Page 122 of Theirs to Crave

“Mariano Julian Alfonso Parker, are youdatingtheMurder Puppy?!” I bounced after him, pinching the back of his arm with my knuckles.

“Ow! Jesus, Estrella! Yes!” Mariano jerked his arm away, then scrubbed his hands over his face and groaned. “No. Fuck, I don’t know what we’re doing.”

“You’re doing something.” I jiggled my eyebrows. “The man kissed you, and you kissed him back. It didn’t look like the first time, either.”

“It wasn’t a kiss,” Mariano grumbled.

“It was the Teterayuh equivalent to a kiss, and you know it. Don’t be a baby.”

“Fiiiine. Yes. We’ve ‘kissed’ before.” He held up a hand. “Donotask for details, I’m not gonna tell you anything.”

“First, ew. Second, what I was going to ask was—how long has this been going on?”

Mariano thrust a hand through his hair, shrugging. “It’s...complicated. It just sort of happened. We haven’t like, sat down and talked about ourintentionsor anything.”

I rolled my eyes. “You’re such a dude sometimes.”

“I’m a dude all the time, baby.”

“Ew, again.”

We walked quietly for a few seconds. I glanced over at him. He was handsome—not that I’d tell him so, his ego didn’t need the help. He looked just like our Tata had when he was young. And like our Tata, he kept his real emotions hidden deep. Oh, he laughed and teased and got angry, but what he felt he kept to himself.

“I didn’t know you were into men, hermano” I said softly.

His dark eyes looked into me for a long moment, then he shook his head. “I didn’t either.”

I stepped closer, so our arms brushed as we walked. The silence stretched as I thought about him and Kurz. I could see it.

“Are you happy?”

Mariano shrugged, paused, and shrugged again. “I don’t know. I think, maybe, I could be? We have a lot in common.”

“That’s nice. I’m glad,” I said, and meant it.

Mariano smiled.

“You know, I kinda thought there might be something between you and Therry,” I mused. At his wordless glare, I shrugged. “If you say so.”

He smacked aside a drooping fern with more force than necessary. Uh-huh. Sure. Nothing bothering him on that front at all.

After a minute or so of pouting, he shot me a glance from the corner of his eye.

“What about you? Are you happy?”

I didn’t have to think about my answer. “Yes. Happier than I’ve ever been. Happier than I thought I could be. After Drake...I lost myself. I was just surviving. Here, I feel like I’m me again. Like life’s worth living again. Even with all the bullshit with Saytireka and the whole “abducted by aliens” fiasco—I wouldn’t change a thing.”

Mariano’s hand wrapped around mine, fingers gripping tight. “I’m sorry I didn’t see what was going on with that asshole sooner. I’ll never forgive myself for that.”

“I didn’t want you to know.” I squeezed his fingers. “No secrets between us.”

His mouth curled. “No secrets.” Then he grew solemn, and he squeezed my fingers back. “You would have been a great mom.”

I blinked back the heat that rose in my eyes. The familiar ache rose...and faded. There, but not the raw, shredded thing it had once been. Huh. When had that happened? “Thank you.”

“You love them, don’t you?”

“Yes.” I sucked my lower lip into my mouth, feeling the dopey grin stretching my cheeks. It was the first time I’d said it out loud, the first time I’d really allowed myself to admit it.

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