“Speaking of which,” Deon said. “We think he killed Alicia Loche.”
“Oh, dear,” Ciara whispered. “I tried to warn her, but she didn’t want to listen to me.”
“You tried to warn her?” Deon asked. “What do you mean?”
She looked at Deon, almost embarrassed. “After everything happened, I called her and tried to tell her that she and Nathan were probably in trouble, but she refused to listen. She told me I was trying to break up her family. Just like I did before.”
“She’s never been a particularly kind or understanding woman,” I said. “You tried. That was all you could do.”
Sicily walked into the house and let out a sigh of relief. “Oh, thank god.” He turned around and held a thumbs up out the door, and then turned back and smiled. “Hey there, Mrs. Keane.”
“I told you, Ciara is fine, Sicily,” she said.
“Sicily’s actually the one who cleared Deon’s name,” I said. “He had some video footage. Let’s not talk about why.”
Ciara walked over and gave Sicily a huge hug. “Thank you.”
He grinned. “Aw, of course. I wouldn’t leave my boy in trouble!” He looked at me. “Hey, Alistair wanted me to tell you that they contacted Nikita, and she’s gonna track down Nathan. We can’t really do anything else for the time being.”
“Can we really just sit and do nothing?” I asked.
“Nikita and Kyle were the two memebers of the court that I knew from my time with the Loches. Trust me when I say, Nikita will find Nathan. She’s crazy about him. Always has been.”
I’d gotten that inkling, too, over time. Somehow, thinking about Nathan and Nikita maybe managing to find some happiness in all this nonsense made me happy. I hoped she could find him before it was too late. “Okay.”
Deon reached out and took my hand. “Hey. Can you…stay? I know you’re perfectly capable of taking care of yourself. I just want you near me.”
I looked at Ciara, and she smiled and nodded. “You’ve been through a lot. I can imagine you’d want to be together. Please just make sure your parents know you’re here and safe.”
“I actually called them when I was on my way to Nathan’s. They know I’m okay.” I looked at Deon. “I do have to take Alistair and Avery home, though.”
“Oh, I can take them home,” Sicily said.
I looked at him. “Really?”
“Yeah. You two have been through a lot tonight. Let ol’ Sic take care of it.” He smiled and tapped Deon. “It’s gonna be funny, convincing those money babies to get in the beater anyway.”
“Oh, please Snap it,” I said. “That is going to be really funny.”
He winked at me and then turned, waving his hand through the air. He left, shutting the door behind him.
“Well, I think we’d all better get to sleep. I start my new job in the morning,” Ciara said.
Deon scoffed. “You already have a new job? You lost your other one, like, six hours ago.”
She grinned broadly. “I didn’t raise an Irish brat all by myself without being resourceful,” she said. “And apparently, you can be famous in the home cleaning business, and I am, so someone called me not long after I got sacked.”
“I’m sorry about that, Mom,” Deon said.
She waved a hand. “Any place that would fire me for such a frivolous reason was a bad place to be, anyway. Come on. To bed with us.”
Ciara walked us back to Deon’s room, gave us each a cheek kiss goodnight, and then headed on to her room. Once she was gone, Deon grabbed one of the pillows off his bed and a sheet and laid them out on the floor.
“What are you doing?” I asked. “I’m all yours, remember?”
“I do remember,” he said, as he dropped to the ground, “but if I get in that bed with you, I’m going to want to do things to you that my mom would hear and probably dislike. So I’ll sleep safely down here.” He raised a seductive eyebrow at me. “We will share the bed in the morning after she’s gone.”
A rush of excitement blasted through me at the thought, and I realized that Deon was probably right. We were better off in separate sleeping accommodations for the night. Not just because we may attract the wrong kind of attention from his mother, but because we also both legitimately needed to rest. It’d been quite a long couple of days for us both, and if we didn’t sleep, we’d start to lose the ability to function. So as much as I wanted to climb on the floor with Deon and try to sleep with him, I got on his bed and wrapped his blanket around me. Surrounded by Deon’s scent, my eyes started to feel heavy, and within a few minutes, I’d completely passed out.
A dreamless sleep was actually quite welcome. Ordinarily, I’d be dreaming of being with Deon, but now he wasn’t far from me, so I was more anxious to get back to my reality than to escape to a dream. My cell phone alarm went off, which would normally be waking me up for school, and it stirred me awake, though Deon snored right through it. I looked over the edge of the bed and snickered at the sight. He was completely tangled in the sheet, the pillow was halfway across the room, and sweetly, his hand was extended and hanging onto my foot.
Oh no. I was dangerously in love.
Despite being on the floor, he was knocked out like he was in a California king at the four seasons. He looked so cute that I could die, so I grabbed my phone and snapped a few pictures for keepsakes. I flipped through them happily until a light knock on the door pulled my attention away.
The door opened, and Ciara peeked her head in, then looked down at
