Chapter 28
S unlight slips through the curtains.
A blush creeps up my cheeks at the memory of us .
Looking to my left, it’s empty.
As a mature woman, I kick my legs while giggling under the blanket.
“That good, huh?”
I freeze. Oh god. Please tell me he didn’t see me losing my marbles just now.
Carefully lowering the blanket, I keep my eyes on the ceiling. “Just letting it out of my system.”
After the kiss last night, one thing led to another. We were able to leave without getting caught. We got to a hotel after what seemed like hours of kissing on the street.
It's a quiet luxury, nothing I can afford on my own.
“There’s a fun way to do that too,” Dean chuckles.
I scoff, turning my attention to him. My breath catches.
A towel wrapped around his waist. Water droplets cling to his skin and his hair is wet. His tattoos are on full display. Each flower more vibrant than that night I coloured his tattoos.
The dragon blowing fire feels like it’s right on me.
He looks like that , and I bet my hair still hasn’t dried from last night.
Wrapping the blanket around me, I get out of bed. “What does this tattoo mean?” I point.
He looks down at his arm, then at me with a crooked smile. “You sure you’re ready to unlock that level of Dean?”
Who knew all Dean needed was a good lay to joke around?
“Hm, let me thi— duh .”
He surprises me by kissing my forehead. “Sit down, I’ll tell you.”
I plop down on the bed. Blanket shifts, exposing my thighs. Dean laughs when I squeal.
He tightens the blanket around me, laughs, then kisses my puckered lips.
“Remember the girl I told you about from my jury trial?”
My eyes narrow. “Don’t tell me you got it for her?”
He laughs, wrapping an arm around my waist. “It wasn’t for her. Mostly because of her.”
I scrunch my nose. “Cute, but I’m jealous. Let’s add a new one on your chest that just says Nova in big bold letters.”
“My heart’s not enough?” He jokes.
“No, I need something else. Like…”
A black marker sits on the side table.
I paddle to grab it, bringing it back. “If you can mark me in,” cue blush. “ Other ways, I can do this.”
He leans back on his hands. “You have permission, my love .”
I’m giddy over the new nickname.
Then uncapping the marker, I do the unexpected. I attempt to draw two lovebirds over his right pectoral .
“I’m no artist,” I chew my bottom lip. “It’ll be wonky.”
Dean replies with a boyish grin. “Like that’s gonna stop you from drawing on me.”
I smack his chest. “I’m trying to be professional right now.”
He toys with the blanket. “You into being unprofessional too?”
I blush again. “Control yourself, sir.”
He mock-salutes. “Yes, ma’am.”
We bask in comfortable silence. I dig my teeth into my bottom lip, tracing what I remember.
I look up. Dean’s watching me, his peaceful smile torments the unhealed version of Nova.
“Why haven’t you asked me about that night?
” He knows what I’m talking about. My reaction to Nadine’s phone call.
The way I closed myself off, shut down, turned into someone’s little sister.
“Not every reaction needs to be analyzed,” Dean peers down at the messy doodle of two lovebirds. One blue, the other red, their beaks curving into a heart. “You had a reason for reacting the way you did.”
We’ve gotten to this point. No noise, no obstacles. Just Dean and Nova. Two of the most stubborn people in the world holding onto each other with nothing but fate to guide them. It’s unreal, is what it is. I came to win money and I won Dean.
Capping the marker, “Can I tell you something?”
“Anything, always.”
“The reason I came into Love? Check! wasn’t to win money just for financial reasons but because I’m kind of in the midst of a lawsuit with my childhood librarian for never returning any overdue books.”
“Overdue? You mean…”
“Books I borrowed in the span of twelve years and never gave back,” I confirm.
It’s not easy acknowledging childish mistakes but it’s the last piece of information I’m keeping from him.
“After graduating and becoming an editor—which by the way, my sister got me that job and I couldn’t really say no when it was competitive to get in—the migraines got in the way.
I couldn’t read anymore, which sucked. But it happened.
My favourite pleasure and privilege was taken away from me. ”
His palm brands my thigh.
“Eventually, that led to a book buying addiction. Money spent. No books read. Just a way to feel like I could read. Before I knew it, I was spending whatever I had in my bank account, barely leaving any money for expenses.” A resigned sigh.
“I should’ve changed the second I knew what was happening, but an addiction is an addiction. ”
“That’s why you couldn’t confide in your sisters.” His thumb draws circles.
“Exactly,” I tuck a strand of hair behind my ear. “And now I’m in a pickle because I’m a hundred percent sure I’m not winning.”
Dean thinks, scratches his nose, thinks again. “What happens when you don’t pay?”
“If I don’t pay in the next four months, behind bars for a year it is.”
“They can’t put you in prison for this,” he’s alarmed by this.
“They can if I’ve” I throw up mock-quotations. “Disturbed her mental health and security of the building.”
“I can?—”
“ No ,” I interrupt with a glare, knowing exactly what older sibling's symptoms are flashing through his stubborn brain. “You will not play the hero in my story.”
“Even though it’ll ease your stress?” He pleads with his eyes.
“Dean,” I shove his hand off. “This isn’t because I’m full of pride or because I want to be stubborn. All my life, people have stepped in to help me. Fell off my bike? Rosa was there with a Barbie band aid. When OSAP put me on academic probation, Nadine was ready to pay my tuition.”
Turning to fully face him so he can tell I’m serious when I say, “I appreciate it. I do. But I’ll figure it out. Even if it means working part-time jobs.”
Dean drops his gaze with a steady sigh.
I take that as discussion closed.
“By the way,” my tone takes a lighter edge. “My sisters are going to be the first to know about us.” I’m hit with the ferocious wave of missing them .
I’m scared he won’t drop the earlier matter.
“You think they’ll like me?” He looks up, still clenching his jaw but trying not to push.
They’ll love you . “Once they get to know you,” I nod.
“Rosa’s easy to please. She’ll appear tough in the beginning, say stuff about me being her baby sister and possibly threaten to castrate you if you make me cry, but she’ll open up.
Nadine’s harder. She’s careful with people around me, has never liked my friends—except Sunny—and often talks me out of relationships because she thinks the only relationship a girl my age should be in is with her career.
I know she’ll like you eventually, but it might take time. ”
“I’m not one to back away,” Dean sternly says.
“Your sisters are a big part of who you are, my love . Impressing them means a lot to you, which is why it means a lot to me. If I have to spend days with them, follow them around like a dog, then I will. Because there is no end to this, Nova. I spent too long imagining a life with you. No matter how long it takes, I’ll make sure they end up liking me so you don’t spend forever hoping that they would. ”
My lip wobbles. What author spawned this man? He doesn’t exist. I’m certain the page will turn, and he’ll disappear.
No one in the twenty-four years that I’ve been alive has recognized how important my sisters are to me.
People assume they understand the depth of my love for them, but they don’t.
It’s never been all white and black. It hasn’t been shades.
It’s been cracks and rocks, it’s been mountains of hiking then falling back flat into water.
Sisterly love is an enigma to everyone but sisters.
It doesn’t exist and it doesn’t die. Yet, Dean takes what I can’t say and tears it apart to understand.
Dean Vuk makes it easy to love him.
I’m not surprised at the admission. I love Dean. Whoever he is, whoever he was. All of him. He exists in the empty corners of my skin and eases himself into the gaps of my chest. There’s no part of me that doesn’t have a part of him.
“You know exactly what to say,” I trace his tattoos with a finger. “I’ve been thinking about our first date out of here.”
“And what’s that?” He leans back on his hands, amused.
“Woodworking,” I say.
“Really?”
I nod. “We’ve been doing what I love here. I want to do what you love too.”
“You’d want that?” His tone deepens with awe.
“I want everything with you, Dean.” I say solemnly. Then joke, “Even if I have to teach you how to hammer in a nail or something.” Woodworking doesn’t need hammers. But Dean doesn’t correct me, he sits up, leaning closer to my face. “I know exactly how to hammer in .”
My cheeks burn at the innuendo like he didn’t spend all night showing me exactly how much he knows . Who cares if he was celibate for years, I can’t sit properly.
Dean pecks my nose, “Sounds like a date.”
Just then, a phone buzzes with a notification.
“It’s yours,” he leans back. “My phone's dead. ”
As I move to check my phone, Dean gets up to change into clothes. I suck in the whine trickling up my throat.
A post on Headshot from Tattletales —the most viewed page for celebrity gossip—lights my screen.
Reality TV has taken a hit from the previous years we’ve been watching it. Season Three of Irene Dolores’ Love? Check! The world’s favourite dating show recently shed light on the contestants and their true intentions. Some come for love and others? They come for the money.