Page 92 of Scandalous

He strides forward and pulls me into his arms.

“What are you doing here?” he murmurs into my ear.

“I came to celebrate your birthday, silly,” I tease.

Drake sets me down and moves his hands from my waist to my face, cupping my chin. He leans down and kisses me slowly. All too soon, he ends the kiss and rests his forehead on mine.

“Best birthday ever,” he whispers, making me giggle.

“All right, let Aurora breathe,” Ezra lightly scolds.

Liam’s eyes fly to Santi. “You were in on this.”

Santi smirks. “Surprise.”

“I don’t know how you all pulled this off. I just spoke with her this morning.” Drake looks back at me, his hands pulling me into another hug.

“It was honestly quite easy,” Ezra says as he claps his hands. “Now come, let’s get started. Aurora is only here until Sunday and we still have the party to prepare for. Let’s make the most of our time with our girl.”

My heart stutters. That’s the first time I’ve heard Ezra refer to me as their girl and I have a feeling he’s including himself in that. Is he really serious about this?

“And what’s on the agenda?” Drake asks, pulling back to press kisses all over my face, making me giggle.

“Give the poor girl a chance to breathe,” Liam jokes, pulling Drake and me to the living room.

Liam, Drake, and I sit on the couch with Drake in the middle while Santi and Ezra sit down on the chairs with the coffee table between us.

“We start off with a game of your choosing. Dinner will be here shortly,” I say, looking at Ezra.

He nods. “Dinner will be here at seven. Then we will watch a movie of your choice before you run away with Aurora for the night.”

Drake looks at me and raises his brow. “Run away, huh?”

I can feel my cheeks heat and shake my head. “He doesn’t mean that literally, I don’t think.”

“I’m sorry for assuming he would want to lock you in his room and keep you all to himself for a few hours,” Ezra deadpans.

I shut my eyes when Santi coughs, covering a laugh.

Ezra has no filter. I don’t know if I want to smack him or kiss him.

Why not do both?

Drake looks back at Liam, who reaches forward and squeezes his hand. “I’m good with it if you are. I only ask that you unlock the door before you pass out, so I can come in at some point.”

“I think that’s acceptable,” Drake murmurs.

“Lovely, now that we have that all figured out, let’s begin. Are we playing a board game or cards, birthday boy?” Ezra says.

Twenty-One

“I’m going to go get ready for bed,” Aurora says quietly as the movie credits roll.

“Do you know where my room is?”

“Yeah, Liam showed me earlier and I put my bag in there. I hope that’s okay.”

I reach over and brush a loose piece of hair out of her face. “That’s more than fine.”

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