Page 35 of Pucking Them
I stretch on the circular nook at the back of the library, amongst piles of golden velvet cushions and soft blankets.
It’s Robyn’s omega nest.
The library is my favorite room in the mansion.
I’m still not sure how I feel about D’Angelo looking through my Kindle history, however, to choose the books that stock the vast alcoves, which run the length of the room and reach all the way to the high ceiling.
He may as well know my browser history, and I’d kill rather than let anyone see that.
Yet being surrounded by so many of my favorite books, which I never dreamed I would be able to own, makes up for it.
Sometimes, I truly believe that Iamliving in a dream and one day, I will wake up.
“He didn’t catch us,” I clarify.
“But he could have done.” Robyn licks the smeared chocolate off her lips. “It’s like something out of a thriller novel.”
“Don’t say Dan Brown.”
Robyn looks like an outraged squirrel. “I wasn’t going to.”
“Or any of those hockey romance thrillers.”
“Two dangerous twins in a small town, high-stakes hockey suspense that will change everything,” she declares dramatically, as if the voice actor on a book trailer.
“Do you want to become a writer now too?”
“I’ll leave that to D’Angelo.”
I study Robyn, happy that she’s more relaxed than she has been since Cody broke our peaceful Sunday together.
Do women find recklessness attractive?
Romantic?
No wonder my brother has always been popular with women. Along with his love of leather and motorcycles, he has perfected thebad boyimage.
Nobody would have guessed at university that the quiet twin who nobody spoke to was the real bad boy.
I have studied romance novels, trying to analyze how to be the best boyfriend.
What love is.
I have an entire spreadsheet.
So far, however, most of it is bullshit.
Well, apart from the advice on gifting chocolates. Also, offering wild sex. Both of which are popular with Robyn.
Moonlight streams through the floor to ceiling arched windows over the library’s floors, which are painted liketumbling pages. The windows themselves frame the view out into the forest garden like illustrated pictures from a fairy tale.
The ceiling is high and vaulted. A spiral staircase leads up to the second floor of books.
I sprawl further over the velvet cushions, stretching to expose my bare thighs.
For our Book Club date, which is just before bed, I am only wearing a gray t-shirt over my black boxers. On the front of the t-shirt is a picture of three black cats curled together in a fluffy cuddle pile beneath the writing:
ONE CAT WON’T FIX ALL YOUR PROBLEMS…BUT THREE MAY.
