My heart skips.
Right there, hanging down from a tree is a tire swing.
I haven’t sat in one of these since…forever.
Giddy. Happy. Carefully perching myself onto it without sinking in through the open hole.
The view can’t be put into words.
Dark, shadowy mountains colour into the background of the twilight sky. Warm lights flicker over the houses upon them. The barn is dark from here, but Gabriel’s house is bright. Smoke fumes fling out of his chimney.
This is the other side of Lucerne.
The homey one. The family life. Thenormal.
Maybe if I lived here, I wouldn’t have the problems I have now.
My phone buzzes.
Thanks for the eggs, tomorrow it’s on me!
Rhys, always the gentleman.
Another message comes through as I finish processing the first one.
What I make is only for you, lovebird.
It shouldn’t. It really shouldn’t.
But it does.
Dean’s message makes me blush.
“You shouldn’t be out here on your own.”
I scream with a hand pressed to my chest like a Victorian woman appalled by the sight of skin. Phone drops to the ground. Pulse pounds in my throat. “Youscaredme. I thought you were a serial killer!”
Grass shuffles around me.
And then Dean is crouching down on his knees in front of me. “A serial killer wouldn’t think twice before killing you.”
My breaths quicken for a whole different reason. The strong setof his trimmed jaw matched with the softness in those emerald eyes… havoc, I tell you. Raising complete chaos.
Shaan’s clean shaven, I can probably butt cigarettes on his deep chin. It’d be cool if I was into that, but I’m not.
I likethis.
Dean’s type of beard, that is.
“What are you doing here?” I look away. Clearly shaken from…him.
“Same as you,” he grumbles.
“So, to masturbate?”
Leaves shuffle in the back.
Crickets stop chirping.