Series: Like Us Series by Krista Ritchie
Total pages in book: 241
Estimated words: 236417 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1182(@200wpm)___ 946(@250wpm)___ 788(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 236417 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1182(@200wpm)___ 946(@250wpm)___ 788(@300wpm)
I expected him to overflow with amusement. He is mirth and mischief.
Instead, his squared jawline has tensed, and he hasn’t blinked for at least thirty seconds. “Your mom caught you in the act?”
“We didn’t go all the way, but yeah.”
“On your parents’ kitchen table?”
“The breakfast table, but again, yep.” I nod.
“Nudity?” Eliot asks.
“Not me. Just Donnelly. I’m ninety-nine percent positive my mom at least saw his ass.”
“Shit,” Tom says, wide-eyed. “I would’ve died. Just bury me if my mom ever catches me giving or receiving a blow job.”
Eliot would survive any mortifying situation. Unless this has changed in the past three years, he’s always been much harder to embarrass.
Maybe we’re similar that way. “Honestly,” I say quietly, “I’ve been more embarrassed getting an Illyana Rasputin question wrong during X-Men trivia.” I pick at my fluffy croissant. “Donnelly looked more at me than my mom when she walked into the kitchen, and he just made it seem okay. Like what we did wasn’t gross or a regret. So I never really felt ashamed by it. And I think my mom was plenty mortified for all of us.”
Eliot hasn’t produced a mega-watt grin. It unsettles my stomach.
“Are you…shocked too?” I ask him uncertainly.
“Only that you were caught in the act before me. I figured that’d be my crown.” He pops a grape in his mouth, but trouble lines crease the spot between his brows. “What’d your mom do? Because we can’t have her against you and Donnelly.”
This is the source of his grim expression. I frown. “Has she ever disliked any of the bodyguard relationships?”
Tom shakes his head. “None that we know of. She’s pretty much been the number one Marrow and Kitsulletti shipper online, and when the Thatcher cheating rumors wouldn’t die down, she tweeted like every single day about how loyal he is to Jane. Shit, I think she even changed her profile picture to Highveira fan art back when Charlie stans dog-piled on Jack for dating Oscar.”
That’s a whole lot of history I don’t remember.
It’s devastating to think Donnelly and I could be the first ship my mom hopes won’t sail into the Valinor sunset. My frown deepens. “She kicked him out of the house. That’s what she did.”
Tom’s face falls. “I’m sorry, Luna.”
Eliot washes down his food, then stands. “We can’t have this.” He slides an iron fireplace poker out of its ornate stand.
“What are we going to do?” Tom asks, slipping his fingers through his golden-brown hair. “We can’t stab Aunt Lily into liking Donnelly with Luna.”
“Violence is not the answer,” Eliot says, staking the wooden floor with the iron tip. He leans on the poker like a cane. “I’m running through potential ideas.”
He’s plotting, and I’m not sure being tangled in an Eliot Alice Cobalt fix-it plot is a good thing. Eliot is fueled by chaos and revenge. Asking him to smooth over a situation is like enlisting a tornado to help restore a flattened city.
Still, having Eliot so passionately on Donnelly’s side—on our side—breathes warmth into my heart. I don’t want to accept this narrative with my mom either. I like the story where she has changed her license plate to our ship name—a ship name we don’t even have! This relationship is as new for the public as it is for me.
I care less about what the world thinks of me and Donnelly, but by the strange roil of my stomach right now, I most definitely care about my mom’s opinion.
“I’m not sure there’s anything we can do,” I mutter. “She’s only said a few words to me after I apologized, and I think she’s trying her best not to spill the beans to my dad.”
Tom’s brows spring. “He doesn’t know?”
“No, no.” I exhale a breath. “I think he’d hate Donnelly for eternity and there’s no coming back from that if he finds out.” I stare at the flames licking the fireplace logs and hear chatter of mingling guests throughout the house. It reminds me of why I’m even here.
Timing, Luna. I think I have the worst.
“Sorry, maybe I should’ve waited to tell you both.” I tear apart another piece of croissant. “We’re about to go to a funeral, and I wasn’t thinking about…” Our grandfather.
Selfish. Disrespectful.
All the comments on Fanaticon rocket to the front of my brain, but Donnelly told me to block out those online voices. I try, even knowing they might be right about me.
“He’s dead.” Tom lifts his shoulders, his hand wrapped around a mug of coffee. “What’s he going to do? Yell at us for talking about anything other than him?”
Eliot says, “No, that’s just our dear, lovely, youthful grandmother.” He arches and lowers his brows in a sarcastic wave. While we were downstairs, she brushed past us at the spread of breakfast pastries as Tom had been expressing his hatred of honeydew.