Page 7 of Puck Prince

CALLIE

“It could be worse,” I tell Delilah, who is surprisingly just lying on my lap, claws retracted. She might even be purring. Probably dreaming about smothering me in my sleep, but still. “It could be ra?—”

I spoke too soon. Little drops of rain begin to fall. Of fucking course.

I huddle farther into the chair, which, by the way, is no California King and this is very much not the Bahamas. It all tracks, though. A shitty couple of months running unchecked right into a shitty night. And if I don’t get off this balcony before sunrise when Kennedy comes walk-of-shaming through the door, it’s looking to be a shitty weekend, too.

I would cheers to that sentiment, but I don’t even have my wine.

Fanfuckingtastic.

Suddenly, the other door opens. My mouth runs before I even turn my head in that direction. “I already told you, I don’t need?—”

My words cut off when I get hit in the face with a blanket. A soft, warm blanket… that also smells delicious. I wonder if that’s how Owen, the-maybe-but-probably-not-serial-killer, smells. God, I could eat it like cake.

I’m freezing, though I wouldn’t admit that under pain of death, so I wrap the blanket around me like a cocoon and toss him a begrudging, “Thanks.”

“Pleasure’s all mine.” But he doesn’t go back inside. Instead, he braces his hands on the railing, flexing his forearms in the process. “Better?”

“Much.”

“You’re welcome.”

“I already said thank you. It’s a blanket, not a life-saving kidney. Don’t make more of it.”

He laughs, andfuck me, it’s a sexy sound. Gritty and loud. It twists those perfectly curved lips into the most scrumptious smile. A smile I wouldn’t mind feeling on my own lips. All the lips, if you know what I’m saying.

I squeeze my thighs together under the blanket.

“Same question as you asked me,” he says.

“What?”

“Are you always like this?”

I sit up, though I’m still wrapped in the cinnamon roll-scented blanket. As much as he’s irritating the ever-loving shit out of me, I keep getting sucked back in for more. “And just what is that supposed to mean? I am trapped on a balcony?—”

“Not trapped. I’ve offered a way out. This is a choice.”

“Unfortunately, I have no pants on.”

“That’s only unfortunate for you. I’m enjoying the view.”

I shoot him a look that could kill. “It’s raining.”

“It’s barely drizzling. And, not to beat a dead horse, but there’s a roof available to you just a hop, skip, and jump away.”

“My life is—” I stop. Nope. Not going to give him that much. This jester would just take my sob story and make a joke out of it.

But he’s not just a jester. He’s a mind reader, too. His eyes narrow in interest. “Finish that sentence.”

I don’t want to. I don’t even know him. But right now, huddled in his blanket, marooned on a locked balcony with the sky crying and my world crumbling, I’m struggling to maintain the RBF and emotional dissociation required to remain amongst the walking, talking, not-openly-crying types.

“Messy,” I say in the end. “My life is messy.”

“I like messes.” He grabs a chair, spinning it in his hand like a bar stool, plops down in it, and tips his head again for me to go on. “Tell me all about it.”

God help me, I want to unravel. I’ve needed to for a while. That’s why I came to Kennedy’s in the first place.

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