Page 104 of The Devil Wears Tartan

My hand shakes as I raise it to cup her cheek.

“I feel everything for you,” I murmur, my thumb stroking her smooth, warm skin. “And you know what? Screw someday. Let’s start right now.”

Her bottom lip trembles, and her eyes look big and wide enough to fall into.

I know if I did, she’d catch me. She’s ready now.

“WHAT DID SHE SAY?”

Kenzie turns at Chris’s shout and glares at him where he’s got his hands cupped around his mouth.

“Should I play the special song now, Zee-zee?” Gillian adds, waving her phone in the air and pointing at it.

Kenzie sighs and turns back to me, her cheeks going red.

I raise my eyebrows. “Zee-zee?”

She sighs. “I said I wasn’t ashamed, but damn, they’re really good at making me embarrassed.”

I stroke her face again. “I already like them so much. Thank you for letting me meet them. It means a lot.”

She nods. “It does for me too. I’ve never let someone in this much before.”

“Kenzie? Do I play the song?” Gillian calls.

Kenzie sighs and then shouts, “Go for it, Mom.”

I peer past Kenzie’s shoulder to watch as Gillian taps on her phone’s screen. “What exactly is this special song?”

Kenzie shrugs, blushing even harder. “I thought this moment might need a soundtrack. It’s stupid, but—”

She cuts herself off as the first few chords of Nickelback’s ‘Photograph’ drift through the air. I double over laughing as soon as I recognize it.

“Seriously?” Chris squawks. “Nickelback? This is your romantic song choice?”

“It’s an inside joke!” Kenzie yells back at him.

“It’s awful,” he says with a grimace. “You should have asked Doctor Sly for some help.”

Kenzie gives him the finger—which makes her mom gasp her name in a scandalized tone—before looking back at me.

She holds out her hand. “Would you like to come have some coffee and brownies with me and these imbeciles?”

I place my palm in hers, and a thrill shoots through my whole body.

“I would like nothing more.”

CHAPTER 25

KENZIE

I’ve finished my coffee and eaten way too many brownies when Moira pulls her phone out and grimaces at the screen.

“Oh, crap,” she mutters before I can ask what’s wrong. “We’re late.”

“Late?”

We’ve spent the past half hour sipping from our mugs and chatting with my mom and Chris. The whole thing feels surreal, like some sort of fanciful tea party from a fairytale version of my life, but it also feels right.

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