by Grant, Pippa
Like they’re reflecting the Milky Way, but a more colorful version.
“Max?”
Just the sound of her voice quells all the growing panic inside me.
She’s here.
We have tonight.
And when she peeks around the corner from the living room, her hair twisted up in a towel, her face coated in green gunk, and her robe gaping open to show off her very splendid cleavage and tease me with what else I know is under there, everything else about the day melts away.
She smiles and gestures to her face. “I swear, I thought I had at least thirty more minutes before Cooper would let you loose.”
“Henri wore him out.”
She laughs. “Come. You can wait in the bedroom while I wash this all off.”
“I can help.”
“Yeah?”
“I’m an expert washcloth wielder. Did you get any on your boobs? I can wash those off too.”
She pulls me into the house, asking about my day, catching me up on Shipwreck gossip, and she lets me set her on the counter in her bathroom, step between her spread legs, and clean her face mask off.
The window’s cracked again, letting in just enough cool air to keep me from overheating in the still-steamy bathroom. Swear she does it on purpose. “I would’ve showered with you,” I tell her as I swipe gentle strokes over her face with a washcloth, revealing soft Tillie Jean skin under all the green stuff.
“I’ll need another one soon enough.” She loops her arms around my neck and hooks her legs behind my knees while I unwind the towel on her head and grab her comb. “In fact, I’m thinking things right now that already have me feeling a little dirty.”
“How long are you planning on getting dirtier?” How is it that I’ve never combed a woman’s hair before? And how is it that I can’t imagine doing anything else right now?
“At least a couple hours. I mean, if my playmate cooperates.” She winks. “But he usually does.”
“He must have the proper motivation.”
Her fingers stroke the ends of my hair, right at my neck, while her bright blue eyes dance with happiness. “He’s my favorite,” she whispers.
I am such a goner.
I drop the comb, lower my lips to hers, and this.
This is what I’ve been waiting for all day.
She’s the calm to my storm. The joy to my fears. The belief to my doubts.
I push her robe off her shoulders, and she lets it fall, leaving her completely naked and exposed, but she doesn’t shy away.
Not Tillie Jean.
She leans deeper into the kiss, and when I lift her, she wraps her legs around me, letting me carry her into the bedroom, settling her onto the center of her bed. She whimpers when I pull back to rip off my shirt and trip out of my pants, her thighs open, her fingers stroking her pussy and driving me completely wild.
“Fuck,” I whisper reverently as my cock strains hard and heavy.
“You like to watch,” she whispers back.
“Only you.”
“I like you watching me.”
I have died and gone to erotic heaven.
She crooks a finger on her other hand. “But I like you touching me more.”
I don’t need a second invitation.
Not to Tillie Jean’s bed.
So I take a flying leap, making her shriek with the kind of laughter that she only lets loose when she’s completely turned on and laughing while on the edge of orgasm, and when I land on her bed beside her, it’s instinct to slide my hand between her legs.
But my hand doesn’t make it before there’s a loud pop!, then a creak, and the entire bed collapses.
“Oh my go—” she starts, but a string of pop! pop! pop!s interrupts her.
And before I can process that something is fucking wrong here, the entire room erupts in glitter.
The.
Entire.
Fucking.
Room.
It shoots out of the floors. The walls. Off the ceiling fan.
“Oh my god!” Tillie Jean shrieks.
I can’t see her through the glitter.
Gold glitter.
Silver glitter.
Rainbow glitter.
It’s everywhere.
It’s every-fucking-where.
Raining down.
Floating up.
Swirling like a fucking glitter tornado.
Tillie Jean’s making spitting noises.
“Close your eyes,” I bark out, snapping my own shut, and I choke on glitter too.
“Cooper!” she bellows.
Cooper.
Cooper.
“Fucking fuckity fuckwit,” I gasp.
“He is—bleeeech—so—eeeehhhhhth!—dead.”
He is.
He’s fucking dead.
Right fucking now.
“Is it in your eyes?” I blink my own open, see glitter in my own fucking eyelashes, and peer at her through the red haze blurring the rest of my vision.
“No. But—” She holds out her arms.
Glitter.
Glitter everywhere.
Glitter on her face. In her hair. Down her arms. Covering her nipples. Piled in her belly button.
Her fucking belly button is full of glitter.
Nothing’s swirling or falling anymore, nothing shooting up from the floor.
Not a lot, anyway.
Fucker rigged a glitter blower.
“Shower,” I order.
I’m off the bed, ripping the glitter blower out of the electrical socket behind the bed, then shoving on my own clothes.
“Max?”
“Go. Take. A. Fucking. Shower.”
Yeah.
We’re busted.
I’m busted.
My glittery ass is so busted. I can’t walk out of this house without all the evidence of where I’ve been and what I was doing here.
But you know what?
Cooper Fucking Rock is fucking busted himself.
“Max—” Tillie Jean says again.
I round on her with a glare. “I’m handling this.”
I don’t bother with a shirt or shoes. Just pants. Just enough that cousin Chester the asshole won’t put me in jail if he pulls me over for angry driving on my way up the mountain.
I probably look like a fucking troll doll and I don’t care.
It’s time.
It’s past time for me to march into Cooper’s house, look him straight in the eye, grab him by the balls, and tell him I’m fucking his sister, and he can go take a goddamn leap if he thinks I’m not good enough for her.
But halfway up the mountain, after rejecting the umpteenth call in a row from Tillie Jean, I realize what I’m doing.
I’m about to go toss the best friend I’ve ever had off the side of a mountain.
I slam on the brakes in the middle of the road.
Fuck.
Fuck.
If I walk in Cooper’s front door and smash his face in, that’s it.
We’re done.
Spring training will suck. The season will suck. I’ll be begging my agent to get me traded before the end of my first regular-season game.
This?
Shipwreck?
Tillie Jean?
It’s not real.
Luca’s right. We don’t talk. We just screw. There’s no future. This is fun.
She has the luxury of fun.
I thought I did too, but I’m sitting here parked in the middle of the fucking road on the side of a mountain with my chest squeezing tight and my throat constricting and it takes me three stabs at the button to make my window roll down.
Can’t breathe.
Can’t. Fucking. Breathe.
And not because I’m glittering.
But because good things don’t happen to guys like me.
Head down.
Do your job.
Go home.
Don’t get attached.
The rules.
I lifted my head.
>
I dreamed more.
And now—now—now Cooper’s probably going to punch my face in for touching his sister.
I can’t go back to her.
Can’t let her see me like this.
I’m over this shit.
I’m done with the panic.
But one two three four, there it is.
One two three four gasp for breath.
One two three four can’t find the air.
One two three four it’s so fucking hot in here.
Fuck.
Fuck.
“Drive,” I order myself on a gasp. “Fucking. Drive.”
Driveway.
There’s a driveway.
I can make it.
I can get off the road.
Just a little bit more.
And then I’m safe.
32
Tillie Jean
Do you know how hard it is to get dressed when your wet body is coated in glitter and you don’t want to have to burn your entire house down?
“It’s fucking hard,” I yell at Cooper an hour later. “Lines, Cooper. Fucking lines.”
His lips are twitching like he’s trying to take me seriously, but the next thing out of my mouth is, “I will have glitter in my fucking cooter for the rest of my natural life,” and Luca over in the corner snorts and has to turn away.
Henri tries to give him a stern glare, but even Henri—Henri—isn’t quite managing.
“You know I’m good for buying you a new bed,” Cooper says. “I even made sure I could still get the exact same model.”
I shove his shoulder, then swipe my hand over my tongue to try to get more glitter off of it—yes, glitter on my tongue, and yes, it’s uncomfortable—and then I smear my wet hand all over his face. “I don’t want a new fucking bed. I want to not have to burn my house down to de-glitter it.”
I’m shrieking.
I’m fully aware that I’m shrieking, and it’s not that I don’t appreciate Cooper pranking me back in a manner that will require me to take out a loan in order for me to get vengeance, because yes, there will be helicopters and vats of glue and feathers and ski ramps and manufactured mudslides involved, but I can’t find Max.
Cooper dodges my glittery slime hand. “C’mon, TJ. Could’ve been worse. You could’ve had guests.”
“I was banging Max when it happened.”
Yep.
That just shrieked right out of me too.
My chest is heaving.
Cooper starts to laugh, but then the worst part happens.
The hot, wet eyeballs and clogged throat.
“Where. Is. He?” I ask.
No one’s laughing now.
Cooper’s laugh fades into a serious study of my face, his eyeballs wavering between waiting for me to drop the haha, just kidding, and barely holding himself back from launching into a tirade of his own if I’m serious.
I clench my fists and fight the damn tears that are threatening to make my voice crack. “Where. Is. Max? Where would he go?”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“Tillie Jean—”
“I swear to god, if you finish that sentence, I will call Mom. And I’ll call Nana, and I’ll call Aunt Glory, and I’ll call Aunt Bea, and I’ll call Aunt Matilda’s ghost, and I’ll call Annika, and I will rain down the hell that is all of the Rock women angry at you all at the same time. You don’t get to decide who I do and don’t date.”
Dammit. I’m crying. I swipe the tears, get another bit of glitter in my eyeball, realize I owe Max so much more than I thought for glitter bombing him right after he got here for the inconvenience that is glitter in your eyeballs, and then I look at the door.
If I look at the door, he’ll walk through it, right?
And look at that.
The door’s swinging open.
I leap toward it, and—
And Grady walks in.
Right.
I called Grady.
His lips twitch as he looks at me, but only for a second before they fade into which one of you needs your ass kicked?
He’s such an oldest brother.
“Cooper. Sit down. Tillie Jean—” He shakes his head. “Are you mad because he out-pranked you, or are you mad because you weren’t alone when he did it?”
“He got Max.”
Grady clears his throat. “So you’re both starring in the live-action version of Trolls when it comes to Copper Valley…”
Luca coughs.
Henri coughs too.
Cooper grunts.
I glare at Cooper.
He glares right back. “There are things you don’t know—”
“Are there, Cooper? Are there? Or does it bother you that I might know and I might want to date him anyway?”
“I’m just trying—”
“Cooper. Stop talking.” Grady steps between us. “Tillie Jean. Do you need to go wash your tongue off?”
Dammit, I’m wiping it again. “I need to know Max is okay. Where is he? Would he be pranking you back, or is he mad?”
Cooper rolls his eyes. “The things you don’t—”
Grady gets him in a headlock and clamps a hand over his mouth. “Luca. Where would Max go?”
Luca’s green eyes slide my way. “Got a few ideas. I’ll go look for him.”
“Here, Tillie Jean.” Henri squeezes my waist, completely unaffected by the fact that I’m wearing mismatched shoes, sweatpants that are threatening to fall off my hips and have a chocolate ice cream stain in a bad place in the crotch, and a halter top that I might not be wearing correctly because it was the first thing I grabbed.
And glitter. I’m wearing all the glitter.
I pull away. “I don’t want to glitter you.”
“TJ—” Cooper starts from behind Grady’s hand.
“Where’s Max?” I ask Henri. “He was so mad, and—”
Luca stops next to us. “Trade me phones, angel? He’ll answer your number.”
Henri swaps phones with him and hugs me again.
Grady lets Cooper go, and he starts to talk, but Henri shushes him like she’s talking to a misbehaving twenty-one-year-old.
She’s too patient to shush anyone under the legal drinking age that way.
“Let’s get you home,” she says to me. “Let Cooper stew in thinking about whose lives he can and can’t dictate for a while, hm?”
“He shouldn’t be alone in case Max is waiting for him to be alone to murder him with mascot bobbleheads.”
“I’m sticking around,” Grady tells me. “Gonna bake him some shut-the-fuck-up-cakes.”
“I’m not being an asshole,” Cooper snaps. “She looks just like she did when Ben used to break up with her too.”
I suck in a breath and get glitter caught in the back of my throat, and then I try to cough up both my lungs and part of my spleen.
Henri shoves a water bottle at me, and I almost miss what Grady’s saying to Cooper.
Almost, but not quite.
“There’s a big difference between a guy who’ll date your sister because it’s convenient and he’s her only option, and a guy who’s resisted what he wanted for four fucking years since he knows you’d kick his ass. Why aren’t you freaking out about no one knowing where Max is?”
Cooper blinks, and suddenly my asshole brother morphs into a wide-eyed dummy who’s finally catching on to the fact that there’s a bigger problem here than me sleeping with Max.
I scowl at him.
He scrubs his hands through his hair. “This is exactly what I was worried about,” he mutters.
“Then maybe you should’ve considered the possibility that Tillie Jean isn’t an asshole and that if they’d felt like they could’ve talked openly with you about what they were doing, then a glitter bomb wouldn’t have made Max disappear?” Henri says quietly.
“Can we please go find him?” I ask her.
“As soon as we de-glitter you a little more.”
“Tillie Jean—” Coo
per starts.
I hold up a hand. “Don’t. Not tonight.”
Henri insists on driving my car back down off the mountain, chatting the whole way about things that matter and things that don’t, while I look this way and that, trying to spot his car, even though I know it’s a long shot that he’s anywhere in the area right now.
By the time we get back to my house, I’m not angry anymore.
It was a good prank. Cooper had me convinced he was too good for pranks, and then he launched the ultimate revenge for everything.
But I’m worried.
“Max was really mad,” I whisper to Henri as she pulls into my driveway. “I’ve done everything in my power to make him mad at me the past four years, but I’ve never seen him that mad.”
“Dating’s hard enough without worrying about all the extra stuff like how it impacts your job and your friendships. Toss in where Max came from…” She twists to face me. “But he’s been happy, Tillie Jean. Darren told me during Fireballs Con that he’s never seen Max like this, and they’ve known each other a long time. You’re good for him.”
Her phone dings, and her face tells me everything before she opens her mouth. “Luca has him. He’s—he’s okay. Let him sleep it off, okay?”
“He’s not okay, is he?”
Her face twists again, which is answer enough.
“Henri—”
“Tillie Jean. He’s safe. He’s with a friend. And he needs a little space.”
“Thinking time,” I whisper.
He likes his thinking time.
She squeezes my arm. “You’re good for him. And he knows it. Don’t panic, okay?”
Don’t panic.
Right.
Max is upset. He’s not answering my calls. And he told Luca to tell Henri to give him space.
“I told him we’d end this when he left for Florida.”
“I know.”
“But I don’t want it to end.”
She squeezes my arm again.
Yep.
I’m definitely going to panic.
33
Max
I should’ve just left.
I should’ve left and not tried to grab anything from the house, but I didn’t, because I wanted my pillow—yes, my damn pillow—and now Tillie Jean’s sticking her glittered head out of her door and peering at me as I close the tailgate on my SUV. “Hey,” she calls.
Fuck.
She’s gorgeous. Crazy hair. Glittering everywhere. An old Blue Lagoon County High School T-shirt hanging down to her knees. Bags under her eyes like she slept worse than I did—which isn’t possible, for the record, since post-panic-attack sleep sucks elephant balls—and so much worry in those blue eyes that I want to pull her into my arms and promise her I’m not worth it.