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"Great. I'll hold you to that, but in the meantime, about Fleur?—"
"I will shove this pool cue down your throat if you say her name one more time."
"She doesn't think you're serious," he continues in total disregard of my threat.
"I know."
Dunc blinks. "You...know?"
"Yeah, she thinks we're fake dating, and I let her think that because otherwise she would run and hide."
"Oh."
"Right. We done here?"
"Are you going to tell her at some point?"
"When she's ready, but that's for her and me to decide, not you. I don't interfere in your relationship with my actual sister and you don't interfere with my relationship to your not-sister. That's the only way our agreement works." I don't even know when the right time will be to tell her that I'm serious as hell. Last night was a step in the right direction. She let me touch her, let me make her come. She slept in my arms, but the next morning she ran out of the house like I'd burned her clothes and destroyed her laptop instead of shaking up her notions of how we fit together—but again, that's for me and her to figure out. We don't need outsiders trying to fix things for us, no matter how well-intentioned they are. My watch buzzes.
"Time’s up, bro. Have to go pick up Fleur."
"From what?"
"Her newspaper club thing is over in ten minutes. She might want to go home and check on her mom, and we can't have her alone in the apartment with the shady-ass boyfriend, can we." It's not a question.
"You know her weekend schedule and everything," Dunc says with a little wonder in his tone. "You really do like her."
"No shit, Sherlock. I've been trying to tell you that for a while."
He holds up his hands. "Sorry, man, just trying not to be an asshole. Listening to the good angel.”
“We both know that’s a lie. You don’t have them, remember?”
“I’m cultivating them right now.” Dunc pats his right shoulder. “The good angel is all of fifteen minutes old. You’d be amazed at what kind of advice it gives me.”
“I know you’re deranged, so any advice coming from your fifteen-minute-old good angel is going to be just as insane. It’s a good thing I’m leaving so you can have some alone time.” I open the door, and Sadie almost falls in. “Why didn’t you just sit in the corner inside so you could hear better?”
She flushes but slides past me to hook her arm with Dunc’s. “I didn’t want to make it seem like we were ganging up on you.”
“As opposed to whatever this is?” I wave toward the both of them and then shake my head when Sadie tries to speak again. “Forget it. Talk to Dunc about his fifteen-minute-old child. I have my girl to rescue.”
As I’m leaving, I hear Sadie say, “You have a fifteen-minute-old child?” to Duncan. I allow myself a small smile.
Chapter
Nineteen
FLEUR
“Did you get some good ones?” I ask Molly as she drops the camera memory card into my hand.
“I think so. I tried to clean some out so there aren’t a million for you to go through.”
“Thanks.” I slide the card into my laptop. It’s hard to write anything today. All I keep thinking about is last night. Well, that and this morning when I woke up wrapped in Van’s arms. I believe that was the best night of sleep I’ve had in a long time. It was kind of unnerving, to be honest. I enjoyed it far too much. So much so, I think I need to cut things off with him, but I’m not sure how. What I do know without a doubt is that he won’t make it easy for me.
The pictures pop up on the screen, and I begin flipping through them. Molly has tons from the game and then from that day in school showing people dressed up in spirit wear. Even the hallways of the school were decorated. Football had taken over the whole school.
As I continue to go through the pics, something catches my eye in one of them. I zoom into the background to get a better look. Well, well, well, what do we have here? “Molly, do you have a copy of these pictures saved somewhere?”
