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Jace must notice the same thing because although a grin lingers in the corners of his mouth, he goes still. His eyes wander all over my face. My pulse speeds up, and the strongest urge to bite my lips seizes me, but I resist it. I resist Jace’s closeness, his comfortable warmth, the way that fresh and herbal scent of him overrides the rest of my senses.
He stays motionless.
I do the same. No sudden moves now.
No hints, no suggestions, nothing to betray my smoldering desires.
His smile fades. The tension between us becomes too much, and I redirect my eyes to his neck, but I stay where I am—in his arms. I want to kiss him. I want him to kiss me back, but I’m still a rebound. It doesn’t matter that my heart keeps imagining there’s something between us.
Jace’s fingers press under my chin, pushing it up so that I’d look at him. When I do, he slides his hand over my cheek, his thumb tracing a slow, burning path over my cheekbone. Heat scorches me from the inside. Maybe I’m more than—
“Say cheese!” Hal’s obnoxious, happy voice ruins everything. Always.
Jace and I whirl toward him, and that’s when a flash blinds us.
“You’re so dead.” Jace springs to his feet.
Hal bolts down the hallway.
Raising my eyes to the ceiling, I press my hand to my lava-hot neck, then laugh and follow my two favorite guys. Just in time to see Jace gain on Hal in the middle of the hallway. He drops to the ground and slide-kicks Hal’s ankles, toppling my cousin but also catching him before he hits the floor. Careful even as he attacks. Deadly but sweet. He plucks the phone out of Hal’s hands, thwacks him in the chest, and tumbles away. All within two seconds.
Crouching by the wall, Jace says, “What’s the passcode to unlock this thing?”
Hal wheeze-laughs as he rubs his chest. “Yeah, right.” He throws his hand out, demanding the phone back.
Jace pulls a stubborn expression, chin out and all, and tucks the phone away into his back pocket.
“Give it back!” Hal lunges into a tackle, and they roll on the floor as they pummel each other, Jace cackling the whole time. With kitten whiskers and nose still on his face.
“All right, you two.” I thread a hand through Hal’s elbow and try to drag him away. “Calm down.”
Jace gets off the floor first and throws the phone back to laughing Hal. “At least text me the picture.”
Hal straightens his clothes. “Later.” A couple of playful blows they’ve exchanged seemed kind of wild, but neither appears rumpled or even bruised.
Jace walks in the direction of our kitchen. “I am hungry now.”
I check the time. Nine thirty. “Sorry. The kitchen is closed.”
He stops in the middle of the dining area, frowning and puzzled.
“It’s Mom,” I start to explain when Hal dives in to provide the rest.
“Rebecca guards her figure by means of a padlock on the pantry door that has a different passcode every day, and Reese is the only one who knows it. He unlocks the door in the morning, locks it at nine in the evening, and if you want anything, you either stash it for later or go out.”
“We could order something?” Jace pulls out his own phone.
I cover the screen with my hand. “Only if you want to die tonight. Ages ago, Hal left half a pizza in the fridge following a delivery order, and o-o-oh boy. Reese plopped a bowl of some vaguely beige slop in front of Hal for every meal for two weeks. Have a banana.” I point at a bowl of fruit in the middle of the dining table.
Jace wrinkles his nose.
“I also have some cookies in my room. I’ll be right back.” I dash upstairs to rifle through my bedside table drawers. I read books late into the night. I would be crazy—and probably thinner—if I didn’t have any snacks around me. Books and cookies together are my kryptonite. And maybe Jace.
Clutching a sleeve of yellow Oreos, I sit on the edge of my bed for a second. I love Hal, but one of these days I’ll punch him real hard. He ruined our moment. I fall onto my back and sigh. Who would’ve thought that working up courage to be close to someone could be so draining?
Anyway. I have no time to mourn the lost opportunity. Jace is waiting for his snack.
I return downstairs, and my mouth drops at the scene that I find.
