The Buy-In (Graham Brothers #1)

I groan. “Really, Tabby?”

She steps back, crossing her arms. “Every star needs to be glittered.” Grabbing her purse, she heads for the door. That must be the signal, because the rest of the mafia follows suit. “There are six hundred stars and a handful of comets and planets. I guess we’ll leave you to it.”

And with that, she leads her merry band of minions away in a sea of brightly colored fabric. It probably wicked away their souls along with their sweat.

“What’s so bad about glitter?” Pat asks.

Everyone with a kid knows glitter is the butthole of crafts. I’ve heard it called worse, actually, but I’ll stick with butthole.

I sigh and start arranging things on the table by the teacher’s desk. “Oh, you poor, innocent man. You’ll see. Grab those stars and we can get started. This is going to take a while.”

Twenty minutes later, Pat and I are sitting side by side at the work table next to the teacher’s desk, a regular assembly line of glitter and glue. He glues; I glitter. Then, repeat. We are both sticky and sparkling like a couple of Twilight vampires on the Summer Solstice.

“The couple that glitters together stays together?” Pat says, handing me another star.

He lets his fingers skate over the back of my hand as he does so, leaving a riot of goose bumps behind. I’m still feeling off-kilter, trying to decide if I should bring up THE KISS or keep up this charade of pretending it never happened at all.

“What’s the saying—sticks and stones will break my bones, but glitter lasts forever?” I ask.

“I thought it was more along the lines of the only certain things in life are death, taxes, and glitter.”

I laugh and finish another star. I now have glitter underneath my nails. Earlier, I think I inhaled some. It’s probably already embedded in my lungs.

“Sorry you got dragged into this with me.” I take another star from him. “I did try to warn you.”

“Glitter isn’t so bad. Plus, I wanted to be here. I want to be anywhere you are.”

Well, that’s certainly sweet. But why hasn’t he mentioned our kiss? Or tried to kiss me again? Usually I’m the one who’s taking ten steps back for every two we take forward. Was the kiss bad? I mean, I know I’m a little rusty, but I didn’t imagine the heat that practically left scorch marks on the stadium.

“Lindy?”

Pat’s voice startles me, and I realize I’ve paused our glitter assembly line and have been staring at his lips for an undetermined amount of time.

“Sorry.” I look away, reaching for the glitter.

Pat’s fingers brush my jaw, a gentle urge for me to turn toward him. I resist, keeping my eyes on the star in my hand, making sure it gets all the glitter it needs. This job is very, very important and clearly needs my full and undivided attention.

“What’s on your mind, Lindybird?”

Pat’s fingers don’t leave my skin. Instead, they skate along my jaw and trail down my neck, practically leaving a glowing trail of electricity in their wake. The little hairs on my arms rise.

“Just trying to do a good job.”

“Mmm. Because this is very important work we’re doing.” His voice is low and husky, and it has me thinking about everything but glitter. Especially when he traces a single fingertip along my collarbone.

“The most important. Lives depend on these stars.”

My eyes close as his finger slides back to my shoulder and down my arm until he finds my wrist and draws lazy circles on the sensitive skin there. I’m pretty sure he’s hypnotizing me. Later, someone’s going to say an innocuous phrase like how was your weekend? and I’m going to start barking like a dog.

“I owe you an apology,” Pat says, and this sudden change of conversational course barely pulls me out of the mind-melting state of consciousness I’m in. I’d forgive anything in this moment.

“You do?”

“I do,” he says firmly. “First, for not getting home quickly enough last night. I wanted to be there before you went to sleep.”

I wanted you there before I went to sleep. Seems like these words are best kept to myself for now. Especially because I have no idea what would have happened if he had gotten home before I fell asleep.

“And then this morning. I came home and dove right into the whole Neighborly thing and didn’t even mention our kiss. I’m sorry, Lindy. I didn’t mean to make it seem like that kiss wasn’t the highlight of my week.”

Pat removes his hand from my wrist and cups my cheek, slowly urging me to face him. This time, I don’t resist. We’re only inches apart, and relief floods me when I see the same hunger in his eyes that I feel in mine.

“Sometimes with my ADHD I hyperfocus on something. This morning, that something was discovering all those posts on Neighborly.”

Did Pat ever tell me he has ADHD? I can’t remember him mentioning it when we were dating, but now doesn’t seem like the right time to start asking a bunch of questions. He clearly still has things he wants to say.

“That kiss”—his eyes drop to my lips—“was much more important than some community-wide gossip site, and I’m sorry if I made it feel insignificant. Or made you feel insignificant. It was very, very meaningful.”

Speaking of hyperfocus, I’m listening, but my eyes haven’t left his mouth. It’s such a beautiful mouth. And it is sweet relief to know he didn’t forget about the kiss.

That means we can do it again, right?

“So, what I’m hearing you say is you don’t regret the kiss?” I ask.

“Regret it? No. No! Is that what you thought?”

I drag my gaze away from Pat’s lips to meet his espresso eyes. “Normally, I’d expect you to do a celebratory dance or maybe drag me into a supply closet.”

His eyes spark. “Is there a supply closet in here?”

“I’m sure we could find one. But I draw the line at janitor’s closets. The smell of chemicals is a real buzzkill.”

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