But Aro retorts behind me, “I promise you they areonlyinterested in being used by you.”
“Fu…” I toss my head back, letting the swear word die on my tongue.
I find it hard to say “fuck” in front of others.
Dylan chuckles, and I can feel Aro’s smile at my back.
We reach the top and jump down, into the obstacle course. “Everything is better in hindsight,” I explain.
I don’t need to be twenty years older than them to know that.
“Lucas has changed.” I shrug. “He’s not very friendly anymore. Almost snobby, actually.”
I don’t admit to them that some things are so much better than I remember. His eyes on me and how they linger. His body and how much stronger he looks. The electric current that races through my blood when he’s close.
Other things have turned sour. He never acted like he was raising me, and it’s too late to start now. He treated me more like an adult when I was a kid.
I go on. “It’s like any connection I manufactured as a teenager never happened. It was all in my head.” I realize my brow is pinched and relax it. “He’s a stranger now,” I tell them, hoping I sound convincing. “And old.”
“And hot as hell,” Dylan blurts out. “Men get better with age. Did you smell him?”
I glance back and spot Hunter approaching behind her. Scowling.
“His body feels like he was made in the most elite factory,” she says, completely unaware her boyfriend is right behind her.
He reaches around and gently grabs the front of her neck, hauling her back into his chest.
Tilting her head back, she looks up at him, her eyes widening. “Well, I wasn’t trying to feel—” she stutters as he twists her around and backs her into the wall. “…feel him up. I just hugged him, and it was hard not to notice.”
“Notice what?”
She presses her lips together because she’s about to smile. “How. Hard. His. Body. Was.”
Her voice is filled with mischief and laughter, and Hunter bites her bottom lip. I suppress the gripe rising up at the sight of my niece and nephew. No, they’re not blood-related—their fathers are stepbrothers—but it’s still an adjustment. I grew up with us all being family, and I haven’tbeen around much the last twenty or so months that they’ve been together to get used to seeing them maul each other.
She breathes out, blushing up at him. “I forgot what I was going to say next.”
I leave them to it, climbing the blow-up rock wall with Aro. We descend the little slide and start making our way through the maze of columns.
“Dylan’s just trying to help you get what you want,” she says behind me. “She means well.”
“I know.”
I know that’s what they think. Theyallmean well.
“But you are unhappy he’s leaving,” Aro says matter-of-factly.
“I’m unhappy my younger family members, including you, for all intents and purposes”—I throw her a look—“see me as pitiful and unhappy because I’m not in love.”
“Are you happy?”
“That’s not the point!” I scold. “It’s invasive!”
I didn’t mean to yell, but I want to put them all in their place once and for all. I’m not a failure just because I won’t play games to seduce my childhood crush on his last night in town.
Even though I am trying to avoid thinking about what I would do if he was sticking around. At least for another night.
I should’ve stayed with my pizza back at the oven. I was just angry. Didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of having all of my attention as if he mattered. When we clearly don’t matter to him.
