Page 26 of Crazy In Love

Chris spasms, almost tumbling down the stairs behind me. “What?”

“No!” Tommy snarls. “He doesn’t get to come in here for that. What the hell is wrong with you, Chris?”

I peek over my shoulder and swallow the bubbling laughter, desperate to escape. “Sorry, little buddy. I asked, but he said no.”

“Chris!”

“I didn’t ask that!” Chris grabs the phone and takes the call off speaker, then he shoves past me, crushing me to the wall because there’s simply not enough room for us both. “I didnotask to see anything. She’s full of shit.”

He strides between book stacks and moves toward the front of the shop, nodding to whatever Tommy says and grunting at other things. Finally, he reaches the desk—no child-services officers in sight—and offers the phone. “You wanna talk to Tommy for a sec?”

Elated, Franky takes the phone and brings it to his ear. “Tommy! Is the baby here yet?”

While he chats, Chris turns with a snarl and stalks back in my direction, meeting me halfway through the long store and stopping only when our toes almost touch. He gives me no choice but to fold my neck back to maintain eye contact. Despite his formidable rage, I can’t help the teasing upturn of my lips. “Problem, Christian?”

“We were getting along.”

“Huh… Guess we were.”

“And then you went and pulled that shit.”

“You call thatshit.” I suckle on my bottom lip and snicker. “I call it comedic genius.” And since his eyes drop to my lips, I decide I’ll dig at him a little more. “I saw you checking out my ass, by the way. And my legs.”

His cheeks turn a deathly white.

“You’re an adult, I’m an adult. You’re single, I’m single. We’re healthy, attractive human specimens. It makes sense you’d look.”

“I wasn’t looking!”

“Really? You weren’t?” I twist and peek back at my bum. “We were getting along, Christian. But here you go, defaulting back to being unkind.” I exhale a dramatic sigh and pat his chest, before stepping around him and moving toward the counter. “Hurts my feelings. Hurtsallmy feelings!”

Still, I glance over my shoulder and catch him, deer in the headlights, staring at my ass.

“Mmhmm.”

ROUND EIGHT

CHRIS

It would be a lie if I said Fox’s constantly chirping phone—while mine remains silent—doesn’t irk me a little. That Tommy chooses to update her, assuming she’ll update the rest of us when, dammit, he could text me!

But those are thoughts I lock down. Those are feelings I trap inside. Because we came to an agreement… sort of.

Didn’t we?

About how we would get along and stop picking at each other. About how, although Alana loves Fox and Fox is loud enough to always demand attention, the understanding is that at the end of the day, Alana lives here in Plainview.

Which translates to:Chris wins, Fox loses.

I should be happy when I think these thoughts. Fuck knows, I’ve overanalyzed this shit for months, and dropping Fox off a cliff when no one is looking has, admittedly, been a repeated consideration in the back of my mind.

But now, all I feel is an annoying ache in the pit of my stomach. Because I know what it is to hurt. To love and lose. To feel abandoned by someone as special as Alana Page.

Dammit, I sympathize with my enemy. Worse, I feel kinda guilty. So I cook a couple of steaks on the grill on Tommy’s porch, watching the juicy cuts sizzle while Fox and Franky sit at the patio table and argue over a game of chess.

“You can’t make that move!” Franky snatches up Fox’s queen and puts her back where she belongs. “That’s an illegal move, dummy.”

She gasps, extra dramatic, and presses a hand to her heart. “Dummy? Excuse you, child. She’s the queen. She can move wherever she wants.”