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Charlie sits at the piano and slides his fingers over the keys. “And?”
I focus back on the card. And the girl beside me. Jane perches her hands on her hips, sweater pink and fuzzy, and a 50s checkered scarf is tied around her neck.
I’d give her a Best Dressed award every day, every time. No contest.
She smiles up at me. “You first?”
Easy. “I’ve never paid for sex.”
She tells me, “Neither have I.” Her whole face brightens, treasuring a common fact that we share, and I try to force my affection in a cramped box.
Don’t go there.
Being stoic used to be too easy, but I have a serious problem now. I can’t look at Jane Cobalt with a blank expression—not when I’m engulfed with affection that ranges from innocent my-heart-is-yours to sensual I-want-to-fuck-you-on-this-piano.
Counteract this shit.
I stare at the window. Where heavy drapes frame a snow-piled landscape, so glaringly white that it practically sears the eye.
Christmas Eve is tomorrow, and as we all take breaks from executing “escape plans”—Jane’s cousins and siblings have slowly started to realize we can’t defeat Mother Nature. We have to wait, and the team now has a new objective.
Keep morale high.
Not just among bodyguards.
No one wants their client to be sad or moping during the holiday, and if we can make this snowed-in catastrophe easy for them, we’ll try.
Charlie plucks the card from my fingers. He burns it in a glass cup.
Arms crossed, I glance to my three o’clock. Sensing Tony’s presence, and sure enough, he lingers near the doorframe. His arrogant smirk on me.
I glare.
Oscar chats with him.
“Ignore Tony,” Jane whispers. “He’s bored and looking for entertainment.”
I nod once and bite harder on the toothpick. I hate the taste. I hate how my jaw aches, but I could hug Banks for his obsession with these motherfuckers because it’s a shield that could help me through the extended snowstorm. How is Banks doing pretending to be me in Philly? …I can’t know.
Hopefully he’s kept his head up. It’s hard not to worry about him.
Jane starts to gather the deck off the piano.
“We’re not done,” Charlie declares and bangs a high-pitched key. “Leave them there. Choose another.”
I eye Tony. He’s out of earshot, but he gesticulates towards us and speaks to Oscar. My best guess: he’s asking what Banks (aka me) and Jane are doing over here. You know, just playing with Truth or Dare cards.
Talking about sex.
A weird thing for my brother to be doing alone with my girlfriend.
Clear-cut, the risk has just heightened, and we’ve been toying with trouble enough.
“Later,” I tell Charlie.
“No. Now.”
“Charlie,” Jane says hotly. “This is serious.”
“So is this.” His left hand presses keys, playing a melodic classical tune. “You should thank me, I’m giving you ample time to spend with your—”
“Charlie,” she hisses, wide-eyed.
“He can’t hear us over the music.”
Maybe, and that’s a weak maybe.
“And anyway, he already thinks you’re sleeping with both Moretti brothers. This won’t make a difference.”
“God,” she winces and sends me an apologetic look.
I’m used to it, and I just make a fast decision. “Let’s do it.”
“Really?” Her eyes bug more.
“Yeah.” Through all this Tony horseshit, these cards have strangely brought Jane and I closer—and I want to flip another.
She pulls back her shoulders. “We’ll carry on then—” Her voice cuts off, and our heads turn at the thundering sound of indoor jogging.
Five people pass the doorway in workout gear. Sulli, Maximoff, Will, Quinn, and Joana.
While Maximoff jogs past, Farrow gives him a blatant once-over, and we all watch Maximoff trip on a rug.
Everyone laughs, and my lip begins to lift.
“Jesus Christ,” Maximoff curses. “You didn’t see that.”
“I definitely did,” Farrow teases.
I stare down at Jane. She’s radiant seeing their love, and the only reprieve I can give myself is this: I didn’t ruin Maximoff and Farrow. I would’ve never forgiven myself if I had been a cause to rip them apart, but those two—they’re unshakable.
I’m jealous of how good Farrow is at navigating rough terrain in relationships. I feel about as graceful as an ox on a ship.
Those five start to jog away. Footsteps trailing in the distance.
Luna Hale nicknamed that group “House Fit” since they’ve been running through hallways and up and down stairs. Sulli invited me, but I have little patience for group workouts unless a punching bag or gloves are involved.
Normally Akara would join the runners, and I’m not sure why he declined. Beckett is also noticeably missing from House Fit. His absence isn’t a mystery.
Sulli invited everyone but him.
I hear piano music, and I focus back on Charlie. I want to be there for Jane’s brothers, so I leap over a professional line and ask, “How’s Beckett?”
Charlie blinks for a long second and then motions to the spread cards. “Pick one.”
Jane glares on my behalf. “He asked you a question.”
“And I chose not to answer it.” Charlie breathes into a tired sigh. “As is my right to choose.”
“Well, I’d also like to know how Beckett is doing,” Jane snaps. “He won’t talk to anyone but you.”
Charlie plays an angrier melody with one hand. “Let’s be thankful he’s talking to me then. Because if he were smarter, he wouldn’t be. I’m just as complicit in bringing him here.” He looks to me. “Put me out of my fucking misery and pick.”
I tried.
I peel a card off the piano and hand it to Jane.
She reads, “‘Tell us if you believe in love at first sight. Explain.’” Her eyes are like saucers, and my pulse pounds in my ears.
“We don’t have to agree here,” I remind Jane before either of us answer. “It doesn’t mean we’re incompatible.”
“Right.” She nods, more confidently. “It just means we view love differently, and two adults can have different opinions on love and still have feelings for each other.”
“Right,” I confirm, feeling Tony watching us from the door.
Charlie hits louder keys on the piano.
“Right.” She wafts her sweater. “My answer is no. I don’t believe in love at first sight, not as much as I believe in fascination at first sight. Which I felt with you—which, you must know.” She blushes. “Right?”
I shake my head. “I didn’t know.”
Don’t stare below her neck. Don’t look at her like that. I narrow my eyes on the window, and I revisit our first encounter at the Hale house. How she was frazzled but poised, how she tried to capture and harness her black cat. Did I think that someone like me—poor Italian-American trash, too serious, too stern, fresh out of war—would interest an American princess?
No.
Before I start reevaluating our first encounter, I remind myself that she was seventeen. For fuck’s sake.
“You helped me with my cat,” she says like a fact, cheeks beet-red as I look back down at her.
“I did,” I say. “She’s a cute cat.”
Jane can’t holster a smile.
I ask straight out, “I fascinated you from the beginning?”
She nods. “You very much did.”
This is when I’d pick her up and carry her towards heaven, but we’re still living inside my hell. Where I can’t touch the woman I love.
Charlie drills his eyes into me. “It’s your turn.”
I tell her the answer. “I don’t believe in love at first sight either.” But I also can’t imagine a time where I wouldn’t love Jane.
Her brows crinkle. “Why not??
?
“I can’t love someone until I know them. Attraction—that’s not love.”
She smiles. “I concur.”
I stop short from adding more. I might if her brother weren’t here. I’d say how attraction is just my cock wanting pussy. It’s my hands wanting her body. It’s my ears wanting her voice and to be drowned out by her. It’s lust.
Love is more.
It’s the days I wake up, feeling a need, an urgency to protect her. Not just her body but her spirit—her entire soul. It’s the days I imagine losing her, and I’m met with a bottomless empty, nothing there but hollow numbness.
Worse than death.
It’s the days I yearn for her laugh, for her companionship, and thoughts. It’s every day she makes me feel worthy of her and this life. All of it and more.
Charlie rubs at the edges of his eyes, almost irritably. “Pick another.”
“We can break,” Jane suggests for him.
“No.” He points at the deck.
She draws a card and passes it to me. I glance at the words.
Fuck.
No.
My jaw hardens.
“It’s that bad?” Jane wonders.
I rake a hand over my mouth before reading, “‘Tell us if you’ve seen a Rose Calloway and Connor Cobalt sex tape.’” I solidify.
Worry cinches my girlfriend’s eyes.
Shit.
