Page 453 of Once Upon a Fable

Fuck, she was beautiful.

Josh drank from his bottle of crazy pink water again. Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, he muttered, “You gonna answer my previous question by the way or just gawk at my sister all afternoon?”

I tore my gaze off Gemma, grateful she’d slipped into a pair of black leggings and a long-sleeved sweater and didn’t still wear her skimpy pajamas. Regardless of what she wore, my cock never stopped being aware of her.

Clearing my throat, I did my best to focus on Josh.

He waggled his eyebrows, waiting for me to reply. A whisper of panic licked through me. We sat close enough that I could see every hair on his arms and smell a faint whiff of body spray. His hands looked strong. He could hurt me if I continued dropping my guard.

The darkness inside me swirled alive.

It hissed that I wasn’t safe around a man.

That men were evil.

A threat.

A danger.

Not just to me but to Gemma.

My breathing turned heavy.

Sweat gathered on my lower back.

He’s her brother.

Chill the fuck out.

Unlocking my hand that’d squeezed my bottle of radioactive liquid until my knuckles turned white, I latched onto normalcy. I swallowed down my nonsense fear and asked, “What was your question again?”

He rolled his eyes. “I wanted to know how you even know what marriage is. I mean, you must, seeing as you spouted off a bunch of feelings and made my sister say yes.”

“I know what marriage is.”

Josh huffed. “Yes, buthow? Did you have TV reception out there? Do you remember your parents before you were taken?”

I swallowed again. “I don’t remember much of anything before they took me.”

“Then how...?” He waved his bottle in the air. “Youdoknow what marriage is, right? I mean, you just proposed to my damn sister. That shit is for life. I don’t like you, buddy, and I’m still on the fence that you have her best interests at heart even after hearing your story, but I can’t deny that she feels something for you, so I’m willing to be on my best behavior.” His teeth flashed in a tight smile. “Especially while my mom is here. Don’t want to stress her out any more than she already has been.”

I nodded. It’d been an unspoken agreement that the truth Gem and I had shared with Joshua would not be repeated to her mother. She’d received the condensed tale that I’d been hurt, Gem’s car hadn’t been usable, and there was no way to contact the outside world while I was recuperating.

I’d expected Gem’s mother to become guarded around me. To ask questions like Josh had. Instead, she’d just hugged me again, told me how glad she was that Gem wasn’t alone all that time, that I’d had help to recover, and welcomed me to the family.

She didn’t even know I’d proposed to her daughter the second before she’d walked in. She’d just blanket invited me into their world, and I wasn’t above accepting that invite because the deeper I fell into this new existence, the less inclined I was to leave it.

Yes, it was fucking terrifying.

Yes, my lungs still tickled with the aftermath of inhaling smoke as Fables burned to the ground.

And yes, I still had no idea who I wanted to be or how I’d fit into all of this, but one thing was for sure—I didn’t want to do any of this without Gem.

Therefore, she needed my ring on her finger and her last name to become mine.

“So...” Josh rolled his eyes. “Jeez, is it always this hard to get answers out of you?”

I looked at him. “I know most things that you do. Probably more if you don’t have time to read. I might have been hidden in a valley, away from conveniences and societies, but there were books.”