Then they kicked.
When he’d stopped moving, they stood above him, shoulders moving with their breaths. Their heads swiveled to me at the same time and I sucked in a breath.
Their eyes burned through the night and I could see the words in their heads. With their rolling breaths and heaving chests. As veins throbbed in their necks and twined down their closed fists—they were deciding if they really were going to kill him.
But then Gray came to me in silence, slowly unbuttoned his white shirt as he did, leaving bloody stamps beside the buttons. He bent down, draping it over me and buttoning it back up as he went. When Gray finished, West draped his jacket over me.
Everything about this moment felt fateful, from the pounding fireworks to the blood on their hands.
I kissed the lips of a god, so fate punished me.
Maybe I’d kissed the lips of two.
Grayson, who I’d watched for years and hoped would never notice me. Yet, in the end, his attention was the catalyst to set my soul on fire. West, who I prayed for years would look back again in my direction, but whose attention proved the most destructive.
No one ever accused gods of being kind to mortals.
West stood up, beside Gray, and Grayson dragged his thumb along my jaw, looking me over for any signs of hurt.
“I’m okay,” I said.
Every muscle in him was coiled and throbbing.
I gripped his bicep. “I’m okay, I promise.”
He let out a pained exhale. “Either way. We’re not going down to the cemetery tonight.”
“Agreed,” West said.
Like coming out of a dream, I scrambled up. “No! We might not get another chance for months.” The next time Crowne Hall would be this distracted…it could be the baby shower. Which would be months from now.
I knew Gray wouldn’t let West look on his own, neither could he leave me alone with him, no matter what weird Twilight Zone camaraderie had just happened.
West folded his arms, and Gray did the same.
“You’re not going,” Gray said.
I’ve decided I don’t like it when West and Gray team up.
“I’m not letting some asshole ruin this!”
Speaking of said asshole, he moaned in the sand. Gray’s jaw ticked.
I glanced at him. “What’s going to happen to him?”
“Paparazzi are going to get an anonymous tip,” Gray said. “There have been rumors about him for years.”
“Well…” I glanced at the sky, to the fireworks almost finished. “Let’s go.”
“You’re pregnant,” Gray and West said at the same time again.
Gray exhaled through his nostrils, rubbing between his eyebrows like it hurt to agree with him.
“Again… I’m pregnant, not dying. I can go.” I touched Gray’s arm. “He barely touched me.”
Gray stared me down. Stay here.
I blinked at him. No.