Series: Like Us Series by Krista Ritchie
Total pages in book: 241
Estimated words: 236417 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1182(@200wpm)___ 946(@250wpm)___ 788(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 236417 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1182(@200wpm)___ 946(@250wpm)___ 788(@300wpm)
She can see it. It’s in reach. She’s more than ready to be his girlfriend.
Luna wants to go on an exploration of Paul Donnelly. Top to bottom. Inside out. To discover all there is to know about her human hero. But he’s afraid some skeletons are better left in the darkness.
As a death in the family unsteadies multiple futures, Luna and Donnelly see turbulence ahead, but they’re determined to steer their ship through the rubble and finally make a landing. This time, together.
Luna and Donnelly’s out-of-this-world, cosmic love returns in this romantic, heart-pounding, and epic conclusion to the Like Us series.
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
DECEMBER
“All of this has happened before. All of this will happen again.”
— Battlestar Galactica
1
PAUL DONNELLY
I’ve been avoiding funerals most of my life. Didn’t make it to my grandmom’s when she croaked. Skipped out on mass for deceased aunts and uncles. Been to one wake for a cousin. But that was because I was thirteen and hungry and they had roast beef hoagies. I’m not big on death. It feels like the conclusion of something—and I’d just rather keep on running, keep on going, than celebrate any kind of ending.
On the grassy hill of a cemetery a little outside Philly, it hits me like a burst of cold December wind.
My first funeral is for a Calloway.
Not my mom.
Not my dad.
A fucking Calloway.
I’d laugh at the sheer shock of it—but can’t laugh during a funeral. I have manners and all—even if everyone in the cemetery has been eyeballing me and Luna rather than the coffin that’ll descend into the freshly dug earth.
Feels like we were the ones who died.
Like half the people here are lowering us into the ground.
At least I’m with her. In life, in death…at least I’m with Luna Hale.
I scrape a hand through my hair.
Yeah, I’m not dead yet. Luna leans into my shoulder, her warmth radiating against me, and my left arm is already around this girl.
I look down at her. Residual glitter is still stuck in her light brown hair, the strands sparkling, and her round cheeks are rosy from the biting winter air. Her black puffer jacket is too short to warm the length of her body, but I tuck her close to me.
She’s mine. She’s all mine, but from across the wooden casket, I spot a fortysomething woman with deep auburn hair yanked into a taut bun. Luna’s therapist. If she could chuck stones, I’d be pelted to death by now. She would rather I let Luna go.
It’s worse when I spot Luna’s parents. Her mom practically turns her face into her husband’s chest just to avoid me. Like I’m truly disease-ridden and toxic waste.
My stomach clenches.
It’s not about me. She’s just upset about who died. It’s upsetting. This death. This whole thing. I try to convince myself, but it’s also clear she’s doing her best not to make eye contact with me.
Luna senses her mom’s avoidance, and she shifts uneasily. I squeeze her in a side-hug.
A light layer of snow blankets the dewy morning grass. Everyone is standing, hundreds in attendance to pay their respects, and I only feel like a special invitee because I can see the gravesite. I’m not two or three rows behind friends-of-friends and other security.
I am on-duty though. Had to keep the press and paparazzi out of the cemetery, but I managed to sneak up to the front to be beside Luna. I’m Epsilon—been that way for three days—and my fellow SFE brethren are looking at me like I deserve to be shoved in the hole. O’Malley, most especially.
I meet the intensity of his glare with one of my own.
Fuck him.
My blood courses hatefully, and I despise this feeling. I want to release it, but after all that’s happened, I can’t figure out how. I’m afraid to live inside hatred, maybe more than I am to live inside the past.
I glance back down at Luna—she’s worth everything. She’s my everything. But I’m still partially in her world. One foot in, one foot out. Like with a big enough gust of wind, I could be blown away from her.
She springs on her tiptoes to whisper to me, “It kinda feels like we’re being stared at.”
I dip my head to whisper back, “Accurate assessment, I’d say. They’re probably just jealous.”
“Uh-huh,” she says, her voice tense.
We both know they’re not envious of the hell we’ve been going through. No one in their right mind would be.
They’re also not envious of what happened to us three days ago—the same day we learned a Calloway died. Also known as the day another member of Luna’s family walked in on me giving her head. History repeats itself in strange ways, and I don’t know what it says about me that this happened yet again.
What didn’t repeat: Keeping it under wraps.
Her entire family got wind of it today. Hence, being eyeballed during the funeral like we’re the ones in the casket.
I’d say we already had some metaphorical or spiritual death of sorts, but it’s not that easy to put me to rest.
THREE DAYS EARLIER
2
PAUL DONNELLY
“Let’s go, my furry friends.” Arkham and Orion lead the way into the Hale House. While Luna, Maximoff, and Farrow talk on the front lawn about the sudden death in the family, I give them a minute to themselves. Letting the Hales have this family moment. So I offered to bring the dogs inside.
Boxes of Christmas lights are on the front brick porch. I’d been stringing them on the roof before Maximoff dropped the bad news. I collect my phone and radio nearby, in a bit of a daze.