Page 89 of Patio Lanterns

He turned on his side to face her. “Then stay. You and Mutt. You could both stay with me. We could be so happy.”

She smiled. “We would be very happy. As long as you kept steak in the fridge.”

“Is that all it takes? Consider it done.” He smirked. “But seriously, why not? Why couldn’t you stay?”

“I need to get back to work, although I still haven’t heard back from Parker, and she’s really the one who calls the shots. But it’ll take a while for things to get back on track, so I might lay low around here another week or two, maybe more. I really don’t know.”

“Fair enough,” he said, relieved to hear that Robin planned to stay a bit longer, even though in his heart of hearts, he wanted it to be indefinitely. He could already see himself building his world around her, loving her, cherishing her, giving her everything she ever dreamed of and more. And yet, if that was not possible, he knew he had to prepare for the devastating day when it came to a sudden end, leaving him only with the memory of what they’d shared that summer. “Whatever time we have together, I want us to make the most of it.”

“Me too.” She leaned in and kissed him tenderly. “But if it’s okay with you, can we not talk about this? Tonight’s been so blissfully perfect, I just want to keep floating here for a while.”

Slam.

The front door.

“Dad?” Aidan called out from downstairs. “You home?”

Rick bolted up and off the bed in one move. “Jesus Fucking Christ!”

Robin lunged for the headboard and pulled back the sheets, diving beneath them to take cover. “What the fuck?” she hissed. “Aidan still has a key?”

“Dad?” His voice bounced off the walls leading upstairs.

“Hold on! I’ll be right down!” Rick’s heart kicked like a jackrabbit on cocaine as he felt around for his jeans on the floor.

“Why’d you leave the party without saying goodbye? You feeling okay?”

“Um... yeah,” he said, jamming both his feet through his pant legs at once. “I spilled something on my clothes and came back here to change.”

Footsteps hit the stairs.

Rick quickly zipped up. “Jesus, Aidan, I said I’m coming!” He turned back to see the whites of Robin’s wild eyes, the sheet pulled up to her nose, and tripped on his own bare feet. He caught himself as he stumbled into the hallway, blockading the bedroom door.

“Dad!” Aidan had stopped halfway up the stairs. “What the fuck is going on? Lark just told me—”

Rick’s eyes quickly adjusted. A few steps below Aidan was a shadowy figure that he hadn’t noticed at first. Lark? Oh fuck.

“Where’s my sister?” she demanded, jabbing her finger in the air. “I know she’s hiding up there!”

“Your sister?” Rick balked, stalling so that his mouth could catch up to his dopamine-doped brain, still coming out of its sex-induced stupor. “Which one? Because if I’m not mistaken, you have two sisters. Let’s see now... there’s Dove, and then there’s Robin…”

Lark tried to bulldoze her way to Rick’s bedroom through Aidan, but he wisely held her back. “I knew it! I just knew it!” she yelled. “Robin, get your ass down here right now!”

“So it’s true?” Aidan asked. “You and… Robbie?”

Rick spied his son’s appalled glare. He should’ve trusted his gut and confessed everything to Aidan at the party before he let that moment slip away. Anything would’ve been better than having him find out like this. “I’m sorry,” he said calmly. “But I’m going to have to ask you both to leave. This is my home, after all.”

“Dad, how could you?”

How could I? Have you met Robin? I mean, how could I not? “Aidan, look, I…”

Lark screeched. “I’m not leaving until I see my sister!”

Rick held out his hands, trying to pacify the situation before it escalated into a screaming match. “There’s no need to get hysterical. Let’s just calm down, and we can talk about this reasonabl—”

Lark glowered up at him. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done? People are talking about the way you two were carrying on at the party.”

Rick heard a soft rustling as Robin shuffled out of the bedroom. She sidled up to him, clutching the bedsheet to her chest. “I don’t care what anyone says. Let ‘em talk.”

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