Aww, he remembers that I like to douse my French toast in hot sauce … Too freaking cute.
“You want to yell hey, hot sauce toast! across a crowded room, then that’s your choice. Just don’t expect me to answer.” Spencer smirks and leans in, kissing a drop of ruby red blood away from the corner of my mouth. I smack him away again, but he just chuckles and burrows his face against the side of my neck. “Don’t you know about, like diseases and stuff? Don’t lick my blood, that’s gross.”
“Don’t be so dramatic. What diseases could you possibly have?” He sits up and looks me over in my white-button down and plaid skirt like I’m the most beautiful woman he’s ever seen. “I took your virginity, after all, and I’m clean as a whistle.”
“Mm-hmm.” I give him a look, but his expression is tender, and I know he’s just being playful. “You know,” I begin softly, looking down at my lap and forgetting about my split lip for a second. “I always wanted a boy who’d love me in a ballgown and a face full of makeup, but also love me just as much in sweatpants with a pimple on my nose.”
“Like the one you have now?” Spencer says knowingly, and I balk at him.
“I do not have a pimple! What is wrong with you, Spencer Hargrove?” he grins at me, and then reaches up to brush back some of my hair. After that talk with Jack on Halloween, I was sure he was going to draw into himself. Spencer’s always said he hates lies more than anything else, and Jack’s clearly been lying to him for years. But instead of freaking out and running away, he’s here, and he’s dealing with it. I’m proud of him. “I’m trying to be poetic and romantic and—”
“I was getting ready to suck your dick, Charlotte Carson. I was looking up the ins and outs of anal sex, and if silicone lube was better than water-based—it is.” He pauses and smiles at me in a way that breaks my fucking heart and sews it back together all in a single glance. “If you think that I wouldn’t love you in sweatpants and pimples, then you’re just not paying attention.”
“Love me, huh?” I ask, and Spencer lifts a dark brow. My heart is beating out of my chest, thinking about Ranger’s confession and wondering if I could be so lucky to hear that phrase twice.
“You know I love you, Chuck.” He shrugs his shoulders again, like it’s no big deal. But it is. It is a big deal. I lean forward, placing one of my hands on his legs, lips parted gently, waiting. “Shit, you can’t look at me like that.”
“Say it again,” I tell him, leaning even farther forward, knowing that the top buttons on my shirt are undone, and that I’m sitting in just such a way that there’s maximum cleavage going on.
“I’m not afraid of the L-word,” he says, flashing a foxy smirk in my direction and then reaching up a single finger to brush down the side of my throat. “I love you, Chuck-let.”
“Even if your love for me gets you killed?” I ask, pausing and glancing away, toward one of Church’s coffee posters. Part of me wonders what would happen if I ran, if the cult would eventually give up. If I weren’t here, would the boys be safer? Maybe they could just hire private security for me, and I could wait this out back in Santa Cruz? The thought is crushing, but now that we know what we’re dealing with, I can’t help but wonder.
Then again, if the families behind this are in the league of—or at least close to—the power and influence of the Montagues, then I don’t imagine they’d let me go quite that easily.
“I’d rather die for love than live without knowing how bad it hurts,” Spencer says, smiling. “Now say you love me back, and let’s do it before those other assholes show up.”
“I love you, Spencer Hargrove,” I say, and I mean it, I do.
The thing is, I’m pretty sure I love all five of the boys. Equally.
What’s a girl to do?“My dad is never going to let me go,” I say, sitting on the counter in my skirt and loving the power shift I feel in this kitchen. A year ago, I was remaking quiches and being locked out of the dining room while Ross sniveled and snickered next to Spencer. Now, I’m sitting here and being pampered by a horde of lovesick boys.
I tap my crossed ankles against the cabinet and think what a difference a skirt can make. Essentially, I’m a femme fatale now. I own these boys.
“Get off that fucking counter and finish this fruit tart,” Ranger says, pointing at the freshly baked crust which is seriously bereft of fruit. “And make it cute. We need to up our game on Insta. Our feed is garbage.”
