Lust (Vegas Nights 2)

“Who the hell do you think you are to tell me how I feel? You have no idea. I’d just gone through the biggest change in my life in years and when I needed you, you left me!”

“You wanted one thing!”

“I wanted you, you giant idiot!” This time, my finger went toward his face. “The night before? Yes! But when it came down the morning after and it was real and I couldn’t deny it? I wanted you and nothing else, but you wouldn’t know that, because you told me you loved me and you ran away from me!”

His blue-green eyes pierced me right to my soul. “Your life just changed, Perrie. I thought we were different before—but now? Now, we are.”

“My life changed, but my heart didn’t! How stupid do you have to be? My god!” My fingers slipped into my hair and fisted it. “Act first, think later. That’s you. That’s how you do it.”

“Is that supposed to be an insult?”

“No! It’s me telling you that the next time you want to tell someone you love them, you should give them the chance to say it back before you leave!”

I froze.

He froze.

The door behind us opened.

“Um,” Zac said. “We have something to show you.”

We both turned, and I don’t know about Adrian, but I did everything I could to hide the emotion that was welling inside me.

“You wanna see?” Lola asked hopefully, her eyes darting between us.

“Sure we do, sweetheart.” Adrian answered before I did, holding out his hand. Lola tucked her tiny, still-pink-fingernailed hands into his and tugged him.

Zac offered me his hand, his cheeks flushed.

I took it, too.

They’d heard everything we said.

I knew it. Adrian knew it. There was no coming back from this point.

I drew in a sharp breath when I saw what was in front of me. The kitchen table had a large, Avengers towel over it in place of a table cloth. Domino’s boxes sat at either end instead of plates, but they’d thoughtfully laid out knives and forks for us. A wine bottle—corked—sat next to the pepperoni pizza, and a still-capped bottle of beer was next to Adrian’s pizza.

In the middle was a blue, plastic cup, filled with daisies.

Lola shifted.

“We did it for you,” Zac said quietly.

“It took me forever to find the daisies. Some of them are dead, but that’s okay,” Lola said. “I’ve been putting them in my backpack for four days.”

“We couldn’t open the wine or beer,” Zac continued. “But we found the bottle opener anyway.”

“And you liked pizza the other night, so we thought pizza was good, since we can’t cook.”

“But I had to steal your computer, Dad. Sorry. I didn’t have one to go to the website.” Zac glanced toward Adrian.

Tears welled in my eyes.

“We wanted you to love each other,” Lola said quietly.

“But you just had a fight,” Zac carried on. “So, you don’t, do you?”

I covered my mouth with my hand and let the tears flow.

“Oh no, Mommy! Why are you crying?” Lola cried. “Don’t cry!”

“It’s good tears,” I managed to say as they fell down my cheeks. “I promise.”

Adrian wiped his hand across his face. “So, this is what you want. When you said you were making a plan.”

“Um…You heard that?”

“Making a plan? Heard what?” This time, I looked at Adrian.

He glanced at the kids before he looked at me. “The other day…When you had your interview? I overheard them talking and butted in. They were talking about how they wanted us to fall in love and get married. I told them it’s not so simple, and they had to be patient, because being a grown-up was hard.”

I took a deep breath.

“Then, when I left the room, I heard them decide they’d think up a plan. I didn’t quite imagine…This.” He motioned out to the kitchen.

Oh my god.

“We cooked you dinner!” Lola said brightly. Then, she frowned. “But, it’s okay, because you shouted, so it doesn’t matter.”

“Yeah.” Zac frowned, too. “It didn’t work.”

I smiled, even though I wanted to cry. “It worked.” I crouched down. “Sometimes, people who care about each other fight. Zac—me and your dad, we haven’t talked in a couple days, and I guess we were a little upset with each other. But that doesn’t mean I don’t love him. Because I do.”

“You do?” His eyes, so like his dad’s, widened.

“I do. And I love you, too.”

He threw his arms around my neck and squeezed me so tight, I forgot how to breathe for a moment.

“Do you love my mommy?” Lola asked as I hugged Zac back.

“I sure do,” Adrian replied. “Just like I love you, sweetheart.”

Lola’s cries pierced my heart until I heard Adrian sniff and realized they were happy tears.

I hugged Zac a little harder.

“I have a question,” Adrian said after a moment. “Zac, why are there three pizzas?”

He wiped his eyes and extracted himself from my hug. “Well, if we buy you dinner, who’s gonna buy us dinner?”