oversized poncho, to poke at her sister’s stomach. “Veronica Valari and Nancy Kane. That’s who. And if we pick a poofy enough wedding gown for you, we can probably get away with pushing the big day to December. That gives you nearly three months of breathing space, for the most part—which is also, hopefully, enough time to outline a workable plan of dissolving Hecate’s grand scheme.”
“The big day.” Kara echoes it in a rickety mutter while defeat takes over her posture. “A poofy gown. Oh, God. I already don’t like it.”
“Because you’re already forgetting thebreathing spacepart.” Kell tugs at the jacket’s lapels until Kara jerks her head back up. “Hey. Listen to me. All you need to do is tell Veronica and Nancy that you trust their judgment about stuff and that they should do whatever they feel is best—”
“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”
“From a strategic standpoint, yes. From a major cringe standpoint, not so much.”
“Yeah, definitely not feeling any better,” Kara mutters.
“I know.” Kell’s tone softens, now as benign and knowing as her touch. The kind of sentience that only a sibling can possess, after years of conversations the world will never be privy to. Not even me. “I really do know, honey,” she adds. “But let’s try to manifest a silver lining. Since this isn’t going down exactly like Veronica dreamboarded it, maybe she’ll change up a few things. Lay off on the pageantry a little bit.”
Kara’s sharp laugh causes Kell to startle. “Oh, sure. Because that’s absolutely going to happen,” she quips. “I mean, with a demigod at the end of the aisle instead of an incubus, that changes everything. No need for a speck of grandeur now.”
I’ve been maintaining a respectful distance but now cut into the boundary by clearing my throat. “So…I’m the big, gaudy parade float in the middle of the room? Is that it?”
“No.” Kara rushes toward me with urgent steps, amber light flashing from beneath her shirt. “No, my love. That’s not it at all.” Her hands press both sides of my face. “And even if it were, I’d hop on for every minute of the parade route.”
Our stolen moment of a tender kiss is pierced by Kell’s long groan. “Bordering on TMI, sister. Maybe a few steps past the border.”
She ignores the commentary, curling her fingers deeper into my beard. “I love you.” And then pulls my lips back down to hers. “And I want to spend my life with you. The next life too. All of eternity, if the cosmos allows.”
Though I cherish the kiss as much as its predecessor, I’m the one to inch away first. My intention is to ensure our gazes lock, but I wuss out and fix on the tip of her nose instead. “But you don’t want to marry me.”
Kara twists her lips. Hard. I know because I’m looking right at them. I imagine Kell’s are configured similarly, if her harsh huff is any clue.
“And that is completely my cue to find a way out of here.” She slides around behind Kara. “Anyway out of here. But preferably by way of popping back through the Ferragamo store…”
The elevator doors aren’t done closing on Kell before I have her sister in a tighter hold, where she’s obligated to look nowhere but up at me. I’m waiting for the impact of her wide but tremulous browns, taking me in with tiny sprints of uncertainty.
“Maximus…”
“Don’t.” I press a gentle hand to her face. “Let’s just move on, okay? You don’t have to explain anything.”
More truthfully, I don’t want her to. She’s ready to, as conveyed by the focus in her stare and the urgency in her touch, but her confession will mean I’ve got to give up mine. That until three weeks ago, I was the one who assumed I’d always be onherside of this discussion. The one who’d seen, through so many years of my life, what kind of toll got paid in the aftermath of deep emotional commitment. All the nights when Mom sobbed herself to sleep, thinking I wasn’t still up reading under my covers. All the days we’d be enjoying a walk to the store or park, and she’d drift off to a memory that sent rogue tears down her cheeks. All the times I wanted to hug that pain away from her soul but knew even my brute power wasn’t enough.
All the times I vowed to never let anyone have that kind of power over me. To never surrender myself that fully. To never make a vow intended until the day one of us died. Which was technically the same thing, right?
Wrong.
I’ve been so wrong.
But the joy of that concession also brings its pain. An agony I willingly endure as Kara lifts her gaze fully back to mine.
“Please,” she rasps. “I need to say it.” She seems grateful for the long pause before my small nod, consenting her confession. “I love you, Maximus. With everything I am and everything I will ever be.”
I arch both brows. “But?”
“But…marriage…and weddings…those weren’t ever quixotic words for me. Not growing up, at least. They were always talked about like transactions. Something I’d have to endure. Nothing different than getting my wisdom teeth pulled or going on a press junket for a new product endorsement. It wasn’t until I was thirteen, at a birthday party for one of Kell’s dance club friends, when I first realized that white lace and promises were supposed to be good things, not sentences.”
“Thirteen?” Though my tone is soft, my stare has intensified. I stretch my fingertips into the edge of her hairline. “My God. You were practically an old maid.”
“To a bunch of jaded girls from West LA, I was. They decided to show some goopy romantic saga at the party—which apparently, they’d all seen a hundred times before. The movie wasn’t half over before they were all passing joints and playing some kind of kissing game with each other. But I couldn’t keep my eyes off the screen, especially during the big, emotional wedding scene.”
