“She is? Oh, my goodness, that’s amazing!”
“Yeah, it’s not being publicized ahead of time, for obvious reasons, but she’ll talk about it afterward. The work we do and how to get in touch with us.” Naomi sounded incredibly proud. “She wants to get involved now, but if she becomes governor, she can do even more.”
“You know I’m a big fan of hers,” Yasmine said enthusiastically. “Um, any chance I can get an invite?”
“Probably. Everyone who is going to be here has to be thoroughly vetted, but you have an in since you were engaged to Mason and are friends with Claudia and me,” Naomi said teasingly. “Black Fox is helping with security tomorrow.”
“Oh, really?” Perfect time, perfect time… Yasmine spun in place and flopped down on the couch.
“Yeah, they’ve been providing extra security for her because of all the threats she’s gotten since she announced her run.”
Yasmine scowled and leaned her head back against the couch. “I hate people sometimes.”
“Preach, sister. Are you going to be okay today? Are you going home?”
“Um, I haven’t decided yet.” Tell her. Just tell her.
“Valid. Okay, I’ve gotta go. I have a million things to do to prep before the senator’s visit tomorrow, and I’ll get back to you on whether you can drop by for it as well.”
“Okay, great. Thank you.”
“No problem, hun. Stay safe. Bye!”
“You, too. Bye.” Yasmine tried not to feel too guilty as Naomi hung up. It just hadn’t been the right time. She’d tell Naomi after the senator’s visit. Now was not the time to bog Naomi down with personal drama stuff.
Just as she was sitting down on the couch, phone at her side, Zeus and Tiger returned. As soon as Zeus got him off the leash, Tiger bounded over to say hello, as if he hadn’t seen her twenty minutes ago. Yasmine couldn’t help but smile, bending forward to cover him with pets.
“Everything go okay with Naomi?” Zeus hung up Tiger’s leash, glancing at Yasmine, but not keeping eye contact. He turned his head, pulling away from it.
“Yeah. I didn’t tell her about us.” It felt like a confession, even though she wasn’t sure she’d done anything wrong. Claudia had advised against it after all. And she was doing it in part for him. “I don’t want to mess things up with the team for you more than they already are.”
“There’s not much worse you could do than cheating on me with Devlin and the team finding out about it,” he said dryly. “As secrets go, I think the fact that we were fucking doesn’t rate quite as highly. Even if you were Mason’s ex.”
But Zeus still saw it as a betrayal of him, that she’d kept a secret from him, Yasmine realized. Something she might regret now, but at the time it had felt like the better choice… at least, the better choice to getting what she’d wanted at the time. She’d told herself it wasn’t a real relationship, but the truth was, somehow, she felt closer to Zeus than she had to any of her ex-boyfriends. Or Mason.
He’d gotten to know her better. Seen more of her.
And none of that had chased him away. He hadn’t thought she was too much or overdramatic.
Neither of them had followed any of the ‘rules’ she had in her head for what dating should look like.
The thing that had made him pull back was a lie of omission. Which she couldn’t even blame him for. She just wasn’t sure how to make up for it… although she was quickly realizing she did want to make up for it.
Because she wanted Zeus.
As a fuck buddy. As a boyfriend. As whatever. But she wanted him. She wasn’t trying to plan for the future because she wasn’t sure they had one. She had no idea what that would look like. If he would ever even want to get married, have kids, or any of the things she’d wanted. Yes, she did still want those things, and she would want to have that conversation with him…
This was normally the point where she would just let the relationship fizzle because she couldn’t see a way forward for them. She wasn’t sure what she should, or could, do to fix things. Yet she wanted to try. She didn’t want to give up.
She didn’t want to surrender him to some other woman, some other happily-ever-after.
Could the two of them have a happily-ever-after?
There were never any guarantees, but she wanted the chance to find out.
Maybe if she’d known that from the beginning, she would have made different choices along the way, but she never could have predicted she’d end up feeling this way. Especially not after such a short period of time. They hadn’t known each other that long, yet in some ways, she felt like she knew him better—and he knew her better—than anyone ever had.
“We should go back and get your car, so you can do what you need to for the day.”
