Page 32 of Firefly (Redemption 2)

“Kieran,” I began warily, but paused when his hands tightened around mine.

“Everything, Lily . . . everything I do is for you. See that,” he pleaded hoarsely. “Fucking see that.”

“How can I when you refuse to see what you continuously do to us?”

He was silent for so long that if he hadn’t been holding on to me, I would’ve been sure he’d left the room. “I told you last night, it’s not that simple. Things aren’t that simple anymore. You see what I’m doing to us, maybe one day you’ll see what I’m doing for us.”

But we were already crumbling, and if that day comes, there might not be anything of us left.

The street fair in our tiny town was just how I remembered it . . .

Except it wasn’t.

The smells were still strong and enticing. The music was still loud and begged you to move to its beat. There was still that sense of ease and contentment as soon as you walked onto the main streets of downtown Wake Forest.

But there were essential elements to these nights that were missing from it now.

I wasn’t there with my friends. Like Teagan, the other few friends I had grown up with had mourned my death.

I felt an odd mixture of fear and determination rather than the freedom and rebelliousness that had always slid through my veins when I’d snuck out under my mom’s nose.

And instead of the giddy feeling deep in my stomach as I waited for my green-eyed hunter to find me, I was terrified he would.

But though that fear grew, the need to know where Kieran had sent Conor pushed me forward even as I lost his massive, familiar frame in the crowd and got turned around more than once.

I paused near a cluster of tables, contemplating whether I should stand on one of the chairs to get a better view or turn around and go home.

My hand had just touched the back of a chair when a booming voice sounded behind me.

“Future ex-wife!”

I whirled around, hand to my chest in a vain attempt to calm my racing heart.

Ethan held his hands out in front of him apologetically. “Hey, hey, hey, hey now. Didn’t mean to scare my love, I was just so surprised to see her.” His mouth curved into one of his charming grins, but it seemed off. “You sure do seem to scare easily, you know.”

“Uh, well you kind of just yelled from behi—”

“Offer still stands,” he reminded me boldly as he stepped closer.

And it was then that I got a better look at him.

His eyes were glazed. The charming grin he wore so often seemed off because it wasn’t charming at all. It was a mixture of his grin and a sneer.

“Are you drunk, Ethan?”

“I’d like to buy you coffee,” he responded, then lifted a shoulder in a shrug. “Or everything. Let’s start with everything and then move to coffee.”

I took a step away to put some distance between us, but a step from him brought him closer than before.

“I really can’t. I told you, I have a boyfriend.”

He cocked his head to the side, seeming to wait for something. After a few seconds, he laughed mockingly. “Well, wouldya look at that? No boyfriend,” he said in a whisper, as if he was telling me a secret. His lips twisted, that grin of his fighting to hold on. “If you ask me, Elle, he doesn’t exist.”

I’d started shaking my head, ready to explain I did have a boyfriend even if he wasn’t there with me, but the words died on my tongue as I took another step away. A guy like Ethan or not, I wasn’t stupid enough to let him know I was alone.

“I’m sorry you don’t believe me, but—”

“Where you going? I wanna take you out. I wanna show my future ex-wife a good fucking time before she escapes me.”

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