I was allowed to open my Christmas gift first, since I’d won the state championship earlier in the month, leading All Saints High as captain. It was on the night I took Poppy out for the first time. The night I’d had to finish an entire bottle of vodka to go through with fondling her. She’d tasted different than Luna, and smelled nothing like her. It was like making out with a bottle of Chanel No. 5—bitter and about as sexy as licking a fish.
As it happened, my gift was a blue-leather belted Ronde Solo De Cartier watch, with my varsity number—sixty-nine—(yes, they allowed it at All Saints High when your name was Knight Cole) in gold.
As I said, I wasn’t born a douchebag. It took hard work.
“We’re so proud of you.”
Dad and his best friends and business partners, my extended family—Vicious, Jaime, Dean, and Trent—squeezed my shoulders. Even Penn gave my arm a friendly punch.
“Thanks.” I secured the watch on my mammoth wrist.
“Man, you could go pro with your stats. Why the hell aren’t you trying?” Penn whistled, slinging his arm over his fiancée’s shoulder.
I threw a pointed glance at Mom, who was talking to her sister, Emilia.
“Yeah. Foot-in-mouth moment on my part. My apologies.” Penn winced.
After consuming three Marines’ bodyweights in food, hearing Daria and Penn going on about how fucking amazing they were (file under: jerks. The recipe for making them is different), Vaughn announcing that he wanted to study in Europe to a room full of people who let out a collective sigh of relief (file under: mega asshole. Don’t ask me how to make a Vaughn. Only his ruthless father is capable of that), and Luna working really hard on making herself extra-invisible (which only made my ogling more apparent), we all retired to the Rexroths’ drawing room with alcohol and dessert.
My parents, of course, had no idea just how intimately I was acquainted with alcohol at this point. Mom was busy not-dying, and Dad was busy helping her not-die. Plus, I’d always been a resourceful son of a bitch. I’d been able to hide, disguise, and downplay how drunk I was, in and outside of the house. I was a high-functioning shitfaced drunk at this point.
Luna, of course, was right. Even when I hid my alcohol breath, she could tell when I was intoxicated, because when I was, I was mean to her. I didn’t want to be. But staying sober, sharp, and present felt slightly worse than dealing with her disappointed gaze.
Luna tucked her legs underneath her butt and settled on the carpet by the fire. She nibbled on a cookie and cracked open a book called The Dark Between Stars. The doorbell rang.
“Who has the social audacity to drop in on Christmas Eve?” Uncle Vicious seethed in his usual diplomatic fashion as I stood up to get the door.
“Ask your son,” I told him.
I knew it was a dick move to invite Poppy and Lenora, but in my defense, it really wasn’t my idea, nor my doing. Vaughn had practically requested I extend an invitation to the sisters. Since he and I were still beefing about the kiss with Luna—which had occurred because he’d thought he was teaching me some fucked-up lesson, and I thought he was being a little pussy about it—I figured why the hell not?
He’d said he needed to talk to the younger Astalis about some internship she was about to steal from him. Didn’t know. Didn’t care. I just knew it was a good opportunity to cement the fact that I wasn’t heartbroken.
Because I wasn’t.
Fuck Luna.
Oh wait, someone else already had.
Awesome. The inflation on my love was clearly skyrocketing through the roof. But really, I cared more about the fact that I didn’t care than anything else. Confused? So was I. All I knew was Luna, once again, had managed to friend-zone my ass in the treehouse, and I’d taken it, again, because apparently, I had a side gig as her doormat. To make everything much, much worse, Luna was now flirting with people like Jefferson in front of me and kissing my best friend. And I shouldn’t care, but I did.
The girls moseyed into the drawing room, carrying a homemade funnel cake and an awkward silence like a half-dead animal behind them. Luna refused to look up from her book, acting completely oblivious to the situation.
Daria pinned me with a death glare from the couch, curled around her fiancé. “Smooth, Cole.”
“Also thick, long, and hard. Your point?” I flashed her a smirk, whispering under my breath.
“Astalis.” Vaughn stood up.
Didn’t take a genius to know which sister he was referring to.
Lenora offered him a steadfast gaze. “Spencer.”
“Did you make the funnel cake?”
“No, why?”
“I would very much like to see my family and friends avoid being poisoned this Christmas,” he quipped.
“Lo and behold, he does have a heart. Would you believe I am literally surprised to hear that?”
“I might not know my insects, but you clearly have no clue what the word literally means. A quick word,” he demanded.
“I know quite a few.”
“I’m well aware.”
“Why is Vaughn talking British now?” Daria mumbled, looking around, dumbfounded.
Emilia and Baron stared at their son and the English girl, fascinated. It was like watching a car crash—or your pet Chihuahua standing up on two legs, reading Shakespearean poetry while sipping on black tea.