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He sighs and folds his arms. “Why’d you even come here, then?”

I huff. “I thought I could make it go away, or you could,” I admit. “But you’re not him.”

“Not even remotely,” Adrian mumbles. He stands up and fixes his own clothing. “If you’re not going to fuck me, get out of my house, Dante.”

“Gladly.” I storm out of Adrian’s house, nearly forgetting my jacket along the way. I hear the door shut and lock behind me, and I know this is one bridge that’s burnt for good.

“You seriously thought having casual sex with one of your old professors was going to fix your problems?” Tessa asks me.

I glare at her from across the kitchen in her and Yvette’s condo. “It has before.”

“Sure, when your problems were being stressed and overworked and all you needed was to relax and get off. Casual sex doesn’t help with breakup pain. Trust me, I know.”

“You’re nineteen and already getting married. How would you know?”

She blushes. “You remember Nadine, right?”

“Yeah, your math tutor who was a couple grades above you,” I say nonchalantly as I stir the cup of coffee on the counter.

It’s silent. I look at her. She looks at me.

“Oh, damn. You were seeing her? I didn’t know that.”

She sighs. “No one did. I wasn’t ready to come out yet. We were together for six months. I know, when you’re fifteen it’s nothing, but I was really upset.”

“Who did you bang to try to feel better?” I ask, raising a brow.

Contessa rolls her eyes. “It doesn’t matter. It didn’t help, is my point.”

“You were actually able to go through with it?” I lift the coffee to my lips. It’s all I’m living on lately.

“Yeah, but I bawled my eyes out afterward and felt disgusting,” she admits.

I shake my head. “I couldn’t even go through with it. My dick was?—”

“Too much information, Dante.” Tessa puts a hand up and then takes a drink of her hot cocoa.

“I watched you and Yvette nearly fuck each other covered in blood, so I think we’re past all that,” I insist.

She shakes her head. “I still don’t wanna know anything about your dick.”

I snort and continue to drink my coffee. “I can’t stop thinkin’ about him.”

“Of course you can’t. You seriously messed up.”

“Me? He’s the one who doesn’t understand the ritual and how our family works,” I remind her.

“Okay, but he’s not used to this. He doesn’t come from a family like ours. To Ethan, all of this is brand new. He didn’t grow up being told and watching all of this since he was a kid,” she points out.

I scowl and look away from her. “I told him he doesn’t need to do the fuckin’ ritual, but if he doesn’t he isn’t part of this family. That’s just how it is.”

“He thinks that if he doesn’t do the ritual, he’s not important enough to you,” she tells me. “I mean, think about it. It’s like telling him that if he doesn’t marry you, he’s not really committed to you. He’s not your priority.”

“It’s just how this family works. You know that, Tess. They won’t accept him otherwise.”

She steps closer. “This isn’t about them. This is about you, moron. He wants you to accept him. To let him in. This family is changing, you know that. It used to be that you had to be married in order to do the ritual and be a part of the family, but now you don’t. Who knows what else is going to change? It doesn’t have to be this way forever.”

“What do you mean?” I ask.