Chapter 66

CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX

LAKE

2 bobas left until we both die …

The paparazzi are everywhere, a malignant, omnipotent miasma that’s seeped into our neighborhood. Clogging the street outside. Flying so many drones that we’ve had to close all the blinds and curtains. Climbing over the back fence and breaking one of Joe’s fucking branches off.

I’m shaking out my hand, and everyone else is staring back at me.

“What …” Joules doesn’t even finish his sentence, but he does hook a wry little smile. “Did you punch a reporter in the face?”

“Social media influencer.” I shake my fist out again. I did punch the girl right in the face. I watched her break one of Joe’s branches from the safety of the kitchen window, and I couldn’t help myself. Daniel escorted her off the property with blood dripping from her nose.

“You punched an influencer in the face? That’s amazing!” Lynn sounds thrilled, but she’s the only person that’s excited. “What?”

“You posted the video; this is your fault.” Jacob sniffs haughtily, and Daniel remains … well, he just stands there and stares at the floor with eyes the color of slate and muscles in his arms that are bigger than Tam’s.

“We don’t know that,” Kaycee says as Tam grabs my hand, taking me to the sink so that he can wash the blood off. His lips are pressed tight, and I know that he’s worried. Not just about the paparazzi, but also the timeline. We only have two days left to break the curse. Two days. “Could’ve been a neighbor. A fan who came to see the family. An informant on one of our teams. That Chloe chick. Tam, standing in the driveway working on a vintage car.”

She isn’t wrong.

Joules is pale, swiping his hand down his face. It’s just him and Kaycee, Tam and me, Jacob, Daniel, and Lynn here. Everybody else got trapped outside the house, and it’s nearly impossible to get in or out right now. The police are doing their best to clear the crowd, but word got out in the early morning, and they all just showed up here like a horde of zombies.

I’m so on edge today, obsessing over the curse even though I know that obsessing over it is my problem in the first place. I let it go for a few weeks there. I did. But then we hit a six-day countdown, and it really hit me. Not even a week left. Just days. Only days.

Tam and I woke up, tangled in one another’s arms, listening to birds chirp outside. All we had was the skylight cracked, but a man climbed up there and took a picture of us through the glass. That picture is all over social media right now. It’s trending, and Tam’s mom is on the attack with her entire legal team and Tam’s publicity team.

He doesn’t care about any of that right now, and neither do I.

We have two days left to live, and I do love him. I swear that I do. I know that I do. He’s incredible, and if I had to pick someone out of all eight-plus billion people on this planet to be mine, I would pick Tam every time.

We have to keep pressing forward, just knowing that it’ll be okay. We are not going to die in two days. We’re not.

“We have to go back to LA anyway, right?” I ask, looking up at Tam as he’s fixated on the superficial wound gracing my knuckles. He adds extra soap to make sure it’s clean, cool water and suds and rough fingertips skating over my skin. My breath catches as he looks down at me.

“LA?” he asks, and then he thinks it over for a minute. “For the docuseries concert?”

I nod. I truly think he’d forgotten about it. Tam really settled into his life here, and he was exceptional at lounging in the sunlight wearing gray sweatpants, reading romantasy books, and then taking the ideas he got from them upstairs into the bedroom with me. I’ve never been handled so tenderly yet so greedily in all my life. “I suppose it would get us out of here. We can’t relax like this. We need my estate, with a full security team and stone walls.”

“And also drone eagles,” I remind him, and Tam chuckles.

“We stay together.” Joules is not asking a question or making a suggestion. He’s standing there with his legs spread shoulder-width apart, arms crossed, expression dour and fixed on me. “Me and Kaycee and you.”

“I hear you,” I tell him, looking over at Kaycee. She doesn’t argue.

“It’s a good idea. And since we’re both flying in, and the concert is coming up … company jet?” Kaycee shrugs, a sorry-not-sorry-vibe.

“Yeah, let’s take the jet,” Tam says absently, like a private flight in a luxury jumbo jet is no big deal. “I’ll have my mom set up a flight as soon as possible.”

He shuts the water off, gently dries my hand with a paper towel, and fishes the first-aid kit from under the sink. I remember treating his face here before, after Joules punched him. He must’ve remembered where to find it.

Tam wraps my knuckles with some white gauze while I think it over.

“Let’s leave as soon as possible. The others can meet us at the airport.” I give Tam an apologetic look. “Can we take everyone on the jet? My whole family?”

He nods without even looking up.

“It’s big enough for the entire board of directors—not that they each don’t have their own jet. But still. Plenty of room.” He clips the gauze into place and releases me. “We’ll go to Los Angeles—even if I decide not to do the concert.”

The concert, which is on the exact last day of the curse.

In fact, I’m not sure that Tam could finish his entire setlist before the curse kills us.

“I want you to do the concert,” I tell him, catching his hands in mine again. We look at each other, and I see that this is as raw and real as we can get. Tam and I are experiencing each other like we’ve been in a relationship for decades. There’s nothing to do, but let ourselves go, fall, twine into each other. It’s too late in the game for bullshit. “If we really do die, what would you want to do with your last days? We did what I wanted to do these last few weeks. It’s your turn, Tam.”

He hesitates, but then his fingers are wrapping around mine and he’s pulling me in for a kiss.

“I will do the concert. And you know why? Because we’re not going to die.” He kisses me on either cheek. “I want to keep going with my career, Lake. You’ll be able to do whatever you want with your own life. I’ll make sure that happens.”

“Oh, could you also transfer my parents some money? Pay us back for having to chase your ass around the country?” Joules scoffs and puts his hands on his hips. “That’s not even a joke. I’m being serious.”

“I’ll transfer the money,” Tam says, but he doesn’t even look at my brother.

“I’ll talk to Elena and see if we can’t get a flight out of here tonight.” Jacob shudders, and I don’t blame him. It looks like there’s a parade out in the street, and a hiking club out back. Just past our fence is the Hobbs State Park-Conservation Area. People are hiking into the woods, so that they can get to the edge of our property line to camp the fence. The park ranger cleared them out twice already, but they came back. “But we can’t take so many extra guests. You know that.”

“We will take all of the extra guests, or I will not perform at the concert. Make that clear if the CEO has questions.” Tam crosses his arms over his chest and gives his manager a cool look. “You hear me, Jake?”

“Oh yes, My Lord.” Jacob scowls, and Tam grins. “Whatever his greatness desires must certainly come to fruition.”

“I kind of like him,” Lynn whispers, and I snort. Wouldn’t that be cute if we paired Lynn off with Jacob, and Ella off with Daniel, Joules with … Allison? Was that his Match’s name? My eyes shift to him and Kaycee again, but I shake it off.

Tam and I have two days left.

This is an us problem.

“Well, you’re also kind of coming to LA with me.” I grab Lynn’s arm, and swallow back the fear.

My whole family, my friends, on a private jet to stay in Tam Eyre’s estate. That’s as unbelievable as the curse part. Maybe it’s even less believable than the curse part. “Time to pack?”

“Only if the jet isn’t ready before we’re done,” Tam offers with a little wink, and then he nods in the direction of the stairs. “Come on. I’ll pack your I Heart Tam sweatpants for you.”

“Cute.” I roll my eyes, but I happily follow him up the stairs and into my bedroom—for what may be the very last time in my entire life.

That’s okay. It’ll be okay. Tam and I will be okay.

Because I love him.

I do.

I fucking love him.

Tam and I are standing outside by Joe’s tree. Joules is with us. Kaycee, too. Lynn and Jacob stayed inside to give us some privacy, but Daniel is stalking the perimeter like an agitated apex predator. He’s not afraid to come down hard on fangirls and fanboys. He leapt the fence and cleared the people in the woods before he deemed it safe.

But only for a moment.

I can hear the crowds out front even now, a bit thinned from this morning but still loud. Buzzing. Hungry. They want Tam as badly as I want Tam, and they’ve never seen his orgasm face. I give a private little laugh at the thought.

“Stop thinking perverted shit and tell your cousin you love him before we leave,” Joules says, and his voice only starts out in an annoyed growl. It ends in a lingering that makes me uncomfortable. People don’t just linger in their words like that unless they’re dying.

I know for a fact because I’ve been doing it myself.

“Tell Joe that you’re going to take care of me.” I point at Tam and give him a wink. “He was old-fashioned; he’ll want to hear it.”

“I’d like to hear it,” Joules mumbles, scowling until Kaycee gets up on her tiptoes and whispers in his ear. That scowl quickly morphs into something hungry and feral that I’d rather not see. Disgusting. Hopefully my face doesn’t look like that when I’m thinking about Tam.

“Hey Joe.” Tam squats down and pokes a finger into the dirt at the base of the tree. “I’m taking Lake home with me. I don’t know how often we’ll get to come back here since I tour, and I want to bring your cousin with me. I’ll pay her a ridiculously high wage to be my manager, if she wants.” He glances in my direction, stands, and then turns to me.

Tam takes my hand, and then he presses something skin-warmed and round into it. His eyes, when I look up at them are the darkest shade of serious, full of love but also with an understanding that I won’t let myself accept. I’m convinced now that we’re going to make it. Tam loves me. I love him. It’ll be any second now. Any second.

“What is this?” I ask, and then I unfold my fingers to find a dirty rock that he dug out of the soil. A little keepsake from Joe to take with me. It’s not a part of him, but it’s been living here, covered in this same dirt. Maybe, if there are ghosts, Joe’s spirit could ride around in this, and I could keep him with me everywhere? Maybe that’s exactly why Tam gave this to me.

“I don’t have a ring, and I will do this properly later, but I want you to know that I’d love to marry you. It could be tomorrow at the concert. It could be in ten years or twenty. Doesn’t matter. You can keep this rock until you’re ready. Just … put it in my pocket at some point. I’ll keep a lookout.”

“You want her to stick a dirty rock in your pocket as a proposal?” Joules asks, but his voice is too soft at the end there. As I said before, a lingering. Kaycee moves away from him and leans in, palms on the trunk of the tree before she kisses it. She whispers something against the bark, and then throws a saucy look over her shoulder.

In the pink pencil skirt, heels, and blouse she’s wearing, we may as well be at a photoshoot. Again. With Tam and Kaycee around, it’s a constant, never-disappointing aesthetic.

“I gave up my intentions, but they were nowhere near as nice as Tam’s,” she purrs. “I promised to fuck you for the rest of our lives, and put a ring on it.”

Joules snorts, and I wonder what sort of arrangement they’ve worked out. Kaycee knows that this Allison person is Joules’ Match. She even drove me past her house the other day, when we left to go pick up a boba order. We parked across the street, waited for Allison to come out, and just studied her for a minute.

Neither of us spoke, and then we left together and didn’t tell Joules.

“You realize that someone might be recording this?” Tam suggests, looking up into the boughs of the tree. There are approximately two yellow leaves left, and it’s creepy somehow, like the curse knows how many bobas there are in our countdown.

“I hope they do,” Kaycee says, fiddling with the sleeve of her top. She has her black braids twisted into a thick coil on the back of her head, her lips splashed in the most outrageous pink to match her skirt. “It’d save me the trouble of a press conference.”

Kaycee steps back from the tree to grab Joules’ arm; Tam wraps his arms around me from behind.

The four of us stand there in silence until a drone comes buzzing over the trees.

This time, it’s Joules who grabs Uncle Rob’s shotgun from the locked kitchen pantry. He walks out onto the deck, takes aim, and blasts the machine out of the sky. It falls into our yard and, according to Arkansas law, we don’t even have to give it back.

That feels like a sign.

“Time to go,” I say, and it is.

It’s time.

I say goodbye to my childhood home, grab my duffel bag—lose my duffel bag to Tam—and then follow Daniel outside and down the roped off pathway that’s carved through my lawn. The sprinkler goes off as soon as we go outside, and I remember that my dad said the timer was broken and it was going off at weird times.

The four of us are running, and laughing, and our clothes are sopping wet as we slide into the back of the SUV. The door closes, cutting off camera flashes and screaming fans. There was a girl with a sign that read Sweat on me, Tam! I kid you not. Heh. Gross as that sign is, I have to admit that getting sweated on by Tam Eyre is—

“Just don’t,” Joules warns me as Tam tucks me close in the backseat. He turns and puts his mouth up near my ear.

“Whenever you’re thinking about having sex with me, your entire expression changes. I’m not the only person who notices that.”

I just laugh because I don’t really care, and he knows that. I let him tell the whole world that we were together, didn’t I? At a press conference.

I’m wearing Tambourine-branded panties; he’s wearing a bite mark on his inner thigh.

Me and Tam Eyre, we are absolutely a thing.

I lean over him, roll the window down and toss out the signed photocard that I had in my pocket. A girl catches it, and her eyes go wide in shock. We’re gone too quickly for me to see more than that, and Jacob and Daniel both are telling me to close the window. Lynn is giggling from her spot on the floor between the two captain’s chairs.

“Let Lake do what she wants,” Tam says, but I roll it up anyway, tuck myself against his side and bask in the glory that is this single, perfect moment.

Perfect.

This is perfect.

Everything is going to be just fine.