Page 143 of X's and O's

One of them muttered, “Unfair!”

Toby found another hundred from his wallet. “Get the groceries and the ice cream as well.”

Cheers went up from the kids.

One of them darted out into the hallway and flung himself at Toby, hugging him around the waist. “Thank you so much!”

Toby recoiled, and I hid a laugh at his disgust for children.

He patted the kid on the head awkwardly. “Okay, well, this is nice, but you should all go get your ice cream before he runs out!”

The kid ditched Toby in an instant, sprinting out the door, his tribe of siblings and his mother following after him.

Toby wiped his hands off on his pants. “Jesus,someone needs to get a TV. There must be a dozen of them.”

There was at least seven, so he wasn’t entirely exaggerating.

But I elbowed him. “What was all that about anyway?”

He grinned devilishly. “Look.”

The kids had swarmed X’s van. Their little hands banged against the side of it, and X, who startled like maybe he’d been napping with his feet up on the dash, suddenly sat bolt upright. He blinked in surprise at the swarm of kids, all shouting for his attention.

He yanked open the server window, his gaze catching on me at the same moment. “Violet!”

But Toby was already dragging me across the lawn in the opposite direction. “Sorry, honey! Got places to be! We’d invite you, but seems like you have a lot of work to do!”

X watched on helplessly, surrounded by hungry kids demanding sugar, while Toby and I slipped away down the street.

“Was that really mean of us?” I asked when Toby finally deemed us far enough away and was sure X wasn’t following.

“We bought ice cream for little kids. We’re saints!”

I highly doubted that. I couldn’t help replaying the look of dismay on X’s face as we’d run away.

Something about it didn’t sit right with me.

Toby elbowed me. “You and your bleeding empath heart, Violet Garrisen. You are not going to feel bad about ditching your stalker!”

Except X hadn’t felt like a stalker when his hands hadbeen all over my body and he’d been whispering in my ear about how beautiful I was.

The memory caused an aching pang to ricochet through my body. One I didn’t have the time or space for, because the map app on Toby’s phone was saying we were nearly at the address Levi had left on his letter poem.

Levi was the man I was supposed to be with. He was the man I’d loved for the last year. Any feelings I was harboring for X were just attraction. And whatever I felt for Whip was just my inner teenager falling in love with the man who’d taken my virginity.

Neither of those were real.

But Levi and I could be. That was what my heart whispered as we crept along the derelict roads, each one getting worse and worse until we stood in front of what seemed to be an abandoned building.

Toby screwed up his face, staring up at it, and then checked the app on his phone. “This is definitely it.” He glanced at me. “Your man has some odd ideas about romantic locations. Just because he’s comfortable in prison-like buildings doesn’t mean we all are.”

I agreed. Darkness surrounded me, but there was a warm glowing light shining from behind a high-up window in the building.

My stupid romantic brain started conjuring up images I’d seen on Pinterest of places that were industrial like this on the outside, but the insides were decorated with candles and flowers. People held weddings in them, and I’d long been obsessed with the photos captured from venues like that.

I’d even told Levi about them once, when we’d beenfoolishly talking about life plans and long-term dreams. I’d told him I wanted to get married in a place like this.

My heart skipped a beat, and I had to talk myself back down off a ledge. Levi wasn’t going to be waiting inside, dressed in a suit with a minister ready to go.