Page 131 of Go Luck Yourself
He chuckles, but it’s pinched and thin. “I admitted to stealing from you. Is that na repulsive?”
“Not as much as it should be.”
And god, if that isn’t the truth. Itshouldbe repulsive, but it isn’t, because he was stealing from us to sustain his Holiday, to fight against his uncle in a way I admire more than I can say. I can’t even stand up to my mom about how she treats me.
“I do na deserve you,” he whispers, his hold on my wrists tensing.
“You got lucky, I guess.”
His laugh this time is more sincere, still tinged with disbelief, but he straightens and stares down at me with a smirk lingering on his lips.
It wavers. “This’ll blow up in my face.”
“No. It won’t. You have Siobhán and Finn and Colm. You have your court coming around too.”
He starts to argue, so I keep talking.
“You don’t paint a whole picture at once, right? And I wouldn’t write a whole book in a single moment. So let’s take it word by word. What you just did, us, all of it. Word by word, okay?”
I can see arguments on the edge of his tongue, stalking his thoughts, his response.
So I kiss him.
He relents to my lips on his like I’m sustenance, cupping my jaw and opening my mouth and seizing control in a grateful, delirious attack. He kisses in promises and oaths and I accept every one, fingertips clawed into the muscles along his spine.
We break to gasp and I tell him, “Come with me.”
His eyes are wet. He looks exhausted, the adrenaline crash after stress, so he nods without a fight and closes the bookshelf and I take his hand.
Half his mind is elsewhere, wrapped up in everything he’s done, and he only realizes I’ve taken him to my room when we step inside.
“Kris?”
“Just—hang on.” I toss the device from the joy meter into the chaos of my suitcase and grab the notebook I’ve been working on from the desk. My heart charges like mad as I flip through pages filled with my scrawled handwriting.
There are two things I could show him.
One is the writing I did about him. Mushy, embarrassing shit.
The other is… unbearable.
Don’t overthink it. Don’t linger.
Word by word.
I rip out the letter and hand it to him.
He takes it with a frown. But the moment he sees the top line, his eyes widen.
“Kris—are you sure?”
“You wanted to see something I’ve written.” I sit on the bed because my legs won’t hold me up anymore. “I want to show you this.”
He lowers into the desk chair. “You wrote a letter to your mam?”
I shrug.
“Are you gonna send it to her?”
