Chapter 62

CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO

LAKE

28 bobas left until we both die … (the same day)

“This is … basically insane,” I tell Tam when he drops our bags on the floor of my bedroom and stands up, hands on his hips as he looks around again. He’s only been in here for a total of maybe two minutes before, so it’s basically new to him. “You, standing in my bedroom.”

“Fantasy come to life?” he asks hopefully, heeling the door shut. It opens almost immediately, and my cousins and friends pour in.

Minus Chloe, of course.

“What’s the percentage of Frost family members who didn’t love their Match?” Ella demands, and Tam cringes a little, running his tongue over his lower lip. “I tried to do a quick survey of the journals, but I haven’t been able to get clear answers.”

“We’ve never kept track of that sort of thing,” I explain with a shrug as Maria steals a beanbag, Luna perches on the couch (while making eyes at Tam), and Lynn joins me on the bed. Ella stays near Tam, her arms crossed, glaring at him out of the corner of her eye. “Ella,” I warn her, and she snaps her gaze to mine like she’s guilty.

“Sorry, I’m just conditioned to be wary of Matches.”

“I’m the good kind of Match,” Tam tells her, tucking his hands into his pockets and giving this sweet, sexed-up vibe off without even meaning to. “Making sure that Lake survives, that’s my only purpose right now.”

“I saw that you cancelled a bunch of events,” Lynn says to him, offering me a lollipop. She’s sucking on one, too. Both hers and mine are root beer flavored. Nice. Joules thinks it’s the most disgusting flavor known to man. Joe backed him up on this one. I tear the paper off and stick it in my mouth. Tam watches that motion like I’ve just taken off my bra. “But everyone online is saying to leave you alone, that you never take time off, that you deserve it. See? Your true fans have your back.”

“Much appreciated, true fan,” Tam says with a little wink. He takes a seat on the couch next to Luna, in the spot where Chloe would usually sit. Luna bites her lip at him, but he gives her a look that’s clearly a warning. She’s not serious about it, I know that. It’s just how she is.

“Luna, leave him alone.” I chastise her, and she laughs, punching Tam in the shoulder. He blinks at her in surprise.

“Sorry, I’m so thirsty. I get excited around attractive guys. But if you actually hit on me while being my friend’s Match, I’d kick you in the balls.”

“That’s … nice,” Tam says, but then he just laughs and shakes his head.

“Hey, so,” Lynn starts between licks of the candy in her hand. “Joules wants to pay us girls a hundred bucks each to beat Chloe up. What do you think? I’m inclined to agree.”

“He only offered me seventy-five!” Luna shouts, slapping her hand down on the couch arm.

“He offered me fifty,” Maria mumbles, without even looking up from her book.

“Wow, learn to negotiate.” Lynn shakes her head, and I exhale, situated on my bed near the mountain of pillows that I’ll be sharing with Tam tonight. We’ve been sleeping in the same bed every night. Having sex. Cuddling. Having sex again. More cuddling.

I’m excited to do that here, in the place where I feel the most at home.

“I say do it,” Tam agrees, and I give him a look. He shrugs. “Just being honest.”

“She’s been messaging me,” Luna hedges, picking at a loose thread on the arm of the couch. “She misses … this.” Luna gestures around the room. “Being a part of this.”

I do my best to smile gently.

“You don’t have to stop hanging out with her, you know?” I tell her, and Luna flushes.

“If she’ll betray one of us, she’ll betray all of us.” Ella takes the last cushion on the couch. “Thanks, but no thanks.”

“I agree with that.” Lynn looks apologetic, like she thinks I wanted them to reconnect with Chloe. It’s up to each of them, but I won’t hold it against Luna if that’s what she wants.

“She was always more your friend than mine.” Maria still doesn’t look up from her book.

“When a person tells you who they are, believe them.” Tam locks his fingers together behind his head. “But if it’ll make you feel better, talk to her. Just be prepared that you might not like what you hear.”

Nobody says anything for a while, and then Maria starts complaining about her book and both Ella and Tam jump in because they’ve read the same series. I relax on my back with Lynn beside me, closing my eyes and just enjoying the sound of everyone talking around me.

Later, after Ella and Lynn and Maria have gone, Luna comes up to me with a message on her phone. It’s from Chloe.

If she calls me, I’ll talk to her, Chloe says, but I don’t know. I might. I might not.

“Thanks, Luna.” I give her a hug, bid her goodnight, and then … it’s just me and Tam. Alone in my bedroom. “The paparazzi haven’t found us yet. That’s impressive, don’t you think?”

Tam makes a bit of a face, standing up from the couch and making his way over to me.

“Probably because Daniel and Jacob have been following us.” Tam gestures with his chin in the direction of my bedroom door, hands tucked into his pockets. I like the smile on his face, both cheeky and apologetic. “Come on. They’re downstairs waiting to talk to us.”

I raise a brow, but I get up and follow Tam down two flights of stairs. We pause on the second floor, staring silently at the spot where he wrapped his hands around my waist and asked—

“Hey.” Tam turns and takes my chin gently in his fingers. “You’re not thinking weird thoughts, are you? Didn’t we agree that we were having too much sex?”

“I might’ve been hasty in that declaration,” I admit, and he laughs at me, kissing me on the mouth before taking my hand and walking side-by-side with me down to the first floor.

Daniel is on one of the recliners with a cup of coffee in his hands; Jacob is on the couch, arms crossed over his chest. My mom is trying to feed them.

“Are you sure you don’t want any leftovers? We have vegetarian options if you’re crazy enough to reject my brother’s barbeque.”

“I’m starving, thank you,” Daniel says, sipping his coffee. “I’d love to eat whatever you’re willing to give me.”

My mom loves that, grinning as she goes about fixin’ a plate.

“Jacob?” Tam prods, pausing at the edge of the living room with his hands on his hips. “This is my future mother-in-law we’re talking about. Can you be on your best manners?”

“My apologies, Your Great and Royal Highness, but if you hadn’t jumped into the conversation, I was about to thank the lady of the house for her hospitality and regretfully decline the food.” Jacob curls his lip at Tam, like the twenty-seven-year-old man isn’t allowed to travel without his express permission.

I’m caught up on something else entirely.

“Future mother-in-law?” I ask, and Tam flushes just a little. He reaches up to adjust the white beanie on his head.

“Um, well. This is a very long-term sort of relationship, isn’t it? I wasn’t trying to jump the gun, just wanted to be realistic about our prospects.”

“The boy knows what’s going on,” my mom says, and then she points at me—with a knife. Like I did when I was trying to cut the cake in Tam’s kitchen. Must be a Frost family thing, to threaten people with knives during a casual conversation. “You’re the one that’s stuck in that head of yours. Don’t do to me what your Aunt Clara did.”

“Aunt Clara didn’t love her Match?” I ask, bewildered. I’ve never heard this story before. I’ve even read her journal—seven solid times, cover to cover. Tam cringes at my words, and I feel immediately bad for asking that.

“She never had a chance to write about it if that’s what you’re wondering. She didn’t realize until the end. It was a whole mess. He was a senator, you know. She just assumed that he would never love her, but he did. My God, he really did.” My mom finally starts using the knife to cut slices off a fresh loaf of bread. She’ll probably put garlic butter on there, toast it up for Daniel. “Your aunt had trouble understanding how someone like him could love someone like her.”

“It’s not that way,” I whisper, but Tam’s eyes have slid over to me, and Jacob is clearing his throat in a weird way.

“I don’t mean to interrupt, but this seems like a very personal discussion. If we could bother you for some food to-go, I’d like to get Tam to the hotel—” Jacob doesn’t get to finish his sentence because Tam interrupts him, waving his hand and striding into the living room.

“No. I’m not staying at a hotel. I want to stay here.”

“And if the press finds out that you’re here?” Jacob snorts a laugh and then rubs his forehead. “I really am going to quit and go work for Aunt Elena. Truly, this stress is going to kill me.” Jacob drops his hand into his lap. “Tam Eyre, the whole world knows that you’re dating this girl. If someone sees you here, who do you think will suffer? This family will suffer, that’s who. Not you. But this family.”

Tam’s lips part.

“No,” my mother says, setting the knife down hard on the counter. “They both stay here. Nobody’s suffering anything. I want my daughter at home, and she needs her Match with her. End of discussion. Would the two of you like to stay here as well?”

“I’m afraid that I must insist,” Daniel says with a sigh. “I need to be able to protect them both, and I can’t do that from a hotel room.”

“It’s settled then,” I clap my hands together. “Tam and I will make up the beds in the den. We have not one, but two pull-out couch beds.” I grab Tam’s hand to tug him away before Jacob can finish sputtering in obvious distress. Can he handle sheets with low thread counts?

We’re about to find out.

“You don’t think you’re good enough for me?” Tam asks gently, but I ignore him, opening the door to the den that we haven’t used much since Joe died. This room has him written all over it, like a dusty shrine. I start chucking cushions off the first couch. Tam steps forward to help me grab the metal bar, so that we can pull out the bed.

“That’s not it at all,” I answer, but I guess it could be? Is that what I’m doing? Did Tam’s rejection of me for so long make me start to feel small in some way? No. I don’t feel that at all. If I didn’t like him as much as I do, I would’ve given up a long time ago.

Now that we’re here, side-by-side, setting up a couch bed for his manager, I feel the truth in it.

I pursued Tam because I liked Tam that much.

I open a cabinet in the corner and start grabbing sheets and blankets, stacking them on the arm of the couch. We make the bed up together.

“I have a pretty solid sense of self.” I tap a palm against my chest and then smooth out a wrinkle in the sheets.

“Maybe … I haven’t groveled hard enough?” Tam asks, lifting a brow. “I can grovel harder if needed.”

“Grovel for what? You weren’t so bad. Considering all the things you’ve been through, I think you gave me the best possible opening to get to know you.” We start taking cushions off the second couch. Tug the mattress free. “If I thought you didn’t deserve my attention, I would’ve just given up on you to focus on my bucket list.”

Tam pauses for a minute, like he’s giving a lot of focus to a difficult problem.

We each grab a corner of the fitted sheet, and I chuckle a bit at the thought of Jacob sleeping down here.

“If I felt like I was being bewitched by you, but you were only being honest … what does that mean?” Tam looks up at me, eyelids heavy and half-lidded, lips parted.

Oh.

Did he … Oh.

My hands are shaking as I hook the sheet on the corner of the mattress before returning the hazy heat of his gaze.

“Can I tell you what I think it means?” Tam asks gently, and I nod because I want to hear his take on such a beautiful statement. Those are the sorts of words that etch themselves into your heart, the sort of words you take to the stars in the next life. I can’t breathe. I blink a few times, and I swear that I can see a night sky behind my eyes, a burst of color where the heart nebula constellation rests in all that ebony space.

I rub the mark on my wrist as Tam comes over to stand in front of me.

My breath catches as he puts his palms on either side of my face, sliding those rough fingertips over my cheeks.

“What does it mean?” I ask, but I know. I know exactly what that means. If I hadn’t gone with my gut and been honest with Tam since the very beginning, we would never have gotten to this point. I gave Tam my true self, and he felt like that was me working my hardest to get him to like me.

“It means that I’m in love with you.” Tam rolls his lips in, presses them tight, exhales. “It means that you’re … a cute girl who knows how to stay true to herself.”

I punch him reflexively in the shoulder, but he doesn’t move. Instead, he just slides his fingers into my hair and kisses me until I’m positive that I see stars. This is it! We’re breaking the curse. I can feel it.

But then he gives me some space to breathe, and everything is as it was.

“If I felt like I was being bewitched by you, but you were only being honest … what does that mean?”

It means that Tam Eyre is a hopeless romantic, and that his behavior and his words, they’re bewitching me.

“I’m sorry that I treated you so poorly,” he says again, but I wave my hand to dismiss the worry.

“If I thought you were truly awful, that you were going to treat me badly … I’m not trying to be mean, but I wouldn’t have pursued you because I wouldn’t have been able to love you. I wouldn’t have wanted to waste my time. I could never love a man who treated me as less than.”

Tam smiles at me, sweeping my hair back and leaving me with goose bumps.

“You’re so honest, Lake. So refreshingly honest.” Tam steps back from me, crossing his arms over his chest. We study each other, and I try to put myself in his shoes. He’s in love with me, and I’m not in love with him. Worst case scenario. I’ve seen this before, with Joe and Marla. She liked him—a whole hell of a lot—but she didn’t love him. Not yet.

Since Joe did, I’ve had this fear of becoming him, of loving someone blindly, of calling out to them in my last moments … but they aren’t there. They don’t care. Marla didn’t love him. She killed him.

My heart seizes, and I turn away, speedwalking out into the hallway and back toward the living room.

Am I afraid to fall in love with Tam? Because if I let myself fall in love with him, and the curse breaks, then I’ll have to know. I want him to be real as badly as he wanted me to be real. I’m punishing myself. I’m punishing myself, and I’m afraid.

The stairs creak, and I look over to see Joules and Kaycee descending, hand-in-hand. My mom hears them, too, and comes around the corner, smiling privately to herself.

“Where have you been for the last two hours?” she asks, but Joules just laughs and Kaycee blushes. She looks adorable in this white and pink pajama set that I think I recognize from one of her music videos.

“Mom, I’m a grown-ass man. You sure you want to ask that question?” Joules and Kaycee hit the foyer, and my mom tsks her tongue and shakes her head. She’s a big believer in waiting for one’s Match to show up before getting involved, but uh, maybe she should ask her poor Great Aunt Marjorie who was single and a virgin for her entire life. She died at sixty-eight in an awful car accident, leaving behind a Frost family journal that was full of longing.

Also … isn’t Kaycee supposed to be Joules’ Match?

Tam finally emerges from the den, ruffling up his hair. He follows me as I trail after Joules, Kaycee, and Mom into the dining room.

“Your birthday is coming up, Joules,” my mom begins, starting to fix two plates of food without even being asked. Kaycee swallows like she’s looking forward to this, and I imagine that she’s on as strict a diet as Tam. The food here probably comes as a bit of a shock. We eat way too much meat and butter, not even going to lie. “What do you want to do for that?”

“I want everyone in the family to get on the ground and worship me like a god,” Joules says, and he might be joking but he’s also a little bit serious. My mom throws a roll at him, but Kaycee catches it and takes a bite. Joules grins as he looks over at her, and she looks back.

They stare at each other, and I feel all the blood drain from my face. I get lightheaded on my feet and sway, but Tam catches me by the elbow. Everyone turns to look at me, and a little dimple appears on my mom’s cheek. Huh. Must’ve gotten that from her.

“You okay, Canoe?” Joules asks, studying me with a cloak of suspicion hanging over him.

I stare right back, and his jaw clenches.

He knows that I know; he knows that I can see it.

Joules and Kaycee, they’re staring at one another like they’re in love. Both of them. And if they’re in love with each other then … she isn’t his Match. Kaycee Quinn is not Joules’ Match.

“I … yeah, I’m …” The front door opens behind me, and Daniel returns with two duffel bags slung over his shoulder. Jacob is sighing dramatically as he follows him, and I see that he isn’t carrying any bags at all. “Just tired. We’re going to head upstairs.”

I take Tam’s hand and I tug him along with me, dragging him into the room and slamming the door behind us. I put my back up against it, breathing hard.

“There’s no way you’re getting out of this without telling me what’s wrong,” he says, standing right in front of me, hands on his hips. Tam’s stern expression gentles as he looks at me, and his lips part, like he might mention something about being in love with me or … I interrupt him.

“Joules is lying; Kaycee isn’t his Match.” I step forward and put both of my palms on Tam’s chest. This time, he’s the one who gets goose bumps. “They’re in love with each other. If she were his Match, the curse would be broken. Tam, he’s lying.”

“Why would he lie about that?” Tam asks, getting that adorable furrow between his brows. I reach up with my thumb and give it a rub for good luck. Tam returns the favor, smudging my cheek dimple as we frown at each other in thought.

“Because he doesn’t want to tell me until I’ve broken my own curse. Ugh.” I drop my hand and pace past Tam, walking a rut in the old rug over the even older wood floor beneath it. “That motherfucker. That piece of shit. That lying scumbag.”

Tam chuckles, but I give him a look and he offers a sheepish one in return.

“You’re cute when you curse,” he tells me, and I groan, flopping down on my bed and putting my hands over my eyes. “Hey, don’t stress. I’m sure Joules knows what he’s doing, right?”

“You mean lying to me and the rest of the family so that we don’t worry about him? Oh yeah. He knows exactly what he’s doing. I just can’t decide if he’s waiting for me to break my curse first or if he’s too into Kaycee to try to break his own. Maybe both.” I sit up as Tam comes over to stand beside me. “I need to figure out how much time he has left.”

“Lake.” Tam sits down beside me, taking his beanie off and leaving his mussed hair to entice me. My fingers itch to run through it, to comb it back from his handsome face. It’s dim in here, all of the lights turned off except the strands of white Christmas lights woven into the footboard and dangling from the rafters. The gentle glow only enhances Tam’s extraordinary features. “This is probably what Joules was worried about.” He takes my hand in his, curling our fingers together. “However much time he has left on his curse, it’s more than you’ve got, isn’t it?”

I nod.

For sure Joules didn’t get matched before me or he would’ve told me. But any time after?

“I can’t lose my brother,” I whisper, and then I feel wetness on my cheeks, and I realize that I’m crying. Again. As the boba clock ticks down toward the end of my curse, more and more emotion breaks out of the cage that I’ve kept it trapped in. Emotion about Joe. Emotion about myself. About Tam. About Joules.

“Let’s break our curse, and then we’ll help him with his, okay? I promise. I’ll take the whole year off to make sure that Joules survives.”

“You have the European leg of your tour—” I start, but then Tam is kissing the words off my mouth. He presses forward, and I fall back naturally, head hitting my pillows, arms sliding around his neck.

We make love in my room with the glow of Christmas lights all around us, and the open skylight above us showcasing all the beautiful stars above.

As long as we’ve got time, there’s hope.

There’s hope.