Total pages in book: 135
Estimated words: 132933 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 665(@200wpm)___ 532(@250wpm)___ 443(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 132933 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 665(@200wpm)___ 532(@250wpm)___ 443(@300wpm)
Not exactly right here. Standing on the slope of the driveway and greeting the cement. I’d rather be inside the Hale House and greeting the staircase or something.
Since it’s the night after Luna’s username leaked and the deletion of her fics, all the Hales decided to gather for family dinner in the gated neighborhood.
I don’t know what family dinner is like.
Never been invited to one.
If Farrow and his old man had them, I would’ve tagged along in a heartbeat, but they spent more breakfasts than dinners at the same table.
So I’m wondering what it’s all about—dinners and family—but I’m not picturing anything. I’m just trekking towards the house. Up the front stoop. And I knock on the door.
Loren Hale answers, his sharp-edged eyes pierced on me in confusion. “Did Xander call you?”
I shake my head. “I’m off-duty.”
He glances at my waist. No radio, no gun.
“Been wanting to ask you something. You have a minute?”
“For you,” Lo forces a smile. “Less than a minute.”
I tip my head. “I can work with that.”
Surprisingly, he pushes the front door open wider, motioning me inside the Hale House, and I step into the foyer not as a bodyguard. But as something else.
Lo knows it. His whole demeanor tenses, allowing me inside, but I walk further. Until he plants a hand on my chest. Making me stop at the end of the foyer.
I hear Star Wars playing on the TV. Rogue One, I’d bet, but I can’t see into the living room. The smell of meatloaf permeates throughout the house, and the aroma almost makes my stomach growl.
“What’s that?” He nods to the plastic bag I’m carrying.
I pull out two boxes of Peanut Butter Kandy Kakes. “Tastykakes. For dessert.”
“We’re more of a Little Debbie family. Zebra cakes. Cosmic brownies.”
My Philly heart is crying. “Xander loves these.”
He cringes. “Since when?”
I dump the boxes back in the bag. “Maybe you’re right.” I’m not trying to prove that I’m influencing his son even more. “Maybe he’s just pretending to like them because he knows I do.” I’m unsure, and when a loud explosion from the television cuts into our talk, we wait for the volume to lower.
Just staring at one another.
Lo seems to drop his defenses the longer he’s looking at me.
I’m not coming at him. He’s dressed in just a black crewneck shirt and jeans, barefooted, and the second the volume returns to a normal octave, he speaks. “You wanted to ask me something?”
“Yeah.” I keep my voice hushed so no one in the living room can hear. “I know that you know that I have feelings for Luna.”
He goes rigid.
It spikes my pulse, but I didn’t come here to invite myself to dinner. This is why I’m here in the first place.
“I’m listening,” Lo says, his brows cinched and eyes narrowed.
“Would you be okay if we started dating?”
He frowns. “You’re asking for my permission?”
“Yeah, I’m asking.”
It’s felt like Lo wields the key to an easy relationship between Luna and me. Maybe Xander will be okay with it if his dad approves, too. I’m searching for a path where Luna isn’t pushed down constantly and told to get back up again.
She’s been through enough.
Lo is glaring up at the ceiling. He’s pinching his eyes.
I frown now, confused. “Don’t you want easy for Luna? You could make this easy—”
“No,” he cuts me off.
I go cold.
He smears a hand down his face, then glances behind his shoulder. Only the Lonely Mountain patters down the staircase. Lo steps closer to me and drops his voice. “You can’t date my daughter, and I am deathly serious about this, Paul. You cannot, under any goddam circumstance, date her.”
He sounds scared.
Fear even flickers in his amber eyes.
My head is whirling. I’m sensing something, a shift in the air. “This doesn’t just have to do with you disliking me, does it?”
“Your family thought you were with Beckett and look what happened. What do you think will happen if they know you’re dating Luna?”
Nothing good.
I run my fingers across the back of my hot neck. I honestly haven’t tried thinking about my family in terms of Luna and our future. I’ve separated the two.
Because I wasn’t looking backwards. Because in the life ahead of me, my family isn’t supposed to be there.
But they are.
They’re right there. And I don’t want them anywhere near Luna.
Staring off at the wall, I remember that I haven’t even really talked to Beckett. We texted briefly when the assault first happened. I asked if he was okay. But that was before he learned my family was behind the attack.
Finally, I tell Lo, “They’d probably get to her somehow.” I feel sick thinking about it. “To protect Luna, I’d do anything. I hope you know that.”
Absolutely anything.
The worst things imaginable, I know I would put myself through, and I wouldn’t stop.
Lo intakes a sharper breath. “So you get what I’m saying?”