Page 52 of Burn for You

She brings her hand to her forehead, standing at attention. “Reporting for duty, sir.”

He just chuckles and pulls her into a hug. The two of them have a sibling-like relationship, and it makes my heart twinge.

When I heard Marisol’s voice in the club, I nearly tripped over myself. I haven’t heard my sister say my name in two years. I haven’t seen her face in just as long. I don’t know what I expected, but it wasn’t the way that she seemed more excited to see Leo and Marina than she did to see me.

I wracked my brain the days after, trying to replay my life in the time between our nonna passing and Marisol leaving town, and I can’t think of anything. Nothing that would make her upset with me, nothing that would make me think the reason she stayedaway was because of me. But the way she left that club within five minutes of seeing me again threw me into second guessing that.

“Do you have the ring?” May asks.

Caio pulls his phone out and brings up a photo to show May. “I’ve got the jeweler on Main working with me to design something like this.”

May throws a hand over her mouth. “Oh my god it’s gorgeous! Isla will love it.”

“I hope so.”

He’s like a nervous kid. I clap him on the shoulder. “There’s no chance she’s saying anything but yes. Tell us what we can do to help.”

May crosses her arms and comes up beside me. “We’re on the job.”

Why do I like it so much that she just called us a ‘we?’

chapter twenty

MAY

“I can’t believeyou’ve been holding out on us!” Marina smacks my arm. “Why the hell didn’t you tell us this as soon as this happened?”

“That’s what the shot slingers' chat is for!” Isla adds.

“Okay, could you two keep it down, please?” I whisper shout.

“Sorry if we can’t keep our cool when you tell us you and Rafael had a sexual interaction.”

I put my hand on my head. “Oh my god, why did you have to word it like that?”

“What else do you want to call it?”

“I don’t know, perving?” I throw my hand up.

“It’s only perving if it’s a secret. That was no secret.” Marina finishes her drink.

“Marina, I don’t think that’s what constitutes as perving,” Isla looks over at her. “But we’ll circle back to that. The main point is that you enjoyed the perving, right?”

I just take a gulp of my margarita in response, and Marina and Isla share a look before turning their incessant attention back to me.

“Okay, fine, I enjoyed the perving,” I whisper. They squeal in response.

“Shut up!” I loudly whisper. “I do not need anyone else knowing about this,” I gesture around the bar, before looking directly at Isla. “I’m looking at you too, Beckett. If you tell Caio, I will bury you in my backyard.”

She holds her hand to her heart before putting it between us with her pinky outstretched. “It’s locked up.”

We used to say that in college, back when we had endless secrets to share between ourselves that could never reach another’s ears.

Marina’s pinky joins Isla’s. “It’s locked up,” she repeats, before I reach my pinky out to meet theirs and we tangle them together in a promise.

“So that’s why he was looking at you like that in the club on Saturday night,” Marina says. I just raise my eyebrows in response.

“No wonder he was so pissed when he saw you with Jack,” Isla adds.

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