Page 27 of The Love Destroyers

He stops, coat half on, coat half off, and grins at me. “Hello to you too.”

I’d expected my mother would have something to say about me going on a smoke break, especially since she made Anthony do all the lawn maintenance on Smith House for weeks after she caught him smoking pot, but she smiles at us. “Have fun. We’ll see you in a half hour or so.”

“Mom, it doesn’t take half an hour to smoke a cigarette.”

She waves a dismissive hand, her oversized jeweled rings flashing at me. “Oh, I’m perfectly well aware of how long it takes most people to smoke a cigarette, but you don’t do anything by halves. I’m guessing you’ll go down there and smoke a whole pack. Maybe you should have two while you’re at it. God knows you could use something to take the edge off.”

It’s a bizarre attitude. I glance at my brother, who gives aYou know our mothershrug, which also baffles me.

“Want to come?” Nicole asks Damien, who’s about to bite into one of the donuts.

He shakes his head and grins at her. “Surprisingly, I’d rather stay in here and eat donuts in the heat. This one’s all yours, Nic.”

I’m about to open the door, when Seamus presses his hand over mine, pushing it from the knob.

“Get your coat,” he says in a low rumble of command that affects me more than I’d admit to anyone.

“Maybe I want yours.”

“You’re not very good at borrowing things,” he says pointedly, lifting his eyebrows. “Giving them back is a key part.”

I could try to argue, but the longer we’re in here, the greater the possibility that we’ll get pulled into a game of Charades, or whatever people typically do at housewarming parties.

“I’m getting my coat because I want it,” I say.

“Can you get mine because you want it too?” Nicole asks, leaning on the wall next to the door.

I get the coats from the small closet by the door, my heart thumping warm blood through my veins—my mood not at all sluggish.

I’m filled again with that heady feeling ofsomething is happening.

Five minutes later, I’m standing out on the pavement beneath the building, next to a dumpster that reminds me of the one next to the restaurant on the night of Anthony’s rehearsal dinner.

“You have us down here,” Seamus says, amusement curling his lips. “Now, what do you intend to do with us?”

“Aren’t you going to smoke?” I ask him.

“Nope.” He sticks his hands in his pockets and rocks on his heels. “I figured you had something to say.”

“I do,” I say, feeling a fizzing sensation inside of me. It’s as if I’m about to blow sky high. Not from anger, necessarily, but from all of the emotions and words I’d repressed for months begging to be released at the same time. “Why are you here?It obviously has something to do with Nicole. She’s shitty at keeping secrets.”

“I take offense to that,” she objects, her voice edged with sarcastic amusement. “I’m only shitty at keeping secrets when I don’t want to keep them. And I guess it’s time for me to let you in on what I’ve been working on for the past few weeks.”

“And you know about this?” I ask, turning to Seamus. White mist billows from his lips, slightly parted, as if he’s smoking out here after all. Memory is an awful thing, because I can practically feel his lips brushing over mine as he pushed me into the side of my mother’s house.

Most kisses are forgotten as soon as they’re over, other than whether they were pleasant or unpleasant. Our New Year’s kiss has infested my dreams for the last month and a half. The thought puts a scowl on my face.

“Yeah,” he says, his mouth hitching up at the corner. “Maybe you would too if you hadn’t blocked me. That’s on you.”

I scowl at him. “If you hadn’t made an annoyance of yourself, I wouldn’t have blocked you.”

He lifts one shoulder and tilts his head: silently saying touché. “I’m here because I find myself temporarily unemployed, like you, and Chuck offered me a place to stay. It didn’t hurt that Nicole paid me a visit and hired me for a temp job.”

“What job?” I ask.

He gives me a wicked grin that tells me it was the right question to ask—the only one that mattered.

“Driving Ellie Reed and her dipshit boyfriend around Asheville for a week. They ‘won’—” he makes finger quotes, glancing at Nicole, “—an all-expenses-paid early spring break vacation—”

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