Queen of Quarantine (Brutal Boys of Everlake Prep #4) - Caroline Peckham Page 0,206

And he told us that we were the only things in his life that truly mattered. That he would have hunted night and day for the rest of his life for us and never given up. I felt so loved when he told us that." Tears welled in her eyes, but she blinked them back and I tightened my hold on her hand. "Now you tell me one."

I hesitated for longer than she had and with a jolt, I realised that was because I never really let myself linger on my memories of my family. But that was making them fade and I couldn't bear the thought of that. I refused to allow it to happen. So I closed my eyes and submerged myself in a memory of Christmas Day, the scent of Mom making dinner in the air while me and Michael opened presents.

"Every Christmas, my mom would go all out with the dinner," I said with a smile. "She'd buy everything, even the stuff none of us liked and would slave away in the kitchen for hours - but she couldn't cook for shit." I laughed and Tatum smiled too. "Me and Michael would eat the lot anyway, scrape our plates and hide our grimaces while we crunched on burnt vegetables and devoured salty gravy. I kinda love the taste of badly cooked food because of those days. She'd ask us if we were enjoying it and we'd tell her it was amazing, and she'd smile because she knew damn well it was awful. But none of us would crack, keeping up the pretence of a perfect Christmas because it was our version of perfect and that was all we wanted. Then we'd crash out in front of the TV together and eat chocolate until we wanted to puke. We fell asleep like that every year, all of us together with Christmas movies playing on repeat."

"I can burn a Christmas dinner for you this year if you want to keep the tradition going?" Tatum offered as she reached up to cup my cheek in her hand and I smiled.

"Yeah. I think I'd like that. Saint probably won't though."

"I can handle him," she said, quirking a grin at me and I snorted because I knew damn well she could, even though I hadn't fully figured out how yet.

Tatum tugged on my hand and I let her lead me over to the others who were almost done with setting up the tent.

"Good boys!" Tatum said, praising them like they were dogs and clapping her hands in an over the top way.

"This shit is harder than it looks," Blake muttered as Kyan started rolling out sleeping bags inside the canvas space.

"Sure it is," she teased and Blake lunged at her with a playful growl.

Tatum ran for it, using me as a human shield while Saint rolled his eyes at us and started grabbing out food.

"Help me catch her, Nash," Blake urged as Tatum held onto me, making me move with her and keeping me between them. "Then we can pin her down and have our wicked way with her."

"Oh, is that the deal?" I asked, whipping around and catching Tatum by the waist.

"No!" she laughed. "I never agreed to that!"

"Come on, siren, we all know you can't resist us for long," Saint said, matter of fact, like he knew Tatum's libido better than she did.

Tatum ran past him, snatching one of the packets of dehydrated food and a bowl from his hands before hooking a bottle of water from Kyan's open pack which was sitting at the foot of a tree. Then she leapt up and managed to scramble into the branches above our heads before making herself comfortable sitting back against the trunk and smirking at us.

"Are you going to hide up there, princess?" I called as I looked up at her.

"I think I have to if I wanna protect my virtue long enough for me to eat," she replied with a laugh as she started making her food up in the bowl.

I chuckled and turned away to find her a spoon before tossing it up to her in her perch.

"I think we should forgo the fire tonight," Saint said as I took a seat on the ground beside him where he’d sat his ass on a fallen tree trunk. Far be it from Saint Memphis to ever sit in the dirt of course. "We don't want to risk the smoke being seen."

I looked over my shoulder in the direction