“Do you love him?”
“I don’t know,” she whispered.
Adalyn looked away from the ceiling to face her. “I guess it would be hard to. He is a dick.”
Lake busted out laughing, and then Adalyn quickly followed. The two were both cracking up to the point they laughed so hard and for so long they forgot what had made them start the first place.
Adalyn was the peanut butter to her jelly, the chip to her dip, the pop to her tart. It feels good to see my best friend again.
The two talked about everything they had missed from each other’s lives for what seemed like hours, and Lake wasn’t ready for it to end anytime soon. Vincent and Nero had to work again that night in the casino to make up for missing the night before. If she wasn’t going to be able to distract herself from that fact by having fun out, she was going to bring the fun to her.
Lake smiled at her, her wheels turning for what to do tonight.
“You are not going to believe who lives beside Vincent.”
“Who?” Adalyn asked.
“Elle. Do you want to come over and hang out with me and her while Nero and Vincent go to work?”
Nero isn’t going to like me very much.
Adalyn was already excited. “Oh, my gosh, yes! We should invite Maria and Chloe, too.”
“You’re a genius, Adalyn.” Lake laughed mischievously, going through her contact list and pressing ‘call’ over Elle’s name.
Nero is going to hate my fucking guts.
Chapter Fifty-Two
The Difference Between Life and Death
“How in the fuck did this happen?” Nero looked at Elle when Vincent came in with Lake and Adalyn.
“Holy shit, this is insane!” Adalyn ran through the place, going straight up to the wall of glass windows and putting her hands and face on the glass to look down at the city.
Lake smiled at Nero. “Don’t worry. Chloe and Maria are coming, too.”
Elle gave Nero a kiss on the cheek before he started to throw real daggers at Lake instead of with his eyes. “I’ll make it up to you later.”
“Yes, you fucking will.” Nero looked at her, the way of how she was going to make it up to him clear in his green eyes.
Lake heard something on the other side of the door and watched Vincent go and open it. Amo and Chloe were on the other side of the door, laughing.
“See you later.” Amo grinned down at her, letting it be known that he was going to be the one to take her back home, as well.
Chloe looked back up at him and smiled. “That sounds good.”
Lake had never seen Amo smile, like really smile, before that moment. In the short time since she had met Chloe, she honestly didn’t believe she had seen one from her like that, either. Go Team Amo!
Chloe came into the room, shyly saying hi to everyone before she ran off with Elle to go find wherever the hell Adalyn had gone.
Lake went to go with them, but her hand was caught by Vincent and she was pulled into a very hot and too-quick kiss.
He slapped her ass lightly when he pulled his mouth off hers. “Be good.”
“Yeah, and don’t give Elle any more fucking ideas,” Nero warned her.
Lake ran halfway up the stairs, out of harm’s way before she answered both of them, “No promises!” She giggled up the rest of the stairs to find Adalyn sitting in the bottom of the huge, empty bathtub.
Adalyn looked like she was about to cry. “I am never going to be able to take a bath the same way again.”
* * *
Vincent watched Lake giggle off upstairs, making him smile.
Nero pointed his finger at him. “That’s the fucking problem right there. You think it’s cute when she does shit like that, and it eggs her on.”
As much as he didn’t like admitting it, “It is pretty cute.” That was one of the many things which had drawn him to her, especially when she wasn’t doing things that could get her potentially killed. Then again, Nero was on the verge of killing her but he couldn’t, so that was just icing on the cake for him.
“It is,” Amo agreed, siding with Vincent.
Nero rolled his eyes. “Let’s go before I decide to be an asshole and stay to make sure Lake doesn’t get them in trouble.”
“I could stay,” Amo was quick to offer his services.
“Fuck no, you’re not.” Vincent pushed his biggest friend out the front door.
Nero shut the door behind him. “No fucking way. We’d come back to find you fucking all of them.”
Amo kept his mouth shut, not confirming or denying Nero’s statement.
And that right there is why Amo will never fucking be allowed to be alone with Lake.
* * *
They were all having a great time sitting on the floor upstairs, eating pizza and watching TV on the huge screen Elle had made Nero put in the bedroom so she could watch all her favorite movies in bed. Well, all of them minus Maria; she had gotten a stomach bug.
Lake swallowed the huge bite of pizza in her mouth. “So, Chloe, do you like Amo?”
Chloe looked at her, her face turning red. “N-no, he’s just my friend.”
“Vincent was just my friend at first, too.”
“It’s not like that.” She looked at the ground, her face still red.
Lake took another huge bite of her pizza. “Well, what about Lucca? Do you like him?”
Chloe looked back up at her, and her eyes grew big. “No way. He s-scares me.”
Lake looked at her in pity. The poor girl didn’t know what was coming her way, but she had to at least give her a warning.
“Vincent scares me, too.”
A loud gulp escaped Chloe’s throat before she took a nervous bite of her pizza.
Pop.
Lake looked around to see if anyone had heard a noise, but no one seemed to have noticed.
“Shh…” she said quietly, going for the remote to turn down the TV a few notches.
They all went dead silent.
Pop. Pop.
The noise was a quiet gunshot followed by the front door squeaking open.