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“I’m committed,” he counters. “Luna, did you see the way time bent for you? It’s hot. I think I need mouth-to-mouth.”
“You’re talking.”
“Preventative.”
I walk over and tap his forehead. “Wake up, Romeo. You’ve got grass in your hair.”
He opens one eye. “Do I look haunted by her spell?”
“You look like a man who fake-cried so hard he forgot which performance he was in.”
“Iwasmethod acting.”
Luna shakes her head, pressing her fingers to her lips like she’s trying to stop herself from smiling. I know that smile. It’s the one she gets when she’s trying not to admit she loves us this ridiculous. Loveshim. Me. Us. All of it.
Gods, we’re such a mess.
But this—her power finally blooming, her face lit with something close to wonder, and Silas stretched across her like a self-satisfied idiot—is the kind of mess I’d bottle up and guard like it’s sacred.
I lean down and whisper, “Next time, try it on me. I’ll pretend it hurts way better.”
Silas perks up. “Oh! Oh, me next! After Elias. Then Riven. Then Ambrose, if he consents—which, let’s be honest, he never will.”
“I’m not a toy.”
“You’reourtoy.”
She groans and lets her head fall back. “I regret this.”
“No you don’t,” I murmur. “You’re glowing.”
And she is.
Even the squirrels are watching.
Speak of the devil. And by devil, I mean Ambrose—who somehow manages to look both royally pissed off and like he’s stepped out of a cologne ad as he storms across the courtyard, leather jacket flaring like it’s contractually obligated. He’s holding something in his hand. No, not something. Ahelmet.
A glittery, rhinestone-encrusted, magenta-and-gold monstrosity of a helmet.
I blink once. Twice. Then I watch in frozen horror as he hurls it at Silas’s sprawled-out form like he’s trying to banish a demon through blunt-force trauma.
“Get the fuck up,” Ambrose growls, voice sharp enough to peel paint. “You’re coming for a ride.”
Silas, who’d been mid-performance of his death-by-magic Oscar reel, jerks up like a marionette cut from its strings. “A ride?” he gasps, clutching the helmet to his chest like it’s a lover returning from war. “Withyou? Ambrose, are we bonding? Is thisourmoment?”
“Helmet,” Ambrose snaps.
Silas squeals. Actually squeals. It’s high-pitched and unholy and echoes off the stone walls in a way that makes me question reality. He shoves the glitter bomb onto his head—crooked, of course, because he’s incapable of anything symmetrical—and sprints toward the bike like a man possessed by the spirit of chaos and poor decisions.
“Shotgun!” he yells, even though that’s not how motorcycles work, and mounts behind Ambrose with all the grace of a drunk goat. He throws his arms around Ambrose’s waist with such gusto that Ambrose visibly flinches.
“Touch me again,” Ambrose grits, “and I’ll drive us into a wall.”
“Iknewyou liked danger,” Silas sighs, leaning into him like they’re on a honeymoon tour of the apocalypse.
Ambrose revs the engine like it’s a death threat. Silas giggles.
And then they’re off.