“Hide your credit cards… just hide them… No matter what you do, keep them away from me. I’m a thief, and Aladdin has nothing on me. Also, you should always respond to my texts to avoid me blocking your number again in the future. Always pick up my calls, and be kind to me, or I might just end up killing you… by mistake, and I won’t regret it because let’s be honest, I don’t really like you that much.”
“Okay.”
“I’m not done. You can’t fall sick; you can’t ignore me or whatever that shit you did this morning was. You should talk to Devil; you should make Cassie stay away from me; you should keep Angelo’s fucking cat away from me; you should—”
“Kiss me.”
“That… was not what I was gonna say.”
“I know. I’m asking you to kiss me.”
“Oh.”
“Hm.”
She shook her head, turning it briefly toward the kitchen before looking back down at me, bringing a hand to the side of my face as she leaned down and softly pressed her lips to mine, her hair tickling my ear, falling on either side to frame my face.
The life force in my chest responded almost immediately when her lips closed around mine. I felt her somewhat panicked breathing calm down; I didn’t know she was on edge before her whole body relaxed. She was giving in to me, to this.
She broke away. “Fuck—I think we would need a written agreement on this control shit.”
“If that’s what you want, I’ll arrange it.”
She kissed me again, letting it linger a moment, but then broke away. “You taste like alcohol.” Her finger brushed mychin. “How much did you have to drink?” she asked, concern lining her brows.
“A lot.”
“Why?”
“I wanted to sleep. It’s getting so hard to… to sleep these days.”
She nodded, her hand feeling my neck. “Hopefully, whatever Upper gets is strong enough to knock you out, or I could just… knock you out. A quick blow to the side of your head, you’ll be out like a sack of—”
I raised my hand, palmed her face, and pushed her head back away from me, closing my eyes and muttering, “You are terrible at this.”
She chuckled, removing the cloth from my forehead and pressing it back again.
“Hey,” I called, my eyes still closed.
“Yeah?”
“You told my brother about us.”
“Yup, I told everyone.”
“Then why is he here?”
“You called him.”
“I know. He doesn’t… hate me enough not to answer?”
She sighed. “He came running here as soon as the call dropped and had us all panicked for a minute. Had me worried ’cause I thought someone had tried to kill you or something—with the way he reacted… and well, maybe I, uh—asked him to talk to you?”
That had me opening my eyes to regard her. “Why?”
“There was so much unnecessary animosity between you two. And I had a part to play in that, but aside from that, you’re all each other has. I would kill to have my own family, like blood relatives who are actually related to me by blood in a not-so-fucked-up way. You two have that; I just tried to open his eyes a little so it wouldn’t be hard for you to… to talk to him. I was going to come back here after some party we wereat and try to talk to you, too, even though I know it’s not my place to do that—”
“Thank you.”
