Page 44 of Ly to Me (Devils of Alliston Springs #1)

“Here, son. Shuffle and deal.” His dad twisted in his seat and reached for the stereo behind him, turning up the volume on a Dolly Parton song.

“Nora! It’s your song!” his dad shouted.

Sure enough, she started singing and humming along.

Her voice was like liquid sunshine—warm and soothing.

The song was about hard times, and though she didn’t look it, I’d wager she’d lived through her own, though now, those times seemed to have gone.

I didn’t have to look behind me to know she was smiling back at her husband as she sang—I could feel it. Their love was almost electric, a current that rippled through every room they were in, connecting them.

Then, there was me—the girl who had no clue who her father was and whose mother didn’t love her enough to stay. I didn't fit this life. I wasn’t sure I ever could.

A warmth settled over my shoulder, long fingers sweeping over my upper arm in circles.

I’m not sure when Carver moved from across me to beside me, but there he was.

“I’ll show you how to play,” he said as he tapped on the upside-down cards on the table in front of me.

“But, I think you’ll be a natural. Well, against my dad, that is. ”

“Don’t think she’ll beat you?” his dad cocked a brow, lifting his cards just enough to peek at what they were before pushing them back down. “That’s mighty ignorant of you.”

“C’mon, dad. You know I’m not thinking that.”

“This is the game where you bluff to win, right?” I asked.

Carver grinned. “Yep. Sure is.”

I nodded, and Carver’s dad seemed more confused. “Carver likes to call me ‘Ly,’ because I lied to him a bunch when we first met,” I clarified.

His dad covered his laughter with a finger as Carver added, “You still lie, I just catch you most times.”

“Well then, let’s see how good her poker face is,” his dad said, beaming as his gaze slid between us.

Carver lifted his cards and angled himself so he wouldn’t see mine since he was sitting so close to me.

His dad explained a few of the rules, and Carver pitched in when he felt I needed more direction.

Before I knew it, we were three games deep, with plates half-empty on the table, and nothing but sheer happiness surrounding all four of us.

At some point, Nora’s song came back on the radio, and that’s when we both realized we’d skipped most of prom, but truthfully, I’d do it all again just the same.

His parents had moved into the kitchen to clean up from dinner, having refused our offer to help, leaving Car and me alone in a bubble meant just for the two of us.

Right when a slower song came on, Carver leaned in and pushed my hair over my shoulder. “C’mon. Let’s go,” he said softly.

My hands fumbled in my lap. “Go…to prom?” I asked, studying his tuxedo jacket tossed over the back of the chair, then his cuffed sleeves. When I noticed two of his shirt buttons undone at the top and his tie resting loosely around his neck, no longer knotted, he chuckled.

“No.” He shot up from his seat and grabbed my hand, pulling me up after him. “Dancin’.”

Before I could get a word out, he was pulling me through the back door, and I silently thanked myself for removing my heels because if I hadn’t, I would’ve surely tripped several times with the speed Carver was tugging me along.

He abruptly stopped and spun me in his arms with an impressive dance move I had no clue he was capable of.

“Hands here,” he directed, shifting my hands from his upper arms to around his neck, forcing me to almost stand on my toes.

Under the light of the stars and the moon, Carver’s eyes glowed, the iridescence in them outmatching anything in the sky. His forehead fell to mine, both of us lost in each other.

“I—” he started, then cleared his throat. “I think you look really beautiful.”

A gnawing pit formed in my chest, but it wasn’t painful or unwanted. It was…something I couldn’t and shouldn’t ever think about feeling. Something no one like me deserved to have.

“You could have put anyone in this dress and said the same thing,” I teased, and his lips turned down.

“No, sweetheart. It’s you that’s beautiful. The dress is just…extra.”

“You shouldn’t have bought it for me. And now that we clearly aren’t goin’ to prom, I think you should bring it back tomorrow. I saved the tags.”

He shook his head and pulled back. “The dress was made to be worn by you. I want you to keep it. Forever.”

Those words twisted my gut. I settled my head on his chest, and he started swaying us both to the dim music funneling out from inside.

“Car?”

“Yeah, Ly?”

I tried to sift through my feelings, the right words somewhere on the tip of my tongue, but my throat closed when I opened my mouth.

I snapped my lips shut and focused on the hair that fell to his nape, twining the strands between each finger methodically.

The silence stretched, but neither one of us spoke, too caught up in simply holding each other to care to talk anymore.

Our bodies were saying it all—

I love you, Carver Roland.

Forever.