Misfits Like Us (Like Us #11)(97)

His large palm kneads my breast, and a moan I’ve never made leaves my parted lips.

I’m swept up in new raw feelings.

I’ve never loved kissing as much as I love kissing Donnelly, and I can’t stop. We kiss and kiss and tug at each other and feel up one another like it’s our life’s purpose. He presses me up against a mirror, and I hike my leg around his waist.

He’s about to lift me up, but he stops short. We’re breathing heavy. His lips are reddened and a little green and glittery from my lip gloss. Our tears have been dried against our palms. Against the swell of passion that has been brewing for so long.

I can’t see how it could ever be bottled up again.

“Where do we go from here, Luna?” he breathes, his chest rising strongly. “Because I can’t rewind…”

He can’t rewind to what was.

I touch his fingertips to my fingertips, and I whisper, “I don’t look back.”

His reddened eyes are on mine again.

“You don’t look back,” I tell him what he once told me.

He touches one of the sparkly antennas on my head. “I’m not looking back, sad alien. ‘Cause I really want to kiss you again.”

My lungs are soaring out of my body.

“I’m not so sad right now,” I say with a nod. “I’m the happiest I’ve been in a long, long time.” It’s still trying to settle with me. He’s SB. The guy I’ve been talking to for weeks is standing right here. I keep looking. Keep trying to piece it all together. His eyes sweep me in the same frenzied state, and I wonder if he’s doing the same mental gymnastics as me.

And then my phone buzzes.

Shit. Kinney. I dig out my phone from the pocket of my dress. “Sorry, it’s my sister.”

Where are you??? If you didn’t want to come, you coulda just said so. – Kinney





My face roasts, upset with myself. “I’m supposed to meet Kinney in the attic for a séance, and I got lost and now she’s pissed at me.”

“I’ll take you there,” Donnelly says swiftly, wiping at his reddened lips. They must sting like mine. We weren’t that gentle.

“You sure?” I ask softly.

“Can’t think of anywhere else I’d rather be.” He shrugs like it’s a simple statement, but it really swells inside me.

I text Kinney that I’m on my way as I follow Donnelly out of our disco-mirror space haven. We go up a wide flight of stairs, stealing glances at one another.

He’s SB. I let that roll around in my head again. SB doesn’t exist. Not in the way I imagined, at least. SB was some guy on the internet that my dad didn’t actively hate. I’m not upset Donnelly is SB. The opposite actually. It feels like fated spools of thread. But now that I know my dad would hate SB and Donnelly, since they are one and the same, a wave of protectiveness crashes into me.

“I don’t want anyone to ruin this,” I suddenly whisper to him.

His eyes crinkle at me. “How do you mean?”

“My dad, my brother—I just want this to feel as good as it does tomorrow.” I try not to look at my feet. “What we have, I don’t want them to ruin it.”

“Yeah,” he whispers with a heavy nod, understanding. “I’ve never been in love before, and the idea of someone coming in and trying to murder that isn’t sitting well with me either. Plus, I don’t like…” He exhales a strained breath. “I don’t like putting you in a bad place with your family.”

“If it happens, it won’t be your fault,” I whisper, but that doesn’t make him ease any. “I’m a good secret-keeper.” I hook my pinky with his as we ascend the stairs.

His pinky hooks mine tighter.

When we climb into the dusty, dark attic, I call out, “Kinney?!” I hear nothing, and I expect a fierce shhh! in return, but it’s quiet. I walk along the creaky floorboards and peer behind a mannequin. Trunks are locked shut, and an old, deflated football lies among an even older baseball bat. “It doesn’t look like they’ve been here.”

“No candles,” Donnelly frowns. “They must be in the other attic.”

“There are two attics—” I cut myself off as my foot plunges into a floorboard. “Shit.” I wince in pain and try to wiggle free.

Donnelly rushes to my side. “Hold still, Luna.” He touches my ankle and tries to help me lift my foot. I’m wearing sandals, and a piece of the board has dug into my skin, pain flaring. He touches his mic at his collar. “Farrow to Donnelly, you there?”

My face flames, trying not to get upset at the turn of my luck.

“The attic,” Donnelly says. “Yeah, I need you. Okay.” He drops the mic. “Shh, shh, Luna.” He wipes my cheeks as tears leak.

“It’s the Hale Curse,” I look him in the eye. “Everything that could go wrong will go wrong to a Hale.”

“No, it’s not,” he says with pain in his face.

“It is—”

“I’m the one who made that up,” he interjects fast.

I shake my head, confused.

“The Hale Curse,” Donnelly says. “I made that phrase up a long time ago. There’s the origin. Me. I called your family the Bad Luck Crew—”