Page 83 of Ward Willing
“I really like where the story is going.”
“Any chance you’ll let me read it?”
She laughs. It’s a low, deep sound that I don’t hear enough. “No way in hell. You write literary fiction, and my book has some magic, but it’s mostly fluff and smut.”
“So? You think I’ve never read fluff and smut?”
“Have you?” she asks, eyes sparkling when I stop at a light and glance at her.
“Of course. I read everything.”
“Name one smut book you’ve read,” she challenges.
Fortunately for her, I’m not lying, and I’m ready to prove her wrong. “Stella roped me into her smut book club a few weeks ago. I’d asked her for recommendations for BDSM books, and somehow now we’re meeting every other Monday night to talk about tropes and book boyfriends with some of her friends.”
“BDSM books?” she asks.
“Yep,” I answer.
I fuckinglovethe way I can hear her inhale sharply at that.
“Like what?” she asks.
I grin. “I’ll send you recommendations,” I reply, realizing too late that we’re flirting. “If you want them.”
“I’ll take you up on that. But no, you can’t read my book. No one can. Ever.”
I chuckle as I turn onto the main road, and we lapse into silence again.
A few minutes later, I valet my Jeep as Zoe and I walk into the place I called home for eighteen years. It looks nothing like it used to, all thanks to Stella. She’s infused the entire building with color and personality. What used to be an imposing stone castle is now bright and cheery with daisies, tulips, and roses at every corner. Instead of the gravel I grew up with, the surrounding area around the castle is made up of drought-friendly succulents and plants, trees, and fountains. Zoe’s been to the castle a few times since I became her guardian, but Stella really went out of her way to brighten the place up recently.
As we walk in, there’s a table filled with yellow and orange tulips, and piles of candy corn. The marble floors are adorned with bright, patterned rugs, and I swear there’s a new pink couch somewhere every time I come over.
“Looks like we’re the first people here,” Zoe says, arms crossed as she takes in her surroundings.
“Miles, get your bloody arse down here before I have to come up there and style your perfect hair for you?—”
Stella comes around the corner holding Beatrix, the nine-month-old daughter she and Miles share, on her hip. She’s wearing a black one-piece unitard with cat ears, a black nose, and whiskers. Bea is dressed as a mouse, and it’s fucking adorable.
“Oh my god!” She chuckles, walking straight toward me and handing me my favorite person in the whole world—other than Zoe, that is. I settle Bea against my chest. “Miles is taking forever up there, and I still have the slime and eyeballs to make,” she says, exasperated. “Would you mind looking after her until my husband’s pompous arse makes an appearance?”
Zoe snorts, and I try to hold my laugh in. “Of course. Are we the first people here?”
Stella makes a waving motion with her hand. “No. Orion, Layla, and her guest are in the kitchen.” She looks at me. “Can you please go get your exasperating brother?” she asks me. “And Zoe, would you mind helping us with the meat in the kitchen?”
We share a look.Meatcould mean anything, and Zoe’s lips twitch as she follows Stella to the kitchen on the other side of the castle, the remote in my pocket forgotten temporarily.
As they’re walking away, I look down at Beatrix, who is smiling at me with all four of her teeth. She has wild, blonde curls like her mom, but her large, green eyes are all Miles.
“So, what’s new with you?” I ask Bea, my voice soft. When I look up, Zoe is looking over her shoulder at me as she walks away, and something heavy settles in my chest at the affectionate look on her face.
“I’m in trouble,” I tell my niece, my voice low so Zoe and Estelle don’t hear me. “So much fuc—freakingtrouble.”
Since Estelle, Zoe, Orion, Layla, and her mysterious guest are in the kitchen, I head upstairs with Bea to grab a CD from my old bedroom. When I went to college at eighteen, I left a lot of things here and never moved my things to my own house. Bea warbles and places her little hands on my face, making my glasses go askew as I walk to one of the large bedrooms on the top floor—the bedrooms that were used by Chase when he used to live in Crestwood, and before Estelle lived here, too.
I push my bedroom door open, and a wave of nostalgia washes over me. Suddenly, I’m sixteen again listening to my first Good Charlotte album on my CD player—which still sits on my desk. My sheets are black with white anarchy symbols all over them. There are Vans Warped Tour posters from 2001 until I stopped going a few years after that.
There’s a massive bookcase piled with CDs, too.
