Cracked Kingdom (The Royals #5)(92)

When the toasts are done and the champagne kisses are performed, the DJ cranks up the music, filling the massive lawn with heavy dance beats. Dylan hops from foot to foot, anxious to get out on the dance floor. She scans the crowd, looking for a partner. Her gaze stops on the twins, who are seated at a table a couple feet away.

“This is pretty, right?” Dylan asks them.

Seb nods. Or Sawyer. I can’t tell them apart anymore. They’re both sarcastic, charming, and dangerous. They’ve broken more hearts in the last five months than I thought was humanly possible. It’s almost like they’re in a contest to see who can bed and leave the most girls in Bayview before they’re seniors. But they’re kind to Dylan, as evidenced by the fact that they aren’t saying something bitingly sarcastic about their barely twenty brother and their teenage foster sister getting married, and so I can’t fault them.

She gives them a sweet smile. “And the music is lit.”

They nod again.

“And everyone’s happy.”

Another nod.

Her smile widens even more. “Four years and it’ll be our turn.”

I blink at the random statement. Four years? What is she babbling about now?

“Four years?” One of them raises his eyebrow.

“Our turn?” The other one is slightly panicked.

“Yeah, I’ll be eighteen then.”

“So?” says the one with the upturned eyebrow. The other twin, the smart one, is half out of his chair and looking ready to flee.

“So that’s when we’ll get married,” Dylan announces.

I nearly swallow my tongue. The boys exchange a look, the kind where they have an entire conversation about how inappropriate my sister is. They both get to their feet.

“We’ll have it here just like Ella, but with more flowers. I like roses.”

I slap a hand across Dylan’s mouth. “She’s kidding,” I assure the twins.

She pushes her wet tongue between my fingers.

“Ugh, yuck, Dylan.”

“I’m not kidding,” she declares. “I’m going to marry them when I’m eighteen.”

“Which one?”

“Duh,” she says. “You can’t split them up.”

And then she flounces off, leaving the three of us staring after her with shocked expressions. At least…I’m shocked. I’m not sure I can read the twins’ faces. No. I don’t want to read their faces. Deliberately, I turn away. I didn’t see anything there, I tell myself. Nothing is there.

Easton appears at my side to stick a champagne flute in my hand. “Do you want the real stuff or is grape juice okay?”

“This is good.” I take a sip of the sparkling juice and let the bubbles tickle the inside of my mouth. I’ll worry about Dylan in four years, I decide. No need to share what just transpired with Easton. He’ll lock Dylan in the carriage house and not let her out. This is a phase. She’ll grow out of it. I hope.

“I never thought I’d be giving a toast at a wedding or that I’d drink juice in celebration.” He crinkles his nose.

“Both are perfect. You make a good Man of Honor.”

“Best. Man.”

I grin, take another sip, then turn my attention to the dark water lapping quietly against the sand.

“What are we doing out here?” Easton asks, resting his chin on the top of my head.

“I’m making a memory.”

“Ahh.” He wraps his arms around my shoulders. “I think it’d be a better one if we took your dress off.”

I shiver, but it’s not from the cold. “My sister did say earlier we should get a room.”

He places a hot kiss on the side of my neck. “Dylan’s the smartest girl I know.”

Smiling broadly, Easton takes my hand and leads me across the dance floor, under a floral arch, onto the cobblestone courtyard and up the stairs of our home to make a new memory.