Page 33 of The Sun and the Moon

Cadence

I burst into the courtyard and take a hefty gulp of my cocktail.

She’s not really seeing me now.

An iconic performance, one for the ages, except for the fact that I don’t know who the hell it was for.

The way she was talking makes me think she’s been honest with Rick about our relationship.

Even if she can’t take the blame for how her narcissism drove me away, she doesn’t seem to be pretending to be innocent, either.

She sounded like someone who has worked on herself.

Who has changed .

“Cadence,” Sydney says, stepping into the courtyard behind me. When I don’t immediately turn, she walks around.

The flames dance in the center of the firepit, their orange glow a stark contrast to the slate-gray stones surrounding them.

Their light plays around all over the curves of her body.

We’re the only ones out here. I assume that’s because everybody else is probably getting ready for the festival kickoff or already making their way over to the center of town for a good seat to view the opening ceremony.

“Cadence,” she says again, looking up at me standing awkwardly over her like a wraith. “Do you want to sit down?” I flick my eyes to hers. The cool blue, the soft, swooping lashes, and the wide-open way she’s looking at me immediately take the edge off my anxious spiral.

“Yes, okay,” I stammer, dropping down into the seat and setting my cup on the table.

After a second, she moves around to sit beside me.

Her weight on the cushion makes me roll toward her, almost into her.

My hand drops to the couch to steady myself, but at this proximity, it’s impossible to keep my fingers from grazing her thigh.

The tips slip beneath the swell of her muscle.

The weight is delicious, and it’s hard not to imagine what it would be like to turn my palm up, reach my other hand around to get a good grip.

Her eyelids flutter, the soft lashes lifting.

She wears mascara and some eyeliner in a deep burnt gold that brings out the darkest shade of navy in her irises.

“You smell incredible,” I choke out. It’s the wrong thing to say. I don’t know why I say it. I am really freaking out.

“I think we should stop the scheme,” she blurts. It’s not what I’m expecting her to say, so I pop back. Far enough that I can see her more fully. Her body language is tense. Her jaw tight, her back taut.

“You do?” I ask, but I’m not that surprised somehow. “What about the pinky promise? What about the bank docs and the weird text with Greg?”

Sydney’s expression droops. “Can’t part of the pinky promise be that we decide together what to do?” She’s a little breathless. “I don’t think she’s conning him.”

“That’s because she’s a pro,” I reply, but I can’t quite commit to it.

“You don’t sound so sure yourself,” Sydney counters, and her voice has an edge of defiance in it. “She sounded really upset back there. And my dad seems to be in on that part at least. What if there’s not more to it?”

“Fuck,” I breathe. Antsy, I take a drink, feeling the twinge of acid on my tongue and wondering if it’s the lemon or the realization that all things really can change.

Even Moira Connelly.

“What did you learn from Lola?” Sydney presses.

“She thinks Kismet could be struggling financially, but she doesn’t know that for sure,” I say, and it feels like a concession.

“So the loan docs or whatever, those could be something related to Kismet? Which doesn’t mean she’s swindling my dad or something. People take out loans all the time.”

She’s right. I know she’s right. And more than that, there’s the other part of what Lola said. The part where she asserted that Moira is happy. She’s changed since meeting Rick.

Something that lines up—at least in theory—with what we just saw between them.

“What about the shady text with your dad and Greg?” I press her.

I’m not ready to let go of the idea that Moira is conning Rick.

That Moira isn’t following her truth like always, and, like always, at the expense of those closest to her.

That Moira could meet someone and fall in love and get to live happily ever after.

Not after all she put me through growing up.

Not with how she’s fucked my brain over about relationships—all kinds of relationships, not just romantic ones.

People were pieces on a life-size chessboard. This can’t be different.

She’s not really seeing me now.

“Pam said there was something between Dad and Greg, but that was going on before they met Moira. I don’t think it has anything to do with her, Cadence.” Her eyes search me.

“Aren’t you curious what that is?” I ask.

“Sure, but I can talk to Dad about that anytime.”

It’s not the first time in my life that I’m struck hard with the reality that I don’t know what it’s like to actually trust your parent.

Like Sydney trusts Rick. I am caught in the thought, just like she’s caught by the light of the setting sun.

This courtyard is shielded, so all the cool stone makes the light almost lavender behind her.

Her face is lit with the orange of the fire.

Her nostrils flare. “I think they’re really in love. Dad seems to be, anyway. Pam has known him since before my mom passed away.” Her voice is aflame. “She hasn’t seen him this content in a long time.”

Mention of Sydney’s mother takes the wind out of the sails of any argument I’m readying. This topic feels like the kind she doesn’t readily talk much about, especially not with someone she barely knows.

“Why do you hate her so much?” Sydney asks in a tender sort of way.

A fist around my heart. Tight, tight, tighter.

“I don’t.” I shake my head, tears threatening.

“And that’s what always sucked about being her daughter.

” It’s like a weight lifts from my chest as I say the words out loud.

“She was like the sun, and I lived my life like the phases of the moon.” Sydney’s face twitches, a wash of some intense emotion brightening her eyes.

“When she shined her light on me, I was full. Illuminated. Making big waves. But that wasn’t all the time, and eventually I got sick of the dark side. ”

Sydney’s hands drop to mine. I don’t pull from her grip.

“But that’s not true now,” she says, her eyes serious. Her soft pink lips turn down. “And maybe it’s not the only thing that’s changed.”

The planes of her face take in all the light from the fire.

“You think they’re really in love,” I say softly, looking deep into her gaze.

“I think I don’t want to waste what little time I get with you trying to figure it out.”

She’s pinned me with her eyes. I am lost, swimming in the sea of their blue. Drifting. Content. Until my brain catches up, alerting my body to the warning bells of what she’s just said.

The no-strings kiss.

The comfort her presence brings even though she’s little more than a perfect stranger.

“What are you saying?” I need her to spell it out. As much as I have conditioned myself to fight any and all influence of Moira in my life, the urge to know Sydney better is a powerful magnet to the hardened metal heart in my chest.

“I like you, Cadence,” she says. Deliberate and pointed.

She reaches up slowly, easing her fingers toward the wild tendrils of my hair.

When I don’t pull away, look away, her mouth curves, and her fingers twist into the strands.

She tangles them up until she reaches the nape of my neck, her thumb brushing my jaw where the tender skin behind my ear is taut across the bone.

With control she tips my chin up so my lips angle toward her.

“I want to kiss you again.” Her breath bursts over my lips. They tingle, tantalized by the sensation.

“Kiss me.” The words are barely more than a breath.

Her lips capture mine.

It’s not a hostile takeover. They open slightly, pillow softly, before I feel her tongue slip between my lips, and I release a moan as they open to welcome her in.

I am a willing captive to her mouth, losing myself to the sensations that spark all over my body.

The heat pooling between my legs. The tweak of my nipples.

Her fingers brush the sensitive skin at the nape of my neck, sending shivers down, down, down .

I don’t think about how quickly and ferociously I reach out to grip her waist. I just do it. Tugging her toward me. My palm snakes up the curve, and the other slides down to where a single fingertip slips between the hem of her shirt and the waistband of her jeans to graze smooth, warm skin.

A giggle rumbles in her throat.

Our lips break contact and my eyes open.

“Fuck, you can kiss,” she says. My lip gloss glistens on her lower lip.

Her pupils are dilated, fixed on my mouth.

There is a hunger I recognize in her expression.

Like a wolf on a hunt in the wild. It is anything but feral; rather, it is the gaze of a creature who understands they are a predator tasked with great power.

She could devour me whole, and I wouldn’t want her to stop.

“Our room is just over there,” I say, because though I am desperate to see where this goes, I am not exhibitionist enough for a full-on make-out session in such a public place.

I low-key fear that Moira and Rick will walk through here on their way to drop Chicken off in our room and we’ll be too involved to notice.

She runs her hand down the length of my arm, making me wish I were wearing a tank top just so I could feel her skin on my skin.

Her fingers lock with mine. Perfectly, they fit together.

Easily, our palms connect. Standing first, I tug her up, and she lets her body collide with mine.

I am intoxicated by the feeling of her soft curves melding against mine.

Her breasts soften against me, her thigh presses to the space between my legs.

I nearly buckle at the fresh contact, but fortunately she doesn’t maintain it for long. Without breaking her hold on my hand, she pulls away, leading me off toward our room. We abandon our cocktails, happy to be intoxicated with each other it seems.

If I let myself think too hard about what this means for me, I will crumble.

I don’t want to crumble. Like her, I know I don’t want to waste whatever time we have together. Because even without the breakup scheme factoring in, there is a clear ticking clock on this connection.

No matter what happens this weekend, I return to Acadia and a job that I love. A life I’ve built slowly, meticulously, all by myself.

A lonely life, sure.

But a life I can control without tarot predictions or the helpful hand of fate.