Page 33 of The Infinite Light of Dust

“I’m notmakingyou. You said you love the idea.” Gloria pouted and her son rolled his eyes.

“Only because I don’t want to hurt your feelings,” he told her. She reached for him and squeezed his cheeks gently, as if he was a baby and not nearly her size.

“My sweet boy. You can be a demon if you want. Maybe Karina can do your makeup and help you?” she offered.

I hoped he would say no, that he would continue to go along with his mom’s plan, but to my literal horror, he grinned at me and nodded profusely. “Can you?” he asked, his hands going to his chest to beg.

Damn it. Damn these cute kids and my tendency to people-please.

“Sure?” I managed.

I could barely manage to do a basic everyday makeup look, let alone a costume, but I couldn’t bring myself to tell them all that. YouTube was about to become my new best friend.

When we left their house, Mendoza was asleep on the couch and Gloria hugged me and said she would text me later. We went back to my place to find neither Elodie nor Austin there. I texted them in a group chat, to be sure they were okay, and Elodie responded that they were at the park. The weather was nice, breezy and sunny but not too warm. Fall in Georgia meant unexpected rain, cold fronts, and warmth—sometimes four seasons in one day.

“So, what are you going to dress as for the Halloween party I volunteered us for?” I asked Kael as I plopped onto the couch.

“Us?” He raised a brow and sat on the other side of the small couch.

“Absolutely,us.”

His head dropped back and he groaned. “I never go to that shit. Ever.”

I climbed toward him, straddling his waist with my thighs. Placing my hands on either side of his face, I met his eyes with mine. His beauty always stunned me. It showed itself constantly to anyone and everyone who laid their eyes on him, but in such a quiet, comforting way. Like a perfectly roasted warm coffee, like a fuzzy blanket on my couch in the fall, like Kael Martin.

He looked away from me and I felt that awkward, subtly uncomfortable feeling creep in again.

“What’s wrong?” I had to ask.

He sighed and moved his focus back to my eyes. “Nothing, I’m just distracted.”

“By Phillips? Or discharge?” I asked, concern growing inside of me.

Not because he was distracted by something that didn’t revolve around me, but because I hated the idea of worry so much as even touching him, no matter what the situation was.

“A little of both.” He looked down at my chin, avoiding my eyes.

“It’s not something with me, right?”

Kael’s already dark eyes turned darker. His expression told me that he was deciding whether to lie to me or not. I knew it could be my own paranoia, but I knew him so well, and my gut was screaming at me.

“Honestly, I—” he began.Here we go, I thought to myself. He was going to either tell me he’d been hiding something about Phillips, or that he was leaving tomorrow for Atlanta, or that he couldn’t stand me anymore. My brain was in overdrive, my heart suddenly pounding. I hated the way my thoughts controlled my physical being.

“I really didn’t like that you drank so much earlier. I don’t care how stressed or anxious or worried you are, downing tequila isn’t going to help you, and it pissed me off that you seemed to do it to deal with your emotions, and to piss me off. Both reasons did just that . . . pissed me off.”

I pulled back from him and dropped my hands. “That’s a lot of pissing you off. Seriously?”

“Yeah, seriously. It’s a slippery fucking slope when you start drinking when something goes wrong. I don’t want that for you. I’ve seen it happen again and again. Look at Mendoza, do you want to be like him?”

I shook my head, a little stunned at the shame washing over my body. “Don’t judge me. It was one time, Kael.”

“One time leads to two, then three, and suddenly you have no control over it.”

I felt offended and embarrassed and honestly, it made me want to lash out at him, despite knowing that he was not only right but had my best interest in mind.

“I’m smarter than that. I’m not my mother.”

“Becoming an addict has nothing to do with intelligence, Karina.” His tone was serious as his hands moved to rest on my hips.

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