Now her eager smile turns nervous.
“I was hoping to avoid talking with them about it,” she admits. “I know they’re going to be against it.”
“But can’t they hear you?”
She shakes her head. “I’ve blocked them out,” she says in a whisper, her cheeks flushed.
Still, I shake my head skeptically. “Veronica, I… I’d do anything for you, but we can’t do this, Alana would kill me if she found out, and Megan would hate me even more. And Ian…we’ve just sort of got back on good terms, he’d fucking kill me and not theoretically, literally kill me.”
“We don’t even have to tell him,” Veronica rebuts quickly.
“But we do,” I tell her. “We can’t just make this kind of decision without the others knowing. It’d destroy our relationship, I’ve fucked up with him in the past more than once, and I don’t want to do it again. And I’ve already lied by omission too many times; I don’t want this to be the reason they all cut me out.”
She lets out a heavy sigh and sits back in her chair, her shoulders sagging. Her eyes leave mine as disappointment sets in, and fucking shit, I don’t want to let her down.
Fuck. This is going to cause so many problems, but it’d be our first and last time. And I want it–fuck, I want it more than anything.
“But,” I sigh after a moment. “If you can get the other two to agree to it, then I will talk to Ian about it.” Her attention snaps back to me, and a grin slowly spreads across her face. “But the only way I’m doing this is if they all agree.”
“Okay,” she nods excitedly, which makes some of the tension melt off me. “But I’ll talk to Ian. If you go to him, he’ll never agree to it, and more than likely, he’s going to hit you for even bringing it up to him.”
The image of him swinging that bat on Kam flashes in my mind, and I know she’s right, but still, as his cousin, I’m the one that needs to talk to him about it.
“What if we did it together?” I ask her.
She shakes her head, disagreeing. “It needs to just be me. I’ll convince him. I wanted to avoid having to do any of this, but I don’t want to put your relationships on the line with any of them because of something I asked for. I need to explain this to them.”
“Hey, don’t think I’m doing this just because you asked me to,” I say, needing to clarify. “As much as I’ve tried to deny it…I want what you want.”
There. It’s out, an admission to her and myself. The most beautiful and saddest smile I’ve ever seen spreads across her face, but then she gets quiet, her eyebrows scrunch together while she thinks, her gaze pointed towards the floor. I watch her as she tries to figure something out. What? I have no idea. But a light bulb goes off, and her bright eyes return to me.
“Come with me to Dr. Lyce’s tomorrow,” she says. “She might be able to help.”
I raise an eyebrow at her, apprehensive about that part.
“You think she’d want to help get everyone on board with us having one day together?” I ask her.
“No- well, not everyone. Just Ian. And right now, what I’m thinking about is only a suspicion because I don’t quite know how it works, and I don’t want to explain it now only to confuse you. I think we should go plead our case and see what she can do to help Ian be okay with it.”
She stares right at me, eagerly waiting for me to speak, and I bite down on my back teeth, unsure of what my answer needs to be.
“Alright,” is what comes out, and when she lets out a small breath and perks up, I’m glad I said it.
“Okay,” she says. The smile she gives me is the happiest one I’ve seen on her since I picked her up, and I find I don’t regret agreeing to any of this. I want to help her be happy, even if it is just for a day. “We have some work to do then.”
“That’s an understatement. Both Alana and Ian are going to be beyond fucking difficult.”
“I’m determined,” she says, her bright blue eyes sparkling now.
Before I can say another word, she pushes herself up from the table, circling around to bend over me. She’s close, the warm scent of her skin filling my senses, and I don’t pull back. I can’t. Veronica closes the space between us, as if she couldn’t give a shit that we’re in a cafe full of people, and that turns me on as much as the way her mouth crashes into mine, kissing me so passionately that it defies even the times I’ve imagined it. As my eyes close, I see fireworks and electricity jolting over my skin. Every song I’ve ever heard on the old radio in my Challenger suddenly makes sense. She’s the kind of shit they write stories about. I lose myself in the kiss, reaching up to run my hands over the curve of her ass, up to the small of her back as her tongue tangles with mine, her pillowy lips making me forget everything else. I don’t give a fuck about everyone else in the cafe–they can watch or look away. I don’t care.
All I know is that I’m on cloud nine.
She pulls away much too soon, and I automatically find myself wanting more. I open my eyes, not realizing I had them closed, and there she is, still smiling at me.
“Just in case we don’t get the chance again,” she says before she leans back in for another kiss.
This time, I’m not too shocked to reciprocate.