Happily Ever After: A Day in the Life of the HEA (Rook and Ronin #3.5) (11 page)

The Mr. Shrike typically comes off condescending when Five says it. But not this time. And this kid, he’s never been afraid of me. I’m sure he’s much more afraid of Ronnie’s brother Vic than he is me. But this time it comes off as… sincere.

“I was talking to Rory earlier.”

He swallows.

“And she said she had a real nice time with you today. Except for one part.”

His eyebrows shoot up. This time, it’s in surprise. “She didn’t care for something we did today?” I shake my head and let out a long breath. Five’s face falls, like he’s a complete failure. “Did she say which part?”

He sounds defeated. Like he did his best and it wasn’t good enough. “She did,” I say back.

“Do you mind telling me what it was? Just so…” He stops and looks out the window, like he’s imagining another day in his mind. A day where he gets it all right. “So I know how to make her happy if I ever get a next time?”

“She said she didn’t get a kiss goodnight.”

His smile starts small, but it grows so big in the span of a few moments, he has to turn his head to hide it.

“She said she’s sad, Five.”

He turns back to me, his smile gone now.

“She thinks you’re going to forget about her.”

“I won’t,” he insists.

I nod, agreeing with him. But my Baby Bomb is smarter than the rest of us. Because he will. She’s right, he will. It can’t be helped. “Sometime,” I say, thinking about Ronnie earlier in the day and the present that Rory brought home tonight, “sometimes there is only one thing that can make a person feel better. One
person
. Love does that to you. And right now, the only thing that will make her believe that you will be back is a kiss. So you have my permission.”

He stares at me with his mouth open. In fact, we stare at each other for several seconds in silence.

“Did you hear me?”

He nods.

“But I have conditions, Aston. Don’t—”

“I won’t,” he interjects.

“—hurt her,” I finish. “And keep your hands—”

“I promise,” he says, standing up so he can look me in the eye.

“—above the shoulders.”

“I promise, Spencer. I’ll do it right.”

I nod at him, and then turn to go back down the attic stairs. But then I realize what I really want to say and stop one more time. “Just make her happy, Five. That’s all I want. Just make her happy.”

I walk back down after that, feeling like this is the end of something. Or at the very least, the beginning of the end. Princess Rory’s childhood, I guess. It’s the beginning of the end of her childhood.

How does it go by so fast?

That thought is still on my mind when I get to our bedroom door. The lights are on, but Ronnie’s not awake. She’s all curled up in a chair over by the bay windows, a red blanket wrapped around her body. The red blanket is good luck, I realize.

“Bombshell,” I whisper, leaning down into her ear. “Wake up.”

“Hmm?” she mumbles as I swoop her up in my arms. “What’s going on?”

I don’t say a word. Just carry her out the bedroom door and down the back staircase.

“Spencer?” she asks, as we get to the bottom of the steps. She’s so tired it took her all that time to properly wake up. “Where are we going?”

“You’ll see,” I say back, walking down the long hallway that leads to the indoor pool. We are accosted with the smell of chlorine as I kick the swinging doors open with one foot and carry her over to a long patch of fake grass near the doors that lead to the outside.

I set her down and her legs straighten so she can hold herself up. But her eyes are everywhere. She’s looking at everything I have laid out on the grass.

“It’s a stupid inside pool and not a buckeye tree. Plus the grass is fake, so it hardly counts. But I was informed by our daughter that this is what you need to snap out of your funk. She went and picked it up from the shop when she was in Fort Collins with Five today.”

Ronnie’s still looking at all my supplies as I finish this statement. But then she looks up and her lip trembles. “You’re going to… paint me?”

At first I think it was a mistake because of the trembling lip and the threat of tears. But then I realize they are good tears. The smile is late to the party, but another moment and it’s there too.

“Rory did this?” she asks.

I nod. “She’s got you pegged, Bombshell.” And then I let out a laugh of relief.

“We had fun, didn’t we, Spencer?”

We’re caught in the same moment from the past. The day I painted her up as a fairy and we waited for nightfall so I could take her picture as we made love under the moonlight. It was in my gran’s old atrium. The one I had to demolish in order to save the buckeye tree trapped under the glass.

“We’re still having fun, Veronica. I think you just need to be reminded. So I’m gonna do one more masterpiece on your beautiful body. And then I’m going to fuck the shit out of you as the camera takes our picture.”

She throws the blanket off and stands there on the grass in a pink and white nightie. “What will you paint on me, Spencer?”

“You’ll have to wait and see. Now sit here and eat cookies.”

She smiles and a chuckle bursts forth. But she takes a seat next to the plate of newly decorated cookies, and picks one up that says,
Mommy
.

“I know baking cookies makes you happy. And I’m pretty sure eating cookies makes everyone happy. So you’re gonna sit here and eat cookies and be happy.” She looks up at me, those bombshell eyes finally—
finally
—bright again. “Because if you’re not happy, then I’ve failed you, Veronica Shrike. And I’m not a guy who likes to fail.”

She draws in a deep breath. “Do you want me naked?”

“I always want you naked.”

She pulls the nightie over her head and then slips her matching panties down her legs. “I’m ready then.”

“Me too.”

I’ve never painted this design on her and looking back, I should’ve. I should’ve done it a long time ago. I start with the airbrush filled with black paint and before long, her thighs look like latex. Her arms are kept bare, but her middle becomes a red corset, painted to perfectly accentuate her amazing cleavage and waist, complete with little satin ribbons crisscrossing their way up her stomach until it looks like the corset is so tight, her girls are spilling out.

I give her red boots that end just past her knees, and golden bracelets that I stole from Wonder Woman.

I paint a white triangle on her bosom, and she breathes deeply as she waits to see what I will put in the center of the diamond of white.

An S, of course. In the Shrike Bikes font.

“S for Shrike?” she asks.

But I shake my head as I clean up the airbrush, put everything away, and then take out the camera and set it up on the tripod.

I silently drape the red blanket over her shoulders and fasten it at her neck with a ducky-headed diaper pin. No,” I finally answer her question as I take off my shirt, unbuckle my belt, and let my pants drop to the ground. “An S for super. Supermom,” I say. “Superwife,” I whisper as I walk towards her and wrap my arms around her middle.

The camera starts beeping in intervals, just like it did back when we were in college.

“Superbomb,” I say, right into her mouth as I kiss her. “You’re my Super Bomb. You’re perfect. And I love every inch of you. I don’t ever want you to forget that, Mrs. Shrike.”

The real smile appears then. The one I was looking for all day each time my eyes found hers. The smile that says we still like all the same things. We still like our farm, and our pack of children, and the pound puppies we’ve adopted over the years. We still like the buckeye tree, and motorcycles, and leather jackets.

We still like each other. We still like each other and it will always be that way.

Chapter Seventeen

I text Rory from the great room, standing in front of the tree.
Come down here
, I say.
And bring your phone.

But I don’t get an answer. She might be asleep.

I hear a creak on the old wooden stairs and my eyes shoot up to the top, where Princess Rory Shrike stands in a pink nightgown that almost reaches to the floor. I’m still wearing my suit from the ballet tonight, and it feels wrong somehow. Kate was right, the suit is all wrong.

She is still a girl and I already feel like a man. It will never work out the way we want it to. It will never be the same once I go to school for real.

But then she smiles and her feet are flying down the steps. “What are you doing out here, Five?” She’s beaming with happiness, and it makes me feel like every doubt I just had was false. That we do have a chance, but we have to take it now. It makes me feel like this is our one moment to get it right.

I’m going to do it right
, I silently promise her.

“I talked to your dad a few minutes ago.”

“Oh, my God, what did he say?” But she’s not worried about what he said. She’s excited that we are down here alone. That we aren’t done with each other yet.

“He said,” I say, my own excitement building with hers, “you were disappointed with something.”

“I loved our date, Five. Every minute. I’m not disappointed.”

“No?”

She shakes her head and her golden-blonde hair shakes with it.

“So you weren’t unhappy that we didn’t get our first kiss?”

She covers her mouth with her hand, but that smile—that smile that will keep me going for the rest of my days—peeks through her fingertips.

“Because I would very much like my first kiss to be with you, Princess. In fact, I can’t possibly have a first kiss with any other girl. It would spoil my whole life.”

This makes her draw in a deep breath. “I’d never kiss anyone, ever, if you left me without doing it, Five.”

We stare at each other for a few moments. I want that kiss so badly. But I have something else for her first. “I got you a present. Give me your phone.”

She looks down at her phone like she’s just remembered she has it in her hand. But then she holds it out for me and I take it. I flick away her sleep screen and take a small hard drive out of my suit pocket. I plug her phone into it and she looks at me quizzically.

“What are you doing?”

“I made this app and I was going to release it on Valentine’s Day. It’s for people who want to say mushy things to someone they like, but don’t know how to say them. It’s called Love Notes. But I decided I’m not going to release it. I made it for us. I’m giving it to you so whenever you get lonely or wish I was here, all you have to do is push a button and it will send me a love note.”

“I don’t even have to write it?”

“Nope,” I say. “And that may sound like it’s not personal, but it is, Rory. Because I wrote all the love notes myself and I wrote every one with you and me in mind. So if you send me one, I’ll know it’s real. And if I send you one, you’ll know it’s really from me. It’s just for us.” I look at her as the phone beeps, and then I disconnect the two devices and hand hers back. She takes it in her palm, and our hands touch, making an electric feeling shoot up my arm.

We lock eyes and I keep my promise to Spencer and place my hands on her shoulders as I lean in.

She holds her breath as our lips touch.

It’s a small kiss. It’s a teenage kiss. It’s a first kiss.

But it’s all the things that make a kiss perfect.

“I made it for us, Rory. Because I’m going to make sure, no matter what happens, there will always be an us.”

To be continued….

Five and Rory will have their own standalone (grown-up) love story coming spring 2016.

END OF BOOK SHIT