“That was one time!” Lily protests without lifting her head up.

Loren and I both laugh, and then he says to Lily, “We’re out of the maze now. You want down, love?”

Slowly, she lifts her head up enough to rest her chin on his shoulder and then glances around the park. People are laughing or power-walking away from the maze’s exit. No one is bloody or dying on the ground.

“Can I stay here for one more maze?” Lily asks. “Then I’ll drop down.”

Loren nods, and Rose suddenly exits with Connor, both undeterred by the horror element. Connor honestly looks like he just stepped out of his weekly phone conferences with oversea investors. Same casual I own the world confidence radiates off him…and his wife.

The golden crowns make this twice as noticeable.

I glance at Loren, and he looks upset. Like maybe the whole goal was to rattle the unshakeable. Nine mazes are left, and I know Connor well enough as my boss—and I’m pretty sure you could put him in a thousand mazes and he’d still exit each one with assuredness and ease.

Rose narrows her eyes at Loren. Probably understanding his ulterior motive.

Loren cringes. “Stop staring at me. I know you like my face, but my face doesn’t like you.”

Rose’s yellow-green gaze pierces him. “You’re a child, Loren.”

They’re bickering is non-stop whenever I’m around them. At first, I thought it was a fluke. Nope. It happens… All. The. Time. For no other reason than they just seem to not get along.

Loren mimes wiping a tear with his fist to his cheek, surprisingly able to hold Lily with one hand. “Go cry about it in your lair.”

“Go dry hump a bed of nails.” At this, she flips her hair over her shoulder and marches ahead in five-inch heels. Her husband is the only person that follows her, able to keep pace with his wife. Their fingers thread together, holding hands.

Don’t think about Willow.

I’m not…

I’m trying not to.

I swallow a lump in my throat as we all follow the King and Queen—as the internet refers to them. With all the bodyguards trailing us, it’s starting to feel like they’re actually American royalty.

The more we walk, the more my mind circumnavigates back to Willow. Despite the skeleton-painted guys shrieking at the guests and chainsaws revving, I know she’d want to be here. She loves her family, and missing out on a group experience would bum her out.

There are pros and cons to being away, and this right now, is her con. Even if I’m having a decent…pretty good time.

So yeah, I feel kind of shitty about that.

I hate that we’re on two separate continents. We’re stretched thin for time as it is. And I’m not a mind reader. I don’t know what she’s thinking all the time, and especially now that she’s around college guys like Salvatore Amadio, she has to be beginning to understand that I’m not a great person. Bottom barrel. I’m shit, and once she realizes that completely, she’ll want it to be over. And how can I blame her?