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Still, I nod. “Really. Send the offer to my agent.”
Shane whips out his phone and shows me a photo of a guitar similar to the one he already gave me, but instead of a black color scheme, it’s orange. The neck is white, and the thick end of the body is boasting a beautiful, airbrushed fox tail. He swipes to the next photo, a zoom up of the guitar’s head, where the Venom Guitars logo has one additional detail—the guitar’s name. Little Fox. “I’ve been up a lot recently, as is expected, and I’ve been practicing more woodworking and painting and… I hoped you’d change your mind.”
“You’d better make one for my dad too,” I laugh. An image of Dad dancing away with my new guitar has already sprouted in my mind.
“I did,” Shane whispers, wide-eyed. “Months ago. Right after we met.”
“Can we stop talking about work one day a year?” Juliette complains from a recliner squeezed between the wall and the couch, Jacie sleeping in her arms with her bow of a mouth open.
“I’d like everyone to make a note of the fact that it wasn’t me who started the guitar talk,” Jace announces and slumps into the couch.
“No more pie?” I tease him, sitting next to him, worried I’ve done something wrong. My only intent was to keep trying things out of my comfort zone, with him. Maybe he wanted me to stay out of Venom Guitars shenanigans, whether because he wanted it all for himself or wanted to keep his work as separate from his personal life as possible.
“More bacon.” Jace starts rising from his spot, but I catch his arm and keep him beside me.
I know his moods. I know his irritated, contemplative, restrained anger, excited, sad, and happy faces. I thought I knew them all. This one I haven’t seen yet—disappointed. “What’s on your mind?”
In response, I get the face from him I dread the most—confident shutting out. “Nothing. Can I get you anything?”
“Nothing. Right. Whoever would believe you?”
Jace gives me a long, contemplating look, then leans closer to whisper, “You said no to me. You said yes to him.”
What? No to Jace? When— Right. When he joked about proposing.
“I said no to him first,” I whisper back. “Remember? He had to ask me several times.”
My favorite cunning smile settles in the corners of Jace’s mouth. “Does it mean you’ll say yes to me next?”
My heart climbs up my ribcage.Thud, thud, thud.Does he mean it? Is he serious—
“Let’s open the presents.” Gabe sits next to the tree and starts handing out boxes and bundles.
I swallow the lump of emotions that thickened in my throat. Jace quirks an eyebrow and snuggles against me without any further comments. I fail to stop thinking about his words.
Gabe gives out presents for a while. Jace gets an equal share with Juliette and Shane, solidifying my image of him as of another kid in the Davenport family.
“And this one”—Gabe reaches deep under the tree for the next present—“is for… Hm. No label. Who is this for?” He holds up a small, black bag with lavender tissue paper sticking out of it.
Jace curses next to me, then flies from the couch, opens the closest window, and throws the bag outside. When he turns around, his jaw is clenched. He looks doomed and ticked off all at once.
“Uh-huh,” Juliette taunts him. “That’s not suspicious at all.”
He ignores her. Our eyes are locked. I take a slow sip from my mug of spiced apple cider.
“I take it I wasn’t supposed to put that bag under the tree,” Gabe says to my mortified- looking boyfriend.
I can’t help a smile. Jace is mortified? How special. And it’s another new face.
“I stashed it in Juliette’s former room for a reason,” he grumbles in response. “I wasn’t going tomutter-muttertoday.”
“You’re not the only one who’s been hiding gifts there,” Marina says.
Jace keeps staring me down, probably knowing what’s going through my head.
A small elegant bag he didn’t want me to see yet.
Something he’s been hiding, and not at his place, because I could stumble upon it there, but I had no reason to be here.
