Misfits Like Us (Like Us #11)(121)

I end up grinning, though. Knowing she’s as attracted to me as I am to her—that’s gotta be one of the biggest turn-ons. As she comes down with shallow breath, I catch her heady gaze and whisper, “And I thought I was easy.”

I know I’ve said something wrong the second she starts retreating into herself. Her eyes just…glaze.

I frown, my heart clenching. “Luna?” I pull more of my weight off her. Hovered above her body.

She tries to focus on me…but she’s not all there. “Sorry,” she whispers.

I shake my head. “I’m sorry—”

“It’s me,” she squeaks out, and I sit up off her while she reaches for the nightstand. Her arm isn’t long enough.

“Watcha looking for?”

“My vape.”

I crawl off Luna, grab her vape pen out of the drawer, and then switch her small air filter on. She’s already upright and leaning against the headboard, and after finding the remote in the comforter, I come sit beside her. I’m unsure of what just happened, but I can’t figure out how to press the topic without pressing on a wound, and I hesitate to hurt her in any capacity.

The window is already cracked, and the curtains are closed for privacy. But before Luna even smokes, she rests her cheek on my shoulder, nuzzled more against me, and I wrap an arm around her, easing and trying to think what could be bothering her.

I start remembering the frat party from this year.

The one I ended up going to. Just because I heard Luna was in trouble. I found her locked in an upstairs bathroom of the frat house, and some drunk fuck was trying to get in.

We’ve never talked about that night. Not once it passed.

I turn on the TV. “Was it the frat party?” I ask gently, but I’m more tensed. She might not even understand what the hell I’m asking, but after she takes a small puff on the vape, she shakes her head.

Her downcast eyes ascend to me. “That night at the frat house…I don’t think I’ve been that scared in a long time, and I’m really glad you showed up. Just hearing you…I knew everything was going to be okay.”

My chest rises in a deeper breath. “Wouldn’t have been anywhere else.” I touch her head with affection, and she just rests her cheek back on my shoulder.

Without raising her cheek off me, she takes another puff. “About before…I just…I started thinking about tabloids.” Her voice is so quiet that I strain to hear. “I don’t really want to talk about it, if that’s okay?”

“Yeah, it’s okay,” I assure instantly, but it dawns on me that tabloids have been calling Luna a sex addict for a while.

I called her easy.

Fuck…me.

But I’ve gotta say something. “I just wanna let the lava lamp know that I’m without a doubt the sluttiest one here. Print it. Engrave it. Send it to your mom.”

Her lips tic up. “The mother of lava lamps. A volcano.”

“Erupting and shit,” I add while she passes me the vape pen.

Afterwards, Luna kisses me, and I search her eyes before I lean further in. I’m the one deepening the kiss this time, and we slide beneath the comforter. Minutes pass where we’ve drawn off our last layers of clothing, but we just build up the moment without shooting for a release.

She’s laughing when I lick the side of her face.

“Tastes cosmic to me.”

Her smile bursts across her face. And we’re trying to focus on the TV as the night moves too fast. We both lean back up against the headboard, and I click into episode 12, the finale.

“Reactions have been good?” I wonder since I avoided all social media since last night.

“Uh-uh, I’m not saying a thing.” She smiles more. “Just watch.”

The anticipation is getting to me. I really hope this shit blows me away. “Ready?”

She nods, cuddling up against me with my arm back around her, and I press play. Ten minutes through, I’m yelling at the TV. “No, Frost! Don’t trust Strider—what the fuck are you doing, man?!” I toss my hands in the air. “Is this the twist? Frost acts like a fucking idiot at the most clutch second and tells Strider all about Callie’s power?”

Luna is grinning. She just mimes zipping her lips.

“Strider is gonna betray Frost and Callie and take over the Peak. I’m calling it. That’s the cliffhanger ending.”

She stays quiet. She’s a resilient one. True to her desires, she’s not spoiling anything for me. Halfway through the episode, Frost is running with Callie in his arms through the mansion at the Peak. She’s overheating, her arms dangling lifelessly.

A symptom of being an evolved: their cells mutate rapidly to maintain an advanced sequence, causing their internal temperature to be higher than a regular human. They can’t regulate their body temps very well, which is why their home is on a snowy mountain. Hence, the name of their residence—the Peak.

“She can’t die,” I say aloud. “She is the show.”

“Fans on Fanaticon think Frost is the show.”

“No way,” I shake my head. “It’s her.”

Luna shrugs. “I don’t think you can have the show without him either. He’s just as important.”

Maybe. While Frost dunks Callie in an ice bath, I peer over at Luna. Her leg has escaped the comforter, and I eye the ink along her thigh that rises to her hip. I’m roped in looking at the fine-line galaxy tattoo without her panties on. I was moving around the band of her thong when I inked each line. I can’t take all the credit for its beauty. Mostly, it’s her.