Page 90 of The Secret
Constantine looked at me. “No. And I cannot imagine why he failed to do that. A slip and slide?”
“Mmm. Four of us greased ourselves up like piglets and slid down.Oh, important to note that we were three sheets to the wind at the time.” Mason led the way back into the hall.
“Shit.” Con winced. “Tell me you didn’t land on the ground.”
“No! God, no. That would bestupid, Constantine!”
Con snorted.
“We had a cheap-ass inflatable mattress and absolutely no understanding of how gravity works. What could go wrong?”
“Whatdidgo wrong? Did anyone—?”
“Die? No. Somehow. The guy who went first broke his leg. Badly. Lost a soccer scholarship. Pretty sure he still walks with a limp. I broke my elbow and dislocated my shoulder. Couldn’t wipe my own ass forweeks, which made me seriously rethink my opinion of my own invincibility. One of the other guys broke two ribs and needed to have his fucking spleen removed.” He shook his head as we made our way out to the back deck.
“And the fourth guy?” Con asked.
“Stood up and asked to do it again,” Mason said, staring into middle distance. “I take it back, maybe hewasstupid.”
Constantine leaned against my arm, laughing without restraint.
“It’s not funny, though,” he said a minute later, wiping his eyes. “God. Did you get arrested?”
“Nope. Guess they figured at least three-fourths of us had learned our lesson. We weren’t allowed to go to graduation or prom, but that was about it. And they were right, because the orthopedist who set my arm was so cool, I decided to go into medicine and actually applied myself for once.” Mason shrugged. “So something good came of my idiocy… eventually.”
“Huh.”
Olivia came skidding onto the deck, her black hair flying behind her. “Uncle Con, comenow. We’re gonna play parade, and you’re the tallest one, so you get to be in front.”
“Whoa, front of the parade?” Con let go of my hand. “Catch ya later, Micah. I have a date with destiny.” He pressed a kiss to my cheek. “And a date with you later.”
“I meant, front of the parade afterme,” Olivia explained as she led Con down the stairs to the gaggle of unicorns. “Notactualfront.”
“Oh. Naturally. As befits the birthday unicorn.” Constantine turned back to wink at me before letting himself be towed out to play with a bunch of little kids. Fitting into my family like he’d always been a part of it.
Mason slapped my arm and gave me a knowing smile as he followed them down the stairs, but I stood where I was and looked back at what had once been my grandmother’s house. Nothing was the same as I’d left it—not the walls or the furnishings, not the smell of the place or the people who lived here—and that was a good thing. There was a lightness to the space that I’d never felt when I lived here.
Stability wasn’t in the decorations or even in the house. It was in the family. It was in the things that you learned and the ways that you grew.
So maybe it was time to make my move to O’Leary permanent, for all the right reasons. Maybe it was time to do exactly what Mason had said and start acting like keeping Constantine in my life was nonnegotiable.
Because I really didn’t think there was another option anymore.
Chapter Twelve
Constantine
December
“Hey.” Micah’s weight dipped the bed. “Sleeping beauty.” He nudged my foot and I groaned.
“Five more minutes,” I muttered, pulling his pillow over my head.
“That’s what you said half an hour ago when my alarm went off. What happened to the man who used to be wide awake and giving me shit at four o’clock in the morning?” he chuckled.
My boyfriend was way too fucking amused for whatever hour of the night this was.
I pulled the pillow off my head to tell him so and saw daylight shining through the window. In December, that meant it was way later than I thought it was. Way later than itshouldbe. The clock on the nightstand said seven seventeen.
