“Fire away, love.”
“Hmm,” she hums, strutting back and forth in the gazebo, her glistening blue gown swishing behind her. “Tell me … what your favorite color is.”
“Boring.” I cough. “Try again.” I pause and wink. “But mine’s blue.”
“Mine’s gray,” Dean chimes in with a smile of a schoolboy trying to impress his teacher.
“Good to know,” she whispers coyly.
“I think we get a question now, no?” Dean mutters, his voice commanding.
She stutter-steps nervously. “I suppose.”
Coming to a stop between us, she faces us, hands clasped at her back.
Dean thinks for a second before asking, “Which one of us do you prefer?”
She scoffs, her eyes widening, “I-I can’t answer that.”
“Why not?” Dean retorts. “Don’t want to break his heart? I get it.”
Her mouth opens and closes repeatedly. “Because I don’t know you well enough and because … I like you both for different reasons.”
A question pops into my mind, flowing out of my lips before I can stop myself. “Which one of us do you want to ki?—”
“It’s my turn.” She silences me, continuing to pace, slowly drifting closer and closer to us with each passing. “Is a crappy stepmother the only reason you two were hiding outside?”
She must be able to read our minds or some shit because I swear she knows more about us than we know about ourselves.
Dean and I glance at each other for a second, and I offer an honest response. “Our dad.”
“What about him?” she pushes, her face straight, locked on to her mission.
“Straight to the point, huh?” I chuff, and she nods. “Isn’t it our question now?”
“Not yet.” She smirks, and I lift my hands up in defeat. Stopping dead in her tracks between us, she sits down, her thighs pressing into ours. “Look, if this is our only night, our only moment together, and you never see me again, I want to remember knowing therealyou, not the masked men the rest of the world sees.”
A beat of silence passes between us, and I hold my breath, vulnerability creeping onto my chest.
“I know what it’s like to hide behind a persona.” She turns and looks up at me, her big blue eyes glimmering behind the mask. “Prince Charming, you do it with your smart remarks and smooth tongue.”
I hold back the comment of how smooth my tongue can be when put to work as she turns to Dean.
“My knight in shining armor, you hide in the back, observing and taking stock of the situation before participating, almost using him as a shield while you gauge the room.”
She swings her feet back and forth above the pavement, proud of her assessment. “I’m a good judge of character. And I live in the quiet spaces of a room, noticing every micro-movement of someone’s expression. Telling if they’re angry or sad, if they’ll take it out on me—” She freezes like she didn’t mean to say so much. “I know what it’s like to pretend, and if I can only offer you one thing, I’ll offer you a little time where you don’t have to do that. This gazebo can be our safe space. No metaphorical masks.”
My throat is burning by the time she finishes, the emotion catching me by complete surprise. “I-I don’t know what to say.”
I don’t think I’ve ever been called out so goddamn plain as day. No one’s ever really had the balls for it, aside from Dean or our father.
I’m overwhelmed with emotion, and I have no idea how to process it. All I know is, I don’t want her to feel any ounce of regret for beingher.
I don’t know who the hell she is, but I know that when she leaves tonight, I’m going to be a mess. No one has ever seen me—or us—so goddamn clearly. It’s unnerving, hot, and incredibly sexy.
“That’s okay. You don’t need to unmask. Maybe I read the room wrong.” She looks up at me with apologetic doe eyes. “Sorry, I kind of unloaded. Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything?—”
The urge overtakes me, and I cut her off, sliding my hand along her cheek, and in one fell swoop, I tilt her jaw up and meet my lips to hers. Tenderly, I kiss her, my lips melting against hers. But she’s frozen, and I pull back enough to meet her gaze.
