“Do you think we’ll last?” she asks, her words a quiet whisper floating across my chest.
I keep her close, not answering because I don’t know. Loving Dee is like loving fire. The night I first told her I loved her, when she told me to go home, it broke my heart in a way that it had never been broken before. I ended up drinking myself sick with my mom, toasting the girl who burned me and hating everyone who wasn’t as miserable as I was. Then Dee showed up, giving me hope and taking it away again, and I drove back to town that day vowing to forget her.
“Do you?” I counter. I don’t know if we’ll last—I only know that I hope so. The more time passed after what happened between us in the roped-off bathroom at Mayhem, the more girls I used to try to forget her face, but every night, I found myself drawing her with the pencils she gave me for my birthday. There was no forgetting her, and it took her chucking a poster tube at my head and screaming that she loved me at the top of her lungs to make me realize I’d never want to. Things between us will probably never be easy, but the best things never are. What matters is that every day, I promise to love her forever, and every day, she promises it back.
“I hope so,” she says, and I smile when she echoes my thoughts.
Brushing her silky hair through my fingers, I say, “Me too.”
We lie like that until there’s nothing between us but her heartbeat and my heartbeat and a future we both want—until I quietly say, “I wished for this.” When Dee lifts her gaze to mine, I explain, “On my birthday. When you had me blow out the candles, this is what I wished for.”
“You wished for me?” she asks, and I give her a smile.
That night, with her face illuminated behind soft flames, I wished for the only thing I’d ever really wanted. I wished to be happy.
“Yeah,” I say, lifting her fingers to my lips and planting a soft kiss against her palm. “I wished for you.”
The End
New to the series?
Don’t forget to read Adam and Rowan’s story in
Mayhem
Available now from Avon Impulse!
And don’t miss Shawn and Kit’s story . . .
Chaos
Coming July 21st from
Avon Impulse!
Read on for a sneak peek!
An Excerpt from Chaos
Nearly Six Years Earlier
“YOU’RE SURE YOU want to do this?” my twin brother Kaleb asks with his arms crossed firmly over his lanky chest. His bottom lip twists into a knot that he sucks between his teeth, and I roll my eyes.
“How many times are you going to ask me that?” One of my legs is already dangling out my second-story bedroom window, my weighted combat boot stretching my leg toward the grass. I’ve snuck out of my house a million times—to play flashlight tag, to spy on my brothers, to steal some desperately needed alone time—but never have I felt as nervous as I do tonight.
Or as desperate.
“How many times do I need to before you realize this is CRAZY?” Kaleb whispers brashly, casting a nervous glance over his shoulder. Our parents are sleeping, and for tonight to go as planned, I need to keep it that way. When he returns his gaze to me, he has the decency to look guilty for almost ratting me out.
“This is my last chance, Kale,” my quiet voice pleads, but my twin remains unfazed.
“Your last chance to what, Kit? What are you going to do? Confess your eternal love just so he can break your heart just like every other girl those guys ever come into contact with?”
I sigh and throw a second scrawny leg over the window sill, staring out at the clouds rolling over the crescent face of the moon. “Just . . .” Another heavy sigh escapes me, and I say, “If Mom and Dad wake up, just cover for me, okay?”
When I look over my shoulder, Kale is shaking his head.
“Please?”
He walks to meet me. “No. If you’re going, I’m coming with you.”
“You don’t—”
“I’m coming with you or you’re not going.” My brother’s eyes mirror my own—dark and determined, a brown so dark they’re almost black. I know the look he’s wearing, and I know there’s no point in arguing with it. “Your call, Kit.”
“Party boy,” I tease, and before he can push me out the window, I jump.
“So what’s your plan?” he asks after hitting the ground after me and breaking into a sprint at my side.
“Bryce is going to take us.”
When Kale starts laughing, I flash him a smug smile, and we both hop into our parents’ SUV and begin our wait.