Page 74 of Playing for Keeps

Lola looks up at me with wet eyes. “When I was telling Kerrie about you and me, I made us sound like an unstoppable force.”

“All good so far.”

“But what if I’m too certain about things and jinx our good luck by not worrying about the curse?”

“Lola, what exactly is the curse again?”

“That no one from my family can know true romantic love.”

“Look, I have no doubt your great-great grandmother’s coochie angered the wrong woman. I fully buy into the curse. I mean your grandma is smoking hot, and your dad has got stellar moves. The fact that neither of them has found someone to love them right is a sign that the curse is real.”

Lola nods, relieved by how I don’t brush off her concerns.

“But that curse won’t work on me. I already love you. If your dad ended the agreement, I’d still marry you. Even if the clubs dissolve and I became a working stiff, I’d still want to spend my life with you.”

“Because your magic is stronger than the curse?” Lola asks, seeming fragile in a way she rarely is.

“Of course. Besides, that curse is old and likely a little senile. It can’t keep a hold on you anymore.”

Lola smiles at my words before looking up at the star-filled evening. “I’m afraid to let my guard down and not see the end coming.”

“Why would anything end?”

“It always has for everyone else.”

“Not my family. Even when Queen Meemaw Christine left King Peepaw Jared and married my bio grandpa, she never truly let him go. They’re all tied up together inside. That’s why as soon as they were around each other again, everything just clicked. That’s the kind of magic I know, but I understand why you don’t trust in it yet.”

Lola hugs me tighter. “I trust in you. You’ve been a force of nature since we met. That’s why I had to scream like that at the store. You make me lose control.”

“Now that you’re mine, I can never let you go.”

Breathing easier, Lola wears a lovestruck gaze. Now with her certain about us again, I unleash the heat until we’re fighting to see who pins who against the bar’s wall.

“Val?” Ma-Poppy announces from the diner door yards away. “Are you out here, son? We can’t find Lola. Have you seen her?”

I smile at how my ma gently tells me to keep Earl in my pants and get back to my own party. Kissing Lola for another minute, I promise I’ll have her to myself in a few hours.

Until then, I need to behave like Emmett Mercer’s son and get my ass back to the bar, where two clubs are learning to think like allies rather than rivals.

LOLA, AKA WRAPPED UP IN TWO FAMILIES

During Kerrie’s first night at Duke’s house, she constantly texts me. I sense Poppy got her riled up at the party. Val’s mom kept poking Kerrie, asking questions about why she only had girls and if she had always been a neglectful mom.

“She’s testing you,” I whispered to Kerrie more than once.

My mom only mumbled, “I’m not good at tests. I was barely a C student.”

“Well, you could try testing her back.”

That led to Kerrie asking if all of Poppy’s sons were slut-shamers. Val’s mom nearly gasped herself into a coma. Justice had to fan her sister while Journey laughed at the drama.

“I don’t think I won,” Kerrie texted later once she was down for the night.

“It’s not a real competition. No one is winning or losing. Val’s family just likes to make noise.”

My mom doesn’t get it. She has lame middle-aged friends who talk about homemade bread and beeswax candles. They don’t razz each other like Poppy and her sisters do. If someone has something snarky to say, they do it behind each other’s back.

Kerrie texts me as soon as she gets up in the morning. Her newest concern is Clover keeping secrets.

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