Some Kind of Perfect (Calloway Sisters #4.5) (61 page)

Moffy stares off in thought.

So I just continue, “It can feel good for grown-ups, which is why people do it outside of making babies. When you get older soon, you might even have urges to experiment with yourself…and that’s okay, but it’s something you only do in private.”

Lo and I played “doctor” when we were nine, and we both had a concept of what sex was—we just wanted to see how it felt.

Moffy frowns. “How old were you when you started?”

Don’t freak out.
“Having sex?”

“Yeah.”

I lost my virginity when I was
thirteen.
But not to Lo. I’d do anything to keep them from having sex that soon, so I say, “
Old
.” I worry that he might ask this to someone else. I add, “Personal sex questions like that stay private between couples, so it’s better not to ask other people that one. Does that make sense?”

“Yeah.” He nods and then asks about Winona and surrogacy again. I explain the whole process so he understands that Rose and Ryke did
not
have sex, and Winona is biologically Ryke and Daisy’s daughter. I watch clarity sweep his face, and he nods more confidently.

“Do you know what a condom is?” I ask next.

“Not really.”

“It protects your partner.” I think about an STD talk, but maybe I’ll leave that for another time, so I just mention how condoms prevent pregnancies. “It’s like a plastic glove that wraps around the penis so sperm can’t enter a woman. Make sense?”

He thinks about this for a long second. “I dunno. The whole thing seems painful and gross.”

“Well it’s a grown-up thing,” I reinforce this notion. “You don’t have to worry about it until you’re much
much
older, and maybe then it won’t seem so gross.”

Moffy relaxes more, happy that it’s not something he has to concern himself with right now.

“Anymore questions?” I wonder.

“Yeah.” He looks down at his paper. “If Benji has twelve apples and Mary has three-hundred-and-forty-five, how many apples do they have in all?”

This I can handle. Hell, after today, I can handle anything.

After I finish helping Moffy with his homework, I step into the hall. It’s barren, empty of Loren Hale. I check the next couple of rooms, only to find him in Luna’s.

He lies on the carpet with our four-year-old daughter, staring up at the glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling and goopy shapes and colors from the lava lamp.

“And on my planet Thebula
,
all the
waters has glitters
. No one can drown,” she tells him, kicking her feet up on her plastic green chair.

“Glitter?” he asks. “Does that mean you’ll be all glittery when you get out of the pool?”

“Uh-huh.” She nods. “And
brover
won’t be able to drown.”

My heart lurches. She saw a trailer on television where a boy drowned. Some thriller movie coming out for the summer, and now she’s worried about Moffy since he spends most of his time in the pool.

Lo turns his head towards our daughter. Flyaway pieces of her light brown hair touch her round face. She has a red cape tied around her neck, already bathed and in star-printed PJs.

Lo brushes a strand of hair off her forehead. “Moffy isn’t going to drown, Luna. He took swim classes so he won’t.”

“Butbut,” she slurs her words. “What happens if the swim
classies
fail?”

“They won’t, you wanna know why?” Lo props himself on his elbow, head on his hand, his eyes on our daughter. Lo never thought he could be gentle, not even with his own kids, but he was wrong. He might not have the softest voice, but his innocence surfaces—innocence that we both lost at a young age. He finds and gives it all to them.

“Why?” Luna asks.

“Because Moffy is the best swimmer in the entire neighborhood. He’s so good that I think it’s his secret superpower, but
shhh
.” He puts his finger to his lips. “You can’t tell him about his superpower or else it might go away. That’s why we call it a…” He feigns surprise.

“A what?”

“A secret!” He tickles Luna. She giggles and rolls from side to side.

I’m smiling so wide, even as Lo glances at the door for the first time. Seeing me. He nods for me to come further inside. I skip on over, only to rest down on the other side of Luna.

“Mommy!” she exclaims. “I was telling Daddy about my planet Thebula. I think that’s where I’m from.” She’s adamant that she was not born on Earth. That Lo and I had her on another planet and then she returned to this world on a spaceship, bringing her with us. Her imagination is the highlight of my day.

“Thebula,” I muse. “It sounds familiar.”

She inhales a large breath of air. “Really?”

I nod and she springs to her feet and runs over to her little work desk by a strange looking plant she waters every day.

“Whatcha doing?” I ask Luna.

“Drawing it for you!”

I’m glowing as Lo places his fingers to my chin, slowly drawing my face towards his. He kisses the corner of my lips, both of us lying on the fuzzy rug.

“When did you leave?” I ask, scooting closer and closer. Until our legs and arms tangle.

“When you started talking about Benji and Mary and apples.” His amber eyes fill with something soul-deep. “I always believed in you, Lily, but that was…extraordinary.”

“I didn’t blush. Not once.” Pride swells up, something so foreign that I hold onto it tight.

“You’re amazing.” He kisses me once more. This time right on the lips—where the sentiment of his words sings through me.

[ 39 ]

April 2024

Calloway Couture Boutique

Philadelphia

ROSE COBALT

I closed the boutique.

Just for the day. Interior designers left about five minutes ago after canvassing the space and snapping photographs, all for Calloway Couture’s retail expansion into New York City, San Francisco, and Chicago.

The boutique is quiet, and so I sit behind the cash register and sketch a lace bustier. I spend most of my time creating baby clothes and dresses, but I’ve been drawing some haute couture gowns and thinking about fabrics. They’re incredibly unaffordable for the everyday woman, which is not what Calloway Couture is about, but I’ve felt compelled towards the designs, more inspired to go down this path.

My five-year plan is to create a fall fashion line of them. I’m constantly busy, even with all my gremlins in school, but a five-year timeframe should be achievable.

I check the clock. Ben, just two, is in pre-pre-K for another hour and then I have to pick him up from school. I tap my pencil to my sketchbook and skim the racks of clothes, the ottoman cushions, the twinkling chandeliers. This one store will become many. My clothes are being worn by thousands, and I’d return to myself at twenty-three and I’d just say,
breathe.

I worried so much about my fashion line. Would it survive the media fallout? Would my dream last? It took a lot of time, more work than I sometimes thought capable, but Calloway Couture survived with me.

Outside of my store, paparazzi start sprinting to the curb. Their cameras and bodies angled towards the street. A black limousine parks.

I instantly know who’s inside.

Connor Cobalt emerges like the celebrity he probably always envisioned inside his head. Though now he has literal cameras flashing in his face. He acts as though it’s all background to his world, his wavy hair perfect and the sleeves of his button-down rolled up his forearms.

His confidence is his most alluring accessory, and I find myself pressed against the checkout desk to near him.
Honestly, Rose. He’s not as amazing as you.

I flip my hair off my shoulder.

Domineering and poised, Connor heads for my store, and cameramen part like the Red Sea. Connor unlocks the door with his set of keys, a small white shopping bag in his hand. He shuts and locks the store behind him.

The paparazzi can’t catch much through the tinted glass, so they don’t linger for long.

“You cheated,” I say as he approaches me.

“So you’ve reminded me seventeen times now.” He places the shopping bag beside the register, a tempting distance. I try not to eye it for long.

Stay firm, Rose.

“And yet you still lack remorse.”

His amusement lifts his lips. “I didn’t personally cheat.”

“You can’t blame Eliot and Tom. They were on your team. Your entire
team
cheated.” We played Pictionary last night. Jane, Charlie, and Ben were on my team, and Beckett, Eliot, and Tom were on Connor’s. The two four-year-olds kept flipping the sand-timer over during their rounds to give themselves extra seconds.

Connor says they thought it was a toy, but children have their motives. They’re devious little things.

He rests casually against
my
checkout counter. “We gave your team extra time in the final round, and yet
you
still lost.”

I glare and raise my hand at his face. “Your voice just shriveled the last of my eggs. I’m barren and frigid.” I point at the door. “The exit is that way.” I do the thing that annoys him most.

I ignore him.

And I resume sketching.

“I bought you something. I didn’t mean for it to be a peace offering, but it can if it satisfies you.”

I struggle to bite my tongue. I don’t even last a full thirty-seconds. “You’re
terrible
at admitting defeat.”

“Because I’m not capable of feeling defeated.”

It’s easy to forget that he’s not just a narcissist in a loose sense. I smooth my lips together, my glare investigating his calm, relaxed exterior. “I reject your peace offering.”

Why is he grinning?

I rise to my feet. “I said
rejection,
Richard. I just rejected you.”

“Rose.”

I quickly cover his mouth with my hand. “Can you not say my name like you’re fucking the syllable?” I feel his smile beneath my palm.
Ugh.

He clasps my wrist and tears my hand off his face. “I said your name how I always say it.
Rose
.”

“You have a death wish.” His strong grip on my wrist stimulates my sensitive nerves that only scream,
more, harder, deeper.

He walks around the checkout counter, so nothing, not even the register, separates us. “How do you plan to kill me?”

I raise my chin. “With a pickaxe in each eye.” I can’t stand his smile, and yet, I want it to stay. I reach out with my free hand to cover his mouth.

He seizes my other wrist.
God, yes.

Then he tugs me towards his body, so abruptly that a sharp breath escapes my lips. I keep my piercing glare on his deep blues, his eyes as smooth as water and silk.

He towers above me, but I lift my head as much as I can and say, “Then I’d set you on fire.”

His lips hover close to whisper, “Tu l'as déjà fait.”

You already have.

Before I think properly, he hoists me up, my legs around his waist, dress riding up to my thighs. His defined muscles cut sharper in his biceps, even through his white button-down. He carries me towards a dressing room, veiled by a black curtain.

My collarbone juts out, my oxygen tight in my lungs. Connor kisses the bone before noticing the necklace I wear. I feel his breath stagger.

His liquid gaze looks to me in complete and utter
knowing.
He catches the diamond pendant, pear-shaped like a water droplet, between his teeth.

I pulse.

This necklace is the first piece of jewelry he ever bought me. I was in college. We’d just started
officially
dating. I kept it in a safe deposit box so I wouldn’t lose it, but I thought about it today and checked it out so I could wear it.

All of a sudden, my back hits the dressing room wall, the black curtain yanked closed. My legs are still parted around his waist, and he seizes my wrists again, this time with one hand. He elevates them above my head, stretching and pinning them there.

“I hate you,” I argue in the shallowest breath.

“Tu m’aimes.”
You love me.

He drops the necklace, and his lips find mine. The aggressive, forceful kiss contains aching need and desire. When he nips my lip, his mouth trails to the pit of my ear. “
Rose
.”

Good God.

I melt but tense against him. It’s such an oxymoron. I know he loves those. Our faces are so close, and his free hand starts ripping off my panties.

“I’m going to claw your face off,” I pant, more breathy than I intend.

He cups my jaw, then drifts to my throat.
Choke me.
He squeezes much harder than he’s been able to in the past since I’m not pregnant.