Page 23 of Railed

Today was a day of surprises, though, since Jamie had all but pulled me out of the room to spare Emma and Gauge discomfort. Jamie never took the lead, so them dragging me anywhere was unusual.

They shut the door behind us, and I looked at them questioningly. Instead of speaking, I just waited.

"I like her," they said.

"And you're implying I'd mess it up?"

"I'm implying you're a bit intense. And since she already freaked out a little when I kissed her earlier, we need to be more chill."

"You kissed her?" I asked, half surprised and half jealous I hadn't been there to see it.

Jamie nodded. "Yeah, I thought she knew about Gauge, but he hadn't told her and she got super uncomfortable. I made him tell her, but yeah, we need to cool it."

"By ‘we’, you mean me?"

"I mean, I wasn't the one who fucked her inside of Gauge, so…"

"You wish you had," I scoffed.

"Maybe a little."

I was startled by their answer. This was a side of them I hadn't seen before.

"What would you do to her?" I asked.

"I didn't do anything—just kissed her."

"But you wouldn't say no to doing more," I pushed. They didn't say anything, so I kept going. "I'm sure the two of you together could put on quite the show for me and Gauge."

"That's the ‘too strong’ I'm talking about."

"Hard to believe that'd be too strong for her. When I met Emma, she was fucking herself in public on a train."

They shook their head at me. "Still less intense than the orgy you're after."

I raised an eyebrow. "I was with her. She has it in her."

"I don't think she's there yet," Jamie insisted, turning away to listen at the door. "I don't even think she knows about us."

"You just said you guys told her we're together."

"No, no, not that. About what we are."

I paused for a moment. "You don't think he's told her yet?"

"I doubt it. I've been with her most of the day and I really think it would've come up."

"I thought she knew. Isn't she the one fighting to keep our tracks untouched?"

"She is, but she started that before she met any of us."

I sighed, mulling over our predicament. "If they get rid of the tracks, we can't stay—he knows that."

"He probably didn't want to add more to Emma’s plate. She's been really stressed out trying to get the island to care about the trains."

She was going to be even more stressed if he left without explaining anything to her. We couldn't stay on the island without the tracks.

I sighed heavily. "He's got to tell her so she knows the stakes. What if we can't stay? He can't be planning to just disappear without telling her."