Page 104 of Serpentine Valentine
I sighed dramatically but put my mug of tea on the railing and stepped off the porch to help her. Her smile was smug as I approached, so I ignored her, wrenching the rake out of her hands to finish off the remnants myself.
“Nice view,” she leered, and when I turned my head, her gaze was fixed on my ass which was not at all visible through my many layers.
I snorted and her beautiful face broke open in a wide grin. When she reached for me, I dropped the rake immediately and stepped into her embrace.
“How’d I get so lucky?” she whispered against my lips, forehead tipped to mine.
I breathed in her earthy, floral scent and held it in my lungs as I kissed her lightly. “Luck had nothing to do with it. You worked for it.”
“I wouldn’t call it work,” she argued, brushing her nose against mine, creating a warm cocoon between our bodies. “Not with you. I never knew what it was like to be happy before I decided to seduce you for my own nefarious gains.”
I giggled, clutching at her open coat to haul her even tighter against me. “Neither did I.”
“You lost a lot to be with me,” she reminded me with a frown I smoothed out with a thumb. “Your mom. Most of your friends.”
“The true ones stayed,” I argued, which was true.
Pierce had actually flown in to visit us in the summer when he gota break from hockey. He’d managed to make his dreams come true, and he’d been signed to the Vancouver NHL team two years ago. Haley also kept in touch though she hadn’t visited yet because she was busy working in New York for a not-for-profit where she’d met a lovely girl named Pauline.
“As for my mum…” I shrugged because even though it had been years, the dissolution of my love and hero worship of my mother still stung like lingering acid in my tissues. I wasn’t sure I’d ever purge myself of the feeling. Agatha had told me once that there was no betrayal like that of a parent to a child because we were raised and biologically inclined to trust and rely on our parents. It made sense, even if it didn’t make me feel better.
“I’d take you over her any day,” I finished a little lamely. “Besides, you gave me your family, and they’re the best.”
They were.
Grace, Effie, and Juno had all followed us to England so of course, Agatha had followed. Some might call their relationships a little codependent, but I thought the kind of loyalty and love they shared was awe-inspiring. Grace lived in London and was scraping a living together as an actor. Effie and Juno both lived in Cambridge, the former as a journalist and the latter as a tech consultant. Agatha lived down the street from us and even though she was retired, she volunteered at the local library.
I loved them.
They were a family of choice instead of the one I’d been given, but that almost made them more special to me, because they made that choice every single day without failure. I wasn’t a chore, or a puppet to be masterminded. I wasn’t even just Lex’s girlfriend.
I was me.
Luna Pallas, bookworm, jock, photographer, and perpetual optimist.
And they loved me.
“It’s enough for you?” Lex asked, though her tone was bossy, almost a demand. Like she was daring me to tell her it wasn’t.
I beamed at her, giving in to the impulse to brush a curly lock of dark hair from her face so I could cup her cheek. “It’s everything to me.”
She studied me with those stone-gray eyes, and I thought about how fierce they could be, how they’d turned men practically to stone with the threat of her violent vengeance. She’d given up her vigilante ways, even though she was a part of the Stay Safe program on campus here. Now, those eyes were filled with warmth and laughter more often than not. When she came home from work, red cheeked from the walk and giddy with talk of her research on feminism in Ancient Greek literature. When she woke up beside me in bed, our bodies curled into each other like halves of yin and yang. When she stared at me like this, right now, as if I was responsible for creating every good thing in her world and she couldn’t quite believe she could hold me like this.
Finally, she nodded somewhat curtly and released me to step back, nodding at the lush pile of leaves.
“I did most of the work so it’s really not fair, but I happen to love you unreasonably, so I will give you first go.”
“Huh?”
A smile twitched her lips. “You know autumn is my favorite season and what happened at Acheron, before you, almost took that away from me. You gave it back. So I’m magnanimously allowing you to have the first jump in the leaf pile.”
I laughed and the sound was bright and clear in the cold air. “You must really love me.”
“Oh, yes,” she agreed then crossed her arms. “Now, go before I change my mind.”
I bit my lip to curb my smile and looked at the high stack of leaves,deciding on my best approach. Finally, I took a few shuffling steps back and then just flung myself at the pile.
It was a bit like falling in love.
