“Thanks for the champagne, but you know my policy about drinking around strangers.”
I roll my neck, which cracks. “You ordered alcohol last night.”
“Jeneva with a J was there.”
“You know me better than you know her.” Before I can think better of caging in this unpredictable girl, I cross the narrow divide and plant my palms on either side of her body. “But by all means, ask me more questions.”
I brace myself for a curt:Not interested; and a hard shove. Or a flash of pupils. Instead, I encounter no resistance and actual intrigue—not infused with magic.
“What did your mother die of again?”
“Cancer.”
“And you were living on the street?”
“No.”
“You had a home.”
“She had one.”
“You didn’t?”
As though some unseen force wants me to feel my mother’s presence, her engagement ring slips free from my hoodie collar and swings against my apron bib. “After my dad died, she remarried.”
An image of Dominic and my mother exchanging vows scores my lids. There was love there, but it wasn’t as pure or all-consuming as the one that existed between her and my father.
My lashes drag low. “Even though my stepfather welcomed me into his family, his home never became mine.”
She draws her head back an inch, as if reassessing me. “You have stepsiblings?”
I lock eyes with her when I say, “Two stepbrothers. Twins.” What if she wore the dress to throw me off my game and get me to confess that I’m not who I say I am?
My phone vibrates hard enough to taser my thigh. I’m guessing it’s Carlos, calling—again—to talk through whether his pot habit might be affecting his memory after locking his keys in his car earlier.
Although I advised him to cut down, I suspect his memory lapse has more to do with running into Electra when she visited my camper than with any recreational drug use.
The second time my phone vibrates, Electra drops her gaze to my pocket. “Sounds urgent.”
“It’s not.”
“How do you know?”
“Because the only thing that’d make me drop everything is a message from you.”
Suspicion flickers across her pretty eyes. When my phone vibrates a third time, she asks, “Want me to check who’s so desperate to get your attention?”
“No. Whoever it is, they can wait.”
Another message drops. What if it’s Hudson? What if Sullivan hurt Quinn? What if?—
“Clearly, they can’t wait.” Electra’s whisper caresses my neck like a blade, causing my turbulent pulse to spike some more.
“Fine. Check.”
Without breaking my stare, she reaches into my pocket. The feel of her fingers has my dick springing toward them. I’m a second away from breaking out into cold sweats yet still hard?
If an Atlantean doesn’t blow off my head for destroying their precious mine, I’ll have to have it examined.
