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“Please don’t ruin Mexican food for me,” I snickered as I rolled onto my side. “If we’re going to dinner, maybe we should have Italian or Japanese instead.”
“I’m okay with hibachi,” Vi agreed with a nod. “And it’s not like Jagger will say no to you.”
Rolling my eyes, I picked up the book she had been reading. “What’s this?” My brows lifted when I saw the title, and I had to swallow the sudden knot that filled my throat. The book was simply called Untitled, but the cover showed a girl huddled in a dark corner. “Vi…”
She snatched it back and, after placing the bookmark in to keep her place, put the book in the top drawer of her nightstand. “My support group suggested I read it,” she muttered. “It’s about a girl struggling with not falling apart for her friends and family after her sister committed suicide. It’s an eye-opener as to how those around me must have felt when I admitted to having…thoughts.”
“Are you okay? You haven’t been thinking about it again, have you?” I wasn’t so sure I wanted to go to dinner now that my stomach was knotting up. Without realizing it, I was holding my breath as I waited for her answer.
“No, Shaw. It’s been a while since I’ve had those thoughts. Once I started living for myself and not for the future Luca and I were supposed to have, my head cleared enough for me to see that I want to live a hell of a lot more than I want to hide from the pain that made me feel like I was being ripped apart.” She crawled over to me and snuggled against me. “I promise you can relax. You don’t need to make Jagger babysit me when you can’t be here with me on the weekends.”
I wrapped my arms around her and kissed her cheek. “I can’t help it.”
“If I’d known there was going to be girl-on-girl action going on here, I would have left a hell of a lot sooner.”
Violet snorted as we lifted our heads to find Jagger standing in the doorway. He had a smirk on his face, but his pale-blue eyes were glued to me. I couldn’t stop myself from running my gaze over him hungrily. I hadn’t seen him in four days, and I felt starved just for the sight of him.
Dressed in well-worn jeans, a black button-up shirt, and his hair styled and pushed back from his face, he looked so delicious my mouth watered. I pressed my lips into a hard line to keep it from falling open and drooling all over Vi’s bed. Violet threw a pillow at him, which he caught before it could hit him in the face.
Laughing, he walked across the room and placed the pillow at the head of the bed before sitting down beside me. “Missed you, Dimples,” he said as he lay down beside me and didn’t hesitate to pull me against his side.
My heart gave a happy little leap in my chest, and I cuddled into him for a few seconds before pushing him off the bed. He landed with a hard crash on the floor, causing Violet to laugh. I stood, combing my fingers through my hair while I grinned down at him. The hunger in his own eyes was enough to make me gulp and quickly look anywhere else but at him. “Vi and I decided on hibachi for dinner. You’re driving.”
“You could have just been honest and said you missed me too,” he said as he got to his feet.
“Where’s the fun in that?” I asked as I wrinkled my nose, flirting instead of admitting aloud that I’d physically ached from missing him.
Mason didn’t like Japanese food, so he said he was going to have a bowl of cereal since his parents were at dinner with Uncle Drake and Aunt Lana. Violet climbed into the back of Jagger’s car, while Jagger opened the passenger door for me. I was tempted to get in the back with Vi, but I couldn’t stop the need to brush up against him as I got in.
Before I could bend to get in the car, he caught my hip and pulled me against him. Lowering his head, he brushed his lips over the shell of my ear. “I need to talk to you about something.” My head snapped up at how serious his voice was. “It’s important.”
I glanced at Violet, sitting patiently in the back seat. “Can it wait until after dinner?”
He nodded. “Yeah. I want to talk to you about this alone, so after we drop off Violet later, will you take a drive with me?”
“Okay,” I agreed, while inside, I was quaking with sudden anxiety.
All through dinner, I tried to keep my mind off what Jagger might want to talk about, but my head kept clouding with the possibilities. I was thankful that we were at a grill with six other people and we couldn’t have a deep conversation. I smiled and laughed at the chef as he did tricks and tossed shrimp into everyone’s mouth. Jagger and the two other guys at our grill tried to see how many each of them could catch.
When the chef tossed the last of the shrimp in Jagger’s direction, I jumped in the way and caught it in my own mouth, making everyone around us roar with laughter. Chewing, I winked at Jagger, and his eyes dilated with need.
Once we dropped Violet off at her house, Jagger drove us toward LA. It took me a few minutes to realize we weren’t just going to a public beach to talk, and I glanced over at him skeptically. “Where exactly are we going?”
“I want to show you something,” he said with a shrug as he changed lanes. “We can talk when we get there.”
“Talk about what?” I muttered, not completely sure I wanted to know.
His fingers tightened on the steering wheel, and my heart rate only jacked up more. “Just be a little patient with me, Dimples. Please?”
“O-okay,” I whispered and turned my head to look out the side window.
I felt his hand cover mine, and I let him entwine our fingers. I glanced down at our joined hands, at the way he held on to me like he couldn’t bear to let go, and relaxed a little.
We stayed quiet as he drove us into the city and then into an apartment building’s garage. Frowning because I recognized the place, I glanced around, expecting to see people we knew. This used to be where Lucy and Harris lived before they moved to a house in Malibu. Jenna Stevenson and her wife Angie had lived there too before buying a house there as well.
“Why are we here?” I asked when I didn’t see anyone familiar in the garage.
“Harris still owned his apartment here,” he said as he turned to face me. “Or he did until a few days ago. I bought it from him.”
