Lovers Like Us (Like Us #2)(79)

His brows cinch. “But you knew he liked you before that?”

I pop my gum. “Back on Lily’s detail, sometimes I could tell he was attracted to me, but I knew he wouldn’t act on it.”

“You weren’t attracted to him then?” he asks, voice edged.

I look away and comb a hand through my hair. “You’re asking hard shit.”

“How is that hard?” he snaps.

“Because he’s…” I roll my eyes and say clearly, “He’s your son.”

Lo drills an iced glare. “He was my son before you slept with him, too. But that didn’t stop you from talking to me then.”

I rub my bottom lip. “Okay, but I don’t want you to revisit all the conversations we’ve ever had in the past and think that I was standing there pining after your son. I wasn’t.”

Lo clenches his jaw. “I want to believe you, but I’m finding it difficult trusting you for some strange reason. Oh wait, I remember why.” He flashes a dry half-smile.

“How about we start over?” I ask.

Lo is petty, and I’m not surprised when he says, “Maybe, maybe not.” He waves me to continue. “You never answered me.” About being attracted to Maximoff…

I chew my gum slowly. “I wasn’t always single, Lo. Did I care about Maximoff? Yeah. Was I attracted to Maximoff, three, four years ago? Yeah, but I can be attracted to men and never date them or fuck them. Shit, I wouldn’t even call us friends. We were barely acquaintances back then.” I shake my head in thought. “He was young, and I was doing my own thing.”

Lo contemplates my words with a paternal glare that’s never been directed at me. I glance at the door. I want to check on my boyfriend, but I can’t hang up on his dad.

“You broke Lily’s heart,” he says, which means that I broke his too.

I swallow a rock. “I know.” She made me promise to keep Maximoff safe, and I know she’s blaming herself, believing that I slept with him instead of protecting him, and she trusted me. “I’m sorry.” I eye the door again, and I stand and grab a water from the mini-fridge.

I wait.

Lo watches me.

“Anything else?”

“No.” He hangs up at that, and I roll my eyes again. Out of this room fast. All the girls are in a giggling fit on the floor. Pointing at the ceiling.

Oscar nods to me, then the bathroom. “Boyfriend is—”

“I know.” I enter the small bathroom and find Maximoff sitting against the wall, near the toilet. His forearms on his bent knees. Skin more flushed. Looking better.

“Hey,” he says. “Sorry about that.”

“No problem.” I hand him the water bottle, then I take a seat in front of him, my knees bent just like his.

In the quiet, our gazes unearth each other. Air strengthens to where breath feels like iron and fire, and I slide my arm over his arm.

His chest rises. “What was it like the first time you got high?”

“First time I got high,” I say, starting to smile, “I bought a joint, watched Wizard of Oz alone and passed out.”

His lips lift like he bested me. “I have you beat on the better story.”

Fuck, I can’t stop looking at him. “It’s a better story because we’re both in it.”

He laughs once. “Pretty sure my face in a toilet put it over the top.” He chugs water and then his arm clasps my arm in a tighter grip.

As though to say, don’t fucking leave yet.

I’m not going anywhere.





28





FARROW KEENE





I can’t sleep.

Lawyers finally sent me some of the old NDAs. Find the stalker sits at the forefront of my mind. I just want an identity. That way if this fucker ever nears Maximoff, I can restrain them. And possibly knock their teeth out.

I pour a coffee, turn on an iPad, and sprawl out length-wise in the booth. Half the bus sleeps off a pot high, the other half are passed out from the drama.

And besides Oscar who’s driving, I only find two other people awake.

Donnelly draws in a notebook on the other side of the booth. Reading glasses perched on his nose. Next to him, Luna flips through Foundation by Isaac Asimov.

Luna lowers the orange book, her charm bracelet clinking. “You know something funny?” she says to me.

“What?” I rest my iPad against a bent knee and open my email.

“I kept thinking my brother would end up with someone boring, annoying, or high-maintenance. Someone I’d hate. Kinney, Xander, and I talked about it all the time, but Moffy actually fell for someone cool.”

In seconds, I’ll be prying into his sex life. To be honest, I like the distraction she’s tossing my way.

Donnelly smirks. “He’s not cool.” He never looks up from his notebook. “You know he was in honor society at Yale.”

“That ‘society’ was actually a program.” I use air-quotes.

“Same thing.”

“No,” I say matter-of-factly. “One you show up and participate in events. The other, you just take classes with an H beside the number.” I snatch his notebook, and his blue eyes narrow. “And stop shitting on people who try in school.”