Lux (The Nocte Trilogy 3)

“Oh, I’ve got balls,” he confirms, his eyes gleaming again.

Dare me.

I swallow hard.

“I’m ready to ask my second question,” I tell him. He raises an eyebrow.

“Already? Is it about my balls?”

I flush and shake my head.

“What did you mean before?” I ask him slowly, not lowering my gaze. “Why exactly do you think this is kismet?”

His eyes crinkle up a little bit as he smiles yet again. And yet again, his grin is thoroughly amused. A real smile, not a fake one like I’m accustomed to around my house.

“It’s kismet because you seem like someone I might like to know. Is that odd?”

No, because I want to know you, too.

“Maybe,” I say instead. “Is it odd that I feel like I already know you somehow?”

Because I do. There’s something so familiar about his eyes, so dark, so bottomless.

Dare raises an eyebrow. “Maybe I have that kind of face.”

I choke back a snort. Hardly.

He stares at me. “Regardless, kismet always prevails.”

I shake my head and smile. A real smile. “The jury is still out on that one.”

Dare takes a last drink of coffee, his gaze still frozen to mine, before he thunks his cup down on the table and stands up.

“Well, let me know what the jury decides. If we don’t get going, we’ll be late for our grief therapy.”

And then he walks away.

I’m so dazed by his abrupt departure that it takes me a second to realize something because kismet always prevails and I’m someone he might like to know.

He took my dad’s phone number with him.

“Cal? You ready?”

Finn’s voice breaks my concentration, and with it, the moment. I glance up at my brother, almost in confusion, to find that he’s standing up, waiting for me. It’s time to go. I scramble to get up, feeling for all the world like I’m rattled, but don’t know why. It’s this moment, it’s this place, it’s…the same.

“Do you feel like you’ve been here before?” I ask Finn in bewilderment as we walk through the doors of the Sunshine Room. He glances at me and grimaces.

“Yeah. Every week since Mom died.”

That’s not what I meant and he knows it. The sense of déjà vu is strong, almost overwhelming, and I feel like I almost know what will happen next.

But I don’t.

Because Dare DuBray is across the room and his smile is brilliant and new.

When our eyes connect and the sparks fly and the air sizzles between us, he holds up my father’s phone number and winks.

Warmth rushes through me because