Page 97 of Just This Once

even with a bum leg I can make you see God

Duchess

Please. You can’t go up the steps without getting winded.

my tongue works fine

I’ll lick your pussy until you screammy name

Duchess

I’m about to start screaming if you don’t stop texting me during one of my favorite episodes.

tell me you love me

Duchess

I love you.

I screenshot that and save it to my photos. Then I look up to find her staring at me, that mean arch to her brow, mouth pinched like she might put me in my place with only a few words. It’s my favorite.

The same order to her features from the night I first spotted her.

I love you, I mouth, earning a twitch of her lips, a losing battle with her smile.

A fight I want to have every day.

Chapter 31

Dante

The Moretti house is a spectacle on Christmas Eve. Every surface is covered in decorations, every corner filled with twinkling lights. It’s loud, crowded, and overwhelming, but it’s what I’m used to. Taryn and the kids, not so much.

Taryn has mostly stuck to my side, still acting as if I can’t do anything by myself, but she has been a buffer with my brothers and father. Especially since everyone is interested in who she is. Who the kids are.

Jake stands with a soda in his hand, awkward but resigned as one of my cousins has his ear about why football is so much better than soccer.

Maddie sits next to him, taking it all in. My aunts trying to argue quietly even though everyone can hear them. My brothers talking shit to my uncles. My mother bustling about with appetizers.

And the whole place smells of fish.

Dinner is clams and linguine, branzino including the head, smelts, lobster, angel hair pasta with anchovies, and crab cakes.Since I requested something Taryn would like, my mother also made ravioli and meatballs. This is all not counting the shrimp cocktail, caprese salad, fifteen-thousand-pound cheese tray, or my mother’s special holiday drink that’s a mix of Sprite, cranberry juice, and champagne.

She gets lit up on it every year by dessert.

Which is why it doesn’t surprise me that she throws her arms around Taryn when she corners us in the kitchen.

“I’m so happy you’re here,” she crows, patting Taryn’s cheeks. “I love having met you, and I’m glad we’re friends.”

“Me too. I’m happy to be here,” Taryn says, attempting to wiggle out from my mother’s death grip, and I have to bite my cheek to keep from laughing.

“You’ve taken such good care of my baby.”

Taryn’s lips part to speak, but my dad barges in with his glass of wine, obviously having heard the conversation. “Yes, your baby.”

Mom spins away from Taryn to focus on my father. “What?”

“She’s taken such good care ofyourbaby.”

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