Page 48 of Forever After Fall

“No other reports of trouble,” Anson confirms. “At least not until you got here.” He wraps his arms around my waist and pulls me close. The warmth of his body against mine has a soothing effect I can’t deny anymore.

“Is that so?” I smile, leaning into his touch and kissing him softly.

“After we finish up here tonight, you’re coming to my place. Ford’s staying with a friend for a Halloween party, and we have the house to ourselves.”

“Do we?”

“We do, and the very nice woman who owns the local adult toy store helped me pick out some more costumes and toys this week.” He grins.

“Did she now? Exactly how much help was she?” I feign jealousy, and he kisses me again, deeper this time as he tightens his grip on my hip with one hand and uses the other to hold my chin.

“We shouldn’t be doing this here. You’re the one causing trouble now,” I warn.

“I don’t mind trouble if it involves you,” he murmurs before he pins me against the truck and I wrap my leg around his.

“Well, that explains a lot.” Jasper’s voice pierces our bubble, and I feel my heart drop to my stomach as I turn to see him on the deck of the ranch house.

“Jasper! Hi!” I feel the heat on my cheeks, and the mortification burns down my neck into the pit of my stomach. “What’re you doing here?”

“Anson asked for my help. I was grabbing a couple of air purifiers from the house like he asked.” The searing look of betrayal he gives Anson makes me want to jump to his defense. I should have known he would be part of the rescue crew Anson summoned to help us out of this jam.

My stomach sinks at the fact that Anson knew Jasper was this close and kissed me anyway. This was reckless by anyone’s standards and positively out of character for him.

“Fuck,” Anson mutters under his breath.

“What was that?” Jasper pretends not to hear.

“I’m sorry you saw that,” Anson apologizes.

“I’m not. It makes a whole lot more sense now. Although I am confused because I thought you had a boyfriend?” His eyes narrow on the place where Anson hasn’t taken his hand off my hip.

“I said I was seeing someone.” The semantics don’t feel like very good armor in the face of Jasper’s ire.

“And you didn’t think to mention it was a friend of mine?” Jasper looks hurt by that more than anything, and I feel my stomach tumble again as he turns to Anson. “You know she was kissing me just a few weeks ago.”

“I saw.”

“I told you how I felt. Both of you, actually.”

Another blow to my gut that has me feeling like the worst kind of awful.

“Which is why we kept it quiet. We didn’t want to hurt you.” Anson tries to make it clear nothing about this was malicious.

“Fantastic fucking job on that.” Jasper’s sarcastic smile stabs at my heart. We’re not as close as we used to be, but I would never want to hurt him.

“I’m sorry, Jasper. Please give us a chance to explain.” I try to make amends.

“Here are the purifiers you wanted, Ans. I’m gonna head out. I have another project to check on.” He drops the two units on the deck and hurries down the steps headed for his truck.

“Jasper, please,” I plead with him as he opens the door to jump in his truck. “We weren’t trying to hurt you. We just needed time to process things ourselves without other people involved.”

He whips around, looking at me like I’ve lost my mind.

“Have you seen the size of the town we live in? Everyone’s involved. Always. There’s no escaping that, so you might as well not lie to your friends. You make us look like a bunch of assholes that way.” Jasper shakes his head. “I would have been happy for you two eventually if you’d just fucking told me. It’s the part where you make me feel like a fucking fool that I hate.”

“We didn’t intend for that to happen,” Anson argues on our behalf from behind me.

“And yet it fuckin’ did, didn’t it?” Jasper shoots him another icy glare before he starts his truck and shuts the door, peeling out of the spot a minute later.