Page 94 of Run to Me

“She’s eyeing my food.”

Lucy laughs. “She’s a Harrison. Their stomachs are bottomless pits.”

She digs around in a massive diaper bag and finds another package of snacks, dumping the contents on the tray. Marcella shoves a handful into her little mouth, fingers and all.

“Speaking of Harrisons,” Tatum mutters with a knowing grin. What she knows, I have no clue.

Lucy and I turn our heads toward the door, following Tatum’s line of sight. Rock plows through it, nearly bowling over another couple, and struts toward us.

“Tate. Maisy,” he says in curt greeting when he reaches our table.

I lift a haughty eyebrow and drag out the sound of his birth name. “James.”

Tatum gasps in shock as if I’ve provoked a wild beast. Lucy’s brows hit her hairline, surprised by my boldness. Her husband hates being called by his real name.

Meanwhile, Rock glares at me through ginger eyelashes before his mouth spreads into a wide, unhinged grin. “Ray of fucking sunshine. Still burning men to ashes. Who’s your next victim? I want in.”

“You’re still a brute,” I say, shaking my head.

Because my middle name is Rae, Rock began calling me ray of sunshine during our freshman year in high school. After the locker incident between Jensen and Peyton Riggs, I stopped accepting barbs from everyone and found my voice. Rock joked about my fiery tongue being hot enough to burn people. And because he loves mayhem and stirring up trouble, he became my hype man, cheering me on when I gave another student—mostly the boys—a tongue lashing.

“Should I be concerned?” Lucy asks, her eyes pinging between us. “Is this a friendly exchange, or…”

“We’re good,” Rock assures her.

He bends down to kiss his wife’s cheek and whispers in her ear. I don’t catch everything he says, but some words are crystal clear. Rope and lube are the specific ones that pique my curiosity. I glance at Tatum, who’s bright red in the face. She must’ve heard what I heard.

“Tonight,” Lucy says to Rock. “After Marcella falls asleep.”

“Fine.” He claims her lips in a searing kiss, shifting his body to conceal the not-so-subtle groping of her boob. Then he pecks Marcella on the head.

Lucy watches him leave, unaware of our presence as lovesickness confiscates her wits, so Tatum eloquently explains to me what I witnessed while fanning her face.

“Rock’s a horn-dog and makes Lucy have sex every day⁠—”

“He doesn’t make me,” she interjects with an eye roll.

“—and he hunts her down to confirm their nookie plans.”

Lucy giggles, unashamed. “You make it sound dubious. He doesn’t have to hunt me down. We share locations on our phones, so he knows where to find me. The only hunting we do is when I chase him around the yard.”

I do a double take, my eyes snapping to Lucy’s for two reasons. First, is she talking about a specific kink I’ve read about in my smutty books? If so, I’m pretty certain she said she does the hunting. Interesting.

Second, she said Rock pops up randomly because he tracks her location, which turns my thoughts to Jensen’s surprise appearances. The logical explanation to him knowing my whereabouts is that we live in a small town where everyone knows everything. Plus, he’s never had access to my phone without me being present, so there’s no way he could be tracking me. He wouldn’t. Right?

Tatum draws me out of my thoughts when she asks, “Why do you chase him?”

For some reason, I’m inclined to protect her innocence. “You don’t want to know, Tate. Trust me.”

“I do want to know,” she insists. “Lucy’s been teaching me about all kinds of things I’ll never do with Jake. Someone has to educate me since you never would.”

Exasperated with her misguided perception of my love life, I spill the truth and burst her bubble. “Because I don’t have a lot of experience, Tate. You have this grand idea that I’m sexually free or awakened or whatever you want to call it, but I’m not.”

“But the roadies,” she accuses.

“One roadie. The same roadie on every tour until he quit before the last one.”

Her eyes bulge before she screeches, “You lied to me?”