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Lukas pressed his lips to my temple, holding me tight. And floating there, watching moonlight dance in the water, I knew that we would.

Chapter 36

Daphne

I didn’t grow up with siblings, so I had no experience getting tackled.

I had half a second to tamper my instincts and accept Rose’s rushed hug, so forceful with excitement that I would have been knocked off my feet if Lukas’s hand hadn’t steadied my back.

We’d taken a few days to sort out everything on our end, but we needed to gameplan. Adrian would be joining us any minute.

“I’m so happy for you guys. I want to know everything,” Rose shrieked, bouncing on her heels.

A smile broke on my face. “We appreciated your note.”

“That was Dominic’s doing,” Rose said, pointing over her shoulder at her husband. “I made him add the sign off because most people,” she punctuated her words with a teasing look at him, “expect more than two-word notes.”

Dominic lifted a brow at Rose, stepping up by her side. “I thought it was very well said.”

Lukas let out a short laugh. “Oh, I got the message loud and clear.”

“Glad you got your head out of your ass?” Dominic asked, a rare grin on his face.

Lukas’s answering chuckle skated over my skin and burrowed deep. “That’s the one.”

Dominic nodded once, pleased with Lukas’s answer. When he didn’t ask any more questions and Lukas didn’t offer up anything, Rose looked between them like they were insane. “That is nowhere near the amount of information I need.”

I laughed and reached out to squeeze her arm. “I’ll tell you later.”

Rose smiled brightly. “Damn straight.”

We broke apart for a second, Lukas and Dominic moving toward the patio while Rose and I stayed close to the table.

Rose watched them for a second, then turned to me. “You’re okay?”

I nodded and kept my eyes on Lukas as I said, “More than. Even with all this shit going on.”

Rose made a humming sound in the back of her throat. “I’m curious what Adrian has to say about it.”

“Have you heard from him?”

Rose shook her head, her brows furrowing in a tell-tale sign of concern. “No. He’s around at least once a week, or Dominic goes up to Olympus, but I haven’t seen him in a while.”

“Us either,” I said, sparing a glance over to Lukas. “Granted, we’ve been a little busy.”

Personally, we were busy figuring out how to be in a relationship that wasn’t based on us hiding our feelings. Outside of that, there were still considerable murmurings of upset. It was difficult dispelling fear and anger when you couldn’t tell them that it wasn’t your fault.

Rose exhaled a short laugh. “Too busy to come over for breakfast, apparently.”

I winced, knowing how much those mornings meant to her. “I’m sorry. Next one, I promise.”

Rose laughed lightly, waving her hand in dismissal. “I was kidding. But, seriously, please come this week. Last week was just Jason, Thalia, and Claudia.”

I took my eyes off the water to really look at her. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

Rose shook her head, shaking out some thought. “It’s not, normally. I love Jason and Thalia is amazing, but I’m getting a weird vibe off Claudia.”

My breath stilled. This was exactly what we needed to talk about. “What did she do?”