She bursts out laughing and stares me up and down. “Yeah, definitely not blood-related.”

“It got weird.”

“So weird.”

“My fault.”

“Can we go have ice cream?”

I laugh and jump to my feet. “What’s with you and junk food?”

“What’s with you and not eating it?” I counter. “Food is meant to be eaten!”

I laugh and then pull her to her feet and swing her easily across my back, giving her a piggyback ride. “Your carriage awaits.”

“Thank you, good sir.”

“Milady.” I laugh and carry her all the way down the stairs while simultaneously cursing the stars on my ceiling.

Wish granted?

Except she’s not my sister.

She’s my roommate.

And I think I can fall in love with her if I let myself—and that’s more dangerous than being a teenager left alone with unlimited amounts of money and her across the hall from me.

Sex, I can do.

Love? It isn’t perfect, which is the biggest temptation at all. It’s messy, chaotic, it hurts, and it makes you bleed over and over again.

It’s the perfect sort of torture you never want to let slip through your fingers.

The universe granted me two things.

And I have no choice but to pick the one without any residual damage.

Friends.

Family.

And nothing more.

“Kiss me,” she’d whispered.

Jokes on her because the minute she asked, I replayed every single one of them in my head—and for a few seconds.

I was free.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Mary-Belle

I don’t remember falling asleep on the couch in the living room, but I do remember wishing I could reach for his hand. My throat is scratchy from all the talking we did the night before and probably from the severe amount of junk food that made it past my lips.

For whatever reason, I was starving again at two in the morning. It’s almost like I had food now, and my body was telling me it was going to go away, so I wanted to just keep eating and eating and eating.

I tried sneaking past a sleeping Ambrose only to have him jolt awake in a panic that we were getting robbed. I think he’d been dreaming. “Why????”

“Starving.” My grumbly answer.

“Shit girl, you put it away like an MMA fighter trying to bulk up, then look like a wrestler who just dropped weight.”

“Huh?”

“Nothing, never mind, I had a dream about The Rock.”

“That a nightly occurrence or…”

He opened one eye, then the other. “Yes, yes, it is. Every night I pray I dream of Dwayne Johnson. No, we just fell asleep to Jungle Cruise!”

“Oh, rightttt.” I stepped past him and went into the kitchen, then heard rustling. Soon he was behind me, opening the fridge and pulling out a whole bunch of food. “What’s all this?”

“Quesadillas, you can’t eat fruit snacks at two in the morning, MB, that’s a crime, and we’re perfect, remember?” He grinned. “You want shredded chicken or pork? I have both.”