“Are you asking me to marry you, honey?”
“No, I’m tellin’ you by the end of this year you’ll be wearing my rings, bearing my name and, probably, pregnant with my baby.”
“You gonna order me to kiss you so I can get all tingly or are you just gonna stare at me?"
He knew his smile hit his eyes when he muttered, "Kiss me, honey.”
“I see a badge on four belts. I’d like it explained why he’s here,” Debbie demanded, eyeing up Cal.
“Mostly ‘cause there’s nothin’ on TV,” Cal replied, Debbie’s eyes narrowed and Merry chuckled.”
“Jesus, holy fuck,” Rivera murmured, coming to a quick halt and looking up at the tall, hulking, tattoo-sleeved Ryker. “Boy, what’d your Mama feed you growin’ up?” he asked.
“Newborn babies,” Ryker answered, scowling down at Rivera.”
“This is the deal, Angel. You… ran… away from me. And I tasted regret for the first time in my life. And that didn’t sting, it fuckin’ killed.”
“I’m falling in love with you, Mike Haines.” As I spoke, with every word his arms got tighter and tighter and his face, already close, became a breath away.
“Angel, you’re already gone.”
I blinked and asked, “Sorry?”
“I read your diaries. I caught your pass in that hotel room. I listened to your offer to stay. I saw you wave good-bye at the airport and got your call before I’d pulled out of the parking lot. You fell with a kiss. I know, honey, because I was right there with you.”
“The One.” Mike declared and Merry’s brows shot up.
“The One?” Merry asked.
“The One.” Mike confirmed.
“In a weekend?” Merry asked.
“In a weekend,” Mike confirmed.
“No shit?” Merry whispered.
“Absolutely no fuckin’ shit,” Mike answered.
Merry whistled. Then he smiled. Then he repeated, “Good for you, man.”
“Oh yeah,” Mike muttered.”
“I haven’t bought Jerra flowers since I pissed her off when we were datin’ and fell asleep durin’ some crappy-ass movie she forced me to take her to sayin’ that movie was Hollywood’s version f us. How could I fall asleep watching the story of us, she asks. And, bro, if that was us, we are borin’ as shit.”
“Any good woman knows two things. She knows how to take care of herself and she knows how to take care of the ones she loves. Today, you demonstrated you’re a good woman Rees. And it was an honor to be there because it was a sight to behold.”
“Have at it. She seems to obey you.”
“I don’t obey! He’s an alpha! It’s just that I don’t have any choice!” Dusty shouted to her back.”
“Holy fuck,” Sully muttered, his eyes on Mike. “Funeral hook up. Didn’t know you had that in you. Impressed.”
“I took in a deep breath and let it out.
He had my back. He had my front. He had my family.
He had my heart.”
“But between these two men she loved, both in one way or another holding her close always, Clarisse Haines knew she would never fall.”
“I’m sayin’ that I care about you, I do it deeply and I have for a really fuckin’ long time. We’re gonna explore this and I hope to God the feelin’ I got is not wrong because I tried time and again to make it feel wrong but all it ever felt was right.”
“As I’m concerned, Fin, you did not fuck up. Those boys didn’t touch my daughter. So the way I see it, as her man, you did your job.”
“I stood there. Still. Frozen. Looking at the most handsome man I’d ever seen in my life. The man I fell in love with when he was still mostly a boy. The man who raised two great kids against the odds. The man who kept the streets of my hometown safe. The only man outside my brother and father who even tried to take care of me, he did it in a way that was beautiful, precious, so I let him. The man who made me happy. The man who was happy being with me.”
“Gotta admit, I wasn’t committed to the task,” Ryker confessed. “But for a bitch in a tight tee with a great rack who makes twelve layer cakes and likes drunk sex, I’ll step it up,” he offered.”
“We already established I’m whipped. Got no problem with that considering how that’s come about puts me in a good mood.”
“I grabbed my shot of tequila. Then I tossed it back. When I put my empty down to the bar and after I took in a deep breath, I informed her, “I like you. I need a new best friend. I’ve added you to the top of a list that has one name. Yours.”
“And girls tell me he’s hot.” He grinned and finished, “I wouldn’t know, seein’ as I’m a guy but I look like him and I’m smokin’ hot so he’s gotta be hot.”
“You were my high school girlfriend. You put out at fifteen. I put up with a lotta shit back then I would not put up with now. You had eyes on your sister at least the last fifteen minutes. I think you can see why I’m pretty fuckin’ pleased I got the chance to make the switch twenty-five years later.”
“Harsh,” he heard Sully mutter from behind him. “True, but harsh,” he added.”
“I’m here to right wrongs and I’m gonna do it, Angel. You told me I’d had my last chance but I don’t accept that and I won’t. If you tell me now that my explanation is not enough and you want me gone, I’m not goin’. I’m not giving up. I got one part of my life’s dream still open to me, very sign she gives me is screaming that she’s standing in my arms right now and I’m not gonna be ninety years old, looking back on my life and regretting that I gave up that dream.”
“Fuck me, shut the fuck up,” Cal entered the conversation, glaring at both Ryker and Devin. “Caked. Jesus. Seriously? Are we talkin’ about cakes?”
“I've been involved in lots of GAMES OF THE HEART, gorgeous. Rolled the dice time and again, took a lot of risks, took a lot of falls. Finally seems I'm winning. I'm not about to play it safe now.”
“Then he walked home thinking he'd given Clarisse Haines her first kiss and thinking it would far from suck if he was also the guy who gave her her last with no one in between.”
“Reesee answered my cell?”
Dusty was silent.
“Dusty,” he called. “My daughter answered your cell?”
“If I say yes, are you gonna get pissed at your girl?”
“Uh… yeah.”
“Then I decline to answer.”
Fuck.”
“I’m not saying we drop to the floor right now and start tryin’ for a baby and I’m not askin’ you to marry me. I am sayin’ that I care about you, I do it deeply and I have for a really fuckin’ long time. We’re gonna explore this and I hope to God the feelin’ I got is not wrong because I tried time and again to make it feel wrong but all it ever felt was right.” I”
“Women don’t buy with me,” he said quietly. “I get it, women’s lib and all, got no problem with that. But you’re with me, I pay. No discussion, definitely no stupid-ass fight. That’s just the way it is with me.”
“If this is about working through your pain with me, I gave what I’m gonna give to that. If this is about something else, then I’ll be spending the night.”
“I pretty much thought everything about Mike was awesome but this new side to Mike was beyond awesome. I didn’t even know what that was and I was too turned on to try to figure it out.”
“It wasn’t perfect, none of
it.
But it was a fairytale.
And people needed to believe in
fairytales. Even flawed ones.
Maybe especially flawed ones.
And they needed to believe always.”
“In a louder voice than I’d intended, I say, “Hey, beautiful.”
“Shhh!” She attacks. “If you wake that baby, I’ll pluck out every pubic hair you have the next time you fall asleep.”
My eyes widen. She’s been spending way too much time with Delores these days.”
“Lunch period was painful and awkward. Whenever Brody tried to ask Mina a question, Jared would interject and turn the subject back to Nan. Ever, frustrated by Jared’s lack of attention, turned to tossing food in the air and catching it in her mouth. It wasn’t until Ever almost choked on one of the French fries that the boys calmed down their feud and turned to helping the girl not choke to death.”
“A home is not a place. It’s not a country or a town or a building or possession. Home is with the other half of your soul, the person who shares in your grief and helps you carry the burden of loss. Home is with the person who throughout it all never gives up on you and brings you eternal happiness.”
“Making you believe what he wanted you to believe was his very reason for being. Maybe his only reason. I was intrigued by the way he turned events, or hints I had given him about people, into reality--that is, his kind of reality. This obsessive reinvention of the real never stopped, what-could-be having always to top what is.
...
I began to wonder which was real, the woman in the book or the one I was pretending to be upstairs. Neither of them was particularly "me." I was acting just as much upstairs; I was not myself just as much Maria in the book was not myself. Perhaps she was. I began not to know which was true and which was not, like a writer who comes to believe that he's imagined what he hasn't.
...
The book began living in me all the time, more than my everyday life.”
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