“Never.” I shook my head. “Besides, I might have a little free time to spend in my own kitchen soon, anyway. I’m in the process of hiring a second manager to oversee the evening shift at the restaurant. I’ll also need more wait staff. Me and my small staff are struggling to cope with the influx of new patrons, which I also have you to thank for.”
“You have your own good cooking to thank for that.” He leaned over, kissing my cheek, then my jaw. I turned my head, smiling once he’d pressed a kiss to my lips. I reciprocated the sweet peck once, twice, three times before a flurry of quick pecks turned into one long kiss.
He groaned as our mouths moved in sync, my lips parting and his slotting between them perfectly, my tongue easily moving with his.
The hand that he had rested on my thigh was slowly creeping up, and the palm that I had placed against the back of his neck pressed firmly, holding him close and refusing to let him pull away from the kiss.
A knock on the partition came at least ten minutes later and pulled us back into reality. I jumped away from Jasper and we both readjusted our crumpled clothes as we stared at each other with eyes that made silent promises to finish what we started later.
Hand in hand, we stumbled up the pathway to the house after thanking the driver.
Halfway up the pathway, my eyes widened and my mouth practically flew open as I took in the full view of the house.
It was a farmhouse style with a huge, beautiful lawn with the healthiest looking green grass that I’d ever seen. The house was medium-sized, not too big but not small by any means, and I could tell that it had recently been given a fresh coat of paint. There were rose bushes and a flower bed lining the house as well.
“Jasper, this is beautiful!”
“You haven’t even seen the inside yet.” He winked, holding up a finger as his phone began ringing. Releasing his hand, I took a few steps toward the front door.
“Hello… Hey, Eddie.” He sent me a look, fondly exasperated, as Eddie spoke quickly. I couldn’t quite hear what he was saying, but he was talking loud enough for me to hear the murmur of his voice, and for Jasper to pull the phone away from his ear. I giggled as Jasper attempted to get a word in for a few moments and then gave up, signaling for us to start walking again.
“Mhm… Yeah, well–I don’t know, Eddie… Well, it does sound fun, but I’m not sure… Yeah, okay, I'll think about it. If I’m feeling up to it, I’ll–Yes, I do want to see some of our old college friends… Okay, okay, okay! Boy’s night out soon, you’ve got it. I have to go now, though.”
Jasper didn’t manage to end the call for another two minutes, but once he did, he sent me a look as I continued giggling.
“He talks a lot.”
“I know,” he agreed. “He wants a boy’s night out with some of our old friends from college.”
“I heard. It sounds like it could be fun!”
“You don’t know my friends from college,” he grumbled. “If they’re anything like what they used to be, things will get wild. Which isn’t exactly my definition of fun these days.”
“Maybe they’ve mellowed out.”
“Doubt it.” He pointed to the welcome mat, and I got the key out from under it, practically bouncing on my feet as I unlocked the door. “Welcome to your humble abode!” he said once we walked inside.
Jasper
Quinn and I had taken a look at almost every room in the house when my phone began ringing again. I was going to ignore it since I didn’t want any interruptions while I was spending time with Quinn, but when I took it out to silence it, I noticed it was Eddie calling again.
“You should answer it in case it’s important,” Quinn said, leaning against the wall in the hallway.
I sighed as I lifted the phone up to my ear. I’d expected to hear Eddie chattering excitedly about something to do with Ibiza or our boy’s night out the second I answered, but there was only the muffled sound of talking coming from the other line.
“Hello?” I waited a few moments for a response that didn’t come. “Eddie? You there? Hello,” I drew the word out, raising my brows when one of the voices became clear, but it wasn’t Eddie’s. It sounded like Crystal.
I put the phone on speaker, holding my fingers up to my lips to shush Quinn before she could speak.
“She’s a huge problem!” I heard Crystal practically shouting. “What the hell are we going to do? Everything is falling apart and now that she’s in the picture—”
“We’ve been over this, Crystal,” Eddie’s annoyed voice was still muffled, but now decipherable at least. “You’re freaking out over nothing. Everything is under control! We’ll do exactly what we did before–we’ll make sure to keep giving him those opiates. I made sure to get a stronger dose this time, so it won’t take as long for him to start feeling the effects. In a week or two from now, he’ll be right back at square one, unable to walk by himself or do anything else.”
Quinn and I exchanged a look, both of our jaws on the ground as she hurriedly fumbled with her phone. She came closer, and her finger hit the record button.
“He’s going to be suspicious,” Crystal spoke slowly, as if trying to get it through Eddie’s thick skull. “He regains his strength after just a few months away from us, then suddenly he comes back and falls ill again–he’s going to know that something’s going on–everyone will! People are going to become suspi–”
“No one is going to find out about anything! I went out of my way to search for the perfect drug and I found it. It mimics the symptoms of MS, which is what the doctors will most likely diagnose him with at some point when they can’t come up with any other explanation. The symptoms of MS can be unpredictable–they come and go as they please, in some cases. That means that no one–Not even Jasper–will question it if he suddenly starts to feel better and then has a relapse, not that we have to worry about that going forward. We’re going to keep him drugged up until you get pregnant. After that then—”
