Summer Breeze Kisses - Addison Moore Page 0,132

caught a glimpse as I dove for the lunatic trying to take her down.

“Oh crap!” She slaps me over the chest, and I catch her hand.

For whatever reason, the music, the screaming crowd, the glowing cocktails that dot the vicinity like candles all seem to melt into one big warble of white noise, and it’s just Scarlett and I, her hand in mine, her arms lying over my chest even if it is in an effort to beat the crap out of me. But something in me warms at the thought of her here with me, our skin touching, those violent four leaf clover eyes bearing hard into mine.

“Oh crap,” I parrot in a whisper. Jet and Owen are right. I’m falling hard for Scarlett Kent, and I didn’t see it coming.

The girls on stage do their thing, and soon enough, Cassidy’s lookalike is taking it off, shaking the girls for all to see. Cade would be blind with rage if he could hear half of the guys in here. The girls at our table cheer as Daisy hops and skips to the music in the background, thankfully with her top on or I’d have a hard time facing her at school. But I’m not too entranced with what’s happening up on stage. I’m too busy feeling the heat sizzle from Scarlett’s leg to mine, her shoulder still hotly glued over my chest. I’m too busy stealing glances at the porcelain goddess that has me entranced.

I’ve fallen hard for Scarlett Kent.

And if our parents tie the knot, come August, she’ll be my stepsister.

Untying the Knot

Scarlett

The overlook adjacent to the Witch’s Cauldron is beautifully adorned with a latticed arch interwoven with wisteria and an entire Garden of Eden’s worth of flowers gracing it on either side. Both Piper and Baya are standing up for Annie, and Marley will have her sister, Jemma, stand up for her. I’ve witnessed Jemma lose her mind about ten times in the last half hour—needing to smoke a “damn cigarette.” The ceremony is due to begin any moment. The seats are brimming with friends and family. Technically, I’m neither, but Piper begged both Cassidy and me to come. She asked Daisy, too, but she’s stuck at the club all day. She mentioned that the other night when we were all there for the bachelorette event gone awry that someone slipped a waitress a two-hundred-dollar tip to give her. To add to the mystery, the waitress said it came from someone at our table. And for as much as I accused Piper of doling out the big bucks, she denied it. Besides, the waitress mentioned that it was gifted by a very handsome guy—real good-looking. A part of me wonders if that very handsome guy might have been Rex. Everyone knows the Tobermans are loaded. Rex logged time at a ritzy boarding school that specializes in pumping out heads of state and Nobel Prize winners. Everyone also knows that scholastically fencing your kids in full-time from the ages of five to eighteen doesn’t come cheap. And good-looking? Ha! Rex has those other boys beat by a handsome mile. It must have been Rex.

My heart sinks at the idea.

I’m not sure why, but I can’t stop thinking about him. It’s like he’s haunting me both day and night. My mind races at the prospect of touching him, for show, of course, at the prospect of kissing him—a sport I’m not looking forward to. Okay, so maybe I’m looking forward to it just a little, but only because I’m curious on some level if his tongue really is forked as I suspect.

He’s here today at the wedding of all places. Of course, he is. Rex Toberman is like a bad rash I can’t get rid of. Yesterday, I had a cross campus delivery for Roxy, and sure enough, there he was sweating in the sun in the name of Whitney Briggs University’s football team. I was practically forced to watch as I crossed the periphery of the field on my way to the athletics department. Rex was sporting shoulder pads that made him wide as a car, and those dark smudges of grease under each eye made him look animalistic as he charged head-on into the blocking sled. I may have paid extra attention as his muscles redefined themselves as they flexed, their dark contours looked as if an artist outlined him in charcoal. Rex is built for speed. I’ll give him that. And, thankfully for Whitney Briggs, he