by Sara Wolf
“But you make enough to live here,” he presses.
“Yeah. I mean, Jack helps, too. A little.”
We share another smirk. Gregory and I both know Jack helps a lot. The pay Gregory gave him was more than enough to last us for two years. But now that Jack’s getting his teaching degree at the nearest French college, things will be a little different. He’ll want to start work again—his plan is to teach high school science. Which I find hard to believe, since I know he’s a dunce. A smart dunce. But a dunce nonetheless.
“He’s your dunce,” Gregory corrects my out-loud ramblings, and I roll my eyes and run up to the gate that is the entrance to our house.
It can’t really be called a house—more like a run-down shack planted next to a peach tree. The walls are white stone reinforced with wood. The windows are a little crooked and don’t keep much heat in the winter, but our woodstove takes care of that, and the roof never leaks, so it’s the small things that count, really, and also the big things, because we have the biggest claw-foot tub and the fattest gray cat named Oolong sitting in the windowsill sunning himself. I dash up to the door and Oolong raises his head, giving me a thorough and vastly intimidating once-over before purring himself back to sleep.
“The party has arrived!” I herald my own return and throw my towel on the back of the chair and survey the kitchen—sea glass and shells decorate the windowsill by the rusty sink; mugs of morning coffee still sit on the counter next to stringy remnants of the waffle-maker’s mess. I fish around in the fridge and look up as Gregory seats his weary butt at the kitchen table. The chair protests loudly.
“Do you want milk? Fresh from the cows next door. Or—ooh! We still have some wine left from last night.”
“Water will do fine,” Gregory insists. I pour him a glass and pop my head into the living room. My laptop and the camera equipment I use to record videos are still in a pile on the ugly yet hella charming paisley couch. The woodstove is cold, only used for the chilliest of nights, and the pile of wood next to it is high. Jack must’ve refilled it.
I tiptoe through the living room and into the bedroom. The door’s open, the queen-size brass bed just as unmade as we left it this morning. Jack sits at the desk in front of the windows overlooking the sea, talking to someone on Skype on his laptop. His disheveled tawny hair catches the sun, his lazy flannel and jeans only making his back look broader. But I hardly have time to appreciate it, because at that exact moment I see who he’s talking to.
“…but what if I ask her and—”
“Wren!” I scream, launching myself across the room and hanging over Jack’s shoulder. “Look at you! I can’t believe you’re graduating early, you dumbass! Or, shit, I can’t call you that anymore, can I? You have a college degree!”
Wren, his glasses perched on his nose and his stubble dark, laughs.
“No, you can’t.”
“I think you should still call him that!” Kayla chimes from behind him. “And hi, you. Love the tan you’re working on.”
“Hi, sweet stuff,” I coo back at her. “It’s been too long.”
“Isis, we talked last night.”
“Too long! You should come back. I miss you and the house misses you and the shitbaby cat misses you,” I lament. Jack reaches up and strokes my back with one hand, the other clicking around on Skype.
“All right you two, I should go,” he says.
“Right! Talk to you later.” Wren smirks.
“Good luck!” Kayla beams. Jack growls and shuts the laptop quickly.
“Hey grump-ass! What’s the frown for? Wait, don’t tell me, Oolong took a crap on the bed.”
Jack sighs and entwines his arms around my waist, pulling me into him. “No.”
“Diiiiddd he eat your hair gel again?”
“No,” Jack murmurs, resting his head in the crook of my neck and sniffing my hair. “You smell like ocean.”
“I smell like questions!” I correct, and turn to face him. “What’s got you so worked up, huh? You’ve been out of it for days. And every time I catch you on Skype with Wren you always exit out so quick! Are you two sharing porn? Is this a porn thing? Am I a widow now?”
“He’s going through puberty!” Gregory shouts from the kitchen.
“Shut up!” Jack shouts back, then quickly adds, “Sir!”
Gregory’s chuckles can be heard from here, and I laugh with him, but Jack hugs me close and it’s then I know something’s really wrong.
“Hey, hey you.” I pull away, cupping his face. “If you don’t tell me what’s wrong right now, I’m going to die. And then fly away. Or, wait, reverse those two, I don’t think dead things can fly unless they are zombies-slash-angels and I am most certainly not an ange—”
Jack’s mouth is so close to my ear. “Marry me.”
I freeze, a horde of icy tingles cascading down my body.
“W-What?”
He groans and nuzzles into my neck. I can feel the blush on his cheeks with my own skin.
“Don’t make me say it twice.”
“Jack, what the fuck—”
“Marry me,” he repeats. “Marry me. I want you to be my wife, Isis. I want you to—I want you to be mine.”
“I am yours, idiot.” I kiss his neck.
“I know. But I want everyone to know. I want your mom and dad to come out, and my mom, and I want Wren and Kayla here, and Diana and Yvette, and Charlie—”
“You think he’d come?”
Jack laughs. “Of course. He might be prickly, but he likes me. I think. He’ll bring his grandmother. You’ll love her; she’s much nicer than he is. I just want them all here, with us, I want them to see how happy we are, and I want them to celebrate with us, and I want to see you in a white gown smiling and cutting a cake and being happier than you’ve ever been.”
I mull it over. Marriage is huge. Marriage is the fairy-tale endgame for every movie heroine in Hollywood’s narrow view of happiness. It’s clichéd. The me of two years ago would’ve rolled my eyes at the idea of it. But if you put Jack in the marriage picture, it suddenly doesn’t seem so bad. It seems fun and interesting. Spending the rest of my life with him sounds sort of perfect.
“You haven’t seen your parents in years,” Jack presses. “And I haven’t seen mine. Just imagine this house filled up with people—”
“They’d sleep…on the table?”
“Imagine the village motel filled with people,” he corrects. “All the people you love. You could show them around, we could go to the beach and do fireworks, you’d make the best cake known to mankind—”
“Every cake I make is the best known to mankind,” I say haughtily. He pokes my belly, and I giggle and twist away, but he leans in and captures me again.
“And you’d be…you’d be Isis Hunter. If, shit, if that’s all right with you. You obviously don’t have to, I’m perfectly content being with you like this, but I just thought, I don’t know, I just thought—”
I turn and kiss him, shoving him onto the bed and sitting on his stomach playfully.
“Okay. So I marry you. What’s in it for me?”
“I devote myself to you,” he answers, face serious.
“You are already quite devoted.” I smirk, kissing down his jawline and into his collarbone.
“I protect you. As much as a hellion like you needs outside protection.”
I laugh against his chest and trail my mouth down it.
“I become yours,” he adds. “In every way.”
I kiss the hem of his jeans. “You already are.”
He pulls me up and kisses me hard and fierce, flipping us over and pushing me into the pillows, gently nipping at my ear.
“Then it’s easy, isn’t it? All that’s left is one silly white dress, and a cake, and our families.”
“You just want to see me in a wedding dress.” I snicker. He looks me up and down and gives me a cocky smirk as he gently snaps the thigh of my swimsuit against my skin.
“Can you blame me?�
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“I blame you for everything. World hunger, Ronald Reagan, Lady Gaga”—I inhale as he presses his knee between my legs—“my current about-to-be-ravished state.”
He laughs, and the sound rings so clear and true in the house I want to kiss him again, and again. Forever. But he knits his lips instead.
“So, is that a no?”
I lace my arms around his neck and bring him closer to my face.
“Who do you think I am? I’m Isis Blake. I try everything once. Or four times. If it’s cheap enough and tasty enough—”
Jack’s ice eyes are serious and hard, and I lose my joking edge.
“—and I’d be honored to try marriage with you—”
Jack smiles.
“—you big stupid idiot.”
Don’t miss Sara Wolf’s
exciting new fantasy series,
Bring Me Their Hearts,
coming in 2018!
Zera is a Heartless—the immortal, unaging soldier of a witch. Bound to the witch Nightsinger ever since she saved her from the bandits who murdered her family, Zera longs for freedom from the woods they hide in. With her heart in a jar under Nightsinger’s control, she serves the witch unquestioningly.
Until Nightsinger asks Zera for a prince’s heart in exchange for her own, with one addendum: if she’s discovered infiltrating the court, Nightsinger will destroy her heart rather than see her tortured by the witch-hating nobles.
Crown Prince Lucien d’Malvane hates the royal court as much as it loves him—every tutor too afraid to correct him and every girl jockeying for a place at his darkly handsome side. No one can challenge him—until the arrival of Lady Zera. She’s inelegant, smart-mouthed, carefree, and out for his blood. The prince’s honor has him quickly aiming for her throat.
So begins a game of cat and mouse between a girl with nothing to lose and a boy who has it all.
Winner takes the loser’s heart.
Literally.
Acknowledgments
Lovely Vicious is a series straight from my heart to you, the reader. It’s a series I wrote for the high school me—a girl who was sick and tired of the world and the people in it, a girl who slowly but surely learned the beauty of life again. Isis is a past me, and I love her and Jack to bits. Thank you for following their story. If you liked it, then you and I are the kind of people who’d hang out together forever. Let’s chill, drinks on me.
People say one of the hardest things to do is write a book. And it is. But it really doesn’t feel like it when you have such excellent help. To Stacy Abrams and Lydia Sharp, thank you so much for your tireless effort and amazing insight. You’ve made this book a hundred times better. To the entire Entangled crew—thank you, from the bottom of my heart. You’ve done so much for me and this story.
To the community, reviewers, book bloggers, and librarians—rock on so hard. Keep rocking until all the rocks in the world turn to sand, and then throw a huge beach party. You’ve earned it. You work so tirelessly for so little, read so many books for so little thanks, and keep your ears and minds and hearts open to each story. I can never thank you enough for your reviews and support. God bless the heckie out of you.
And last but not least, thank you, Jack and Isis. It’s been a wonderful ride, and I’ll be there for eternity—or at least until I lose my mind with age—smiling down on you like a creepy yet well-meaning godparent. I love you two. Live well. Live happily.
About the Author
Sara Wolf lives in San Diego, California, where she burns instead of tans. When she isn’t pouring her allotted lifeforce into writing, she’s reading, accidentally burning houses down whilst baking, or making faces at her highly appreciative cat. Her writing journey began when she scribbled Pokemon fanfiction in a journal when she was twelve, and she’s still unconvinced she’s improved much since. As Sara Wolf, she’s written young adult contemporary, sci-fi, and new adult romance. Under her real name, Michelle Painchaud, she’s written young adult thriller.
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