Yes, I could walk to the fridge. “So you want to stay to… prove something? To show the world or whatever that you aren’t afraid of this place?’
“I hate that word. Ooh, maybe that’s something I should talk to Sam about. Afraid. Look at you making connections I wasn’t making. Love you so much, Red. Um, yes, that.” He drummed his fingers on the counter. “Don’t make bacon. I have to run out. Actually, three of us have to run out.”
I turned to look at him. “What?”
“I have to run out.” He started again. Yes, that I had garnered. I interrupted him. “Where do you have to go? Three of you?”
Julian walked over and put his arm around me. “We have a surprise for you. Phoenix, Jeremy, and Barrett are going for a drive. They’ll be back. I am staying here with you.” He kissed my cheek. “I won the coin toss.”
Phoenix grinned before he groaned. “But… but I was kidnapped. I need to stay here with Alatheia. I need it.”
Jeremy tossed a napkin at him. “Sorry, that isn’t working today.”
Phoenix grinned broader. “A guy has to try.”
“Hold on. Where are you going? What surprise?”
Jeremy leaned against the wall. “If we told you then it wouldn’t be a surprise, now would it?”
If Jeremy was going it was a present they were getting. He was the absolutely official master of gift giving.
I swallowed. “Guys, I don’t need gifts.”
“Sure you do.” Barrett stretched. “We all need gifts, and I think giving you gifts is the best thing in the world. So you do.”
I fingered my ear lobe. There was still phantom pain from when I had to take off the sapphires Phoenix gave me, and I looked for my pearls all the time that Jer had gifted me. “What if someone takes whatever you give me? When that happens… I…”
Julian kissed my cheek, lingering there. “No one is taking anything from you. Not ever again. And… I don’t want to get your hopes up…”
“Jules.” Jeremy interrupted. “The point of not getting her hopes up is to, you know, not get her hopes up.”
What was going on? Phoenix laughed. “We are a pathetic bunch. Now she knows there is something we’re not telling her. It’s a good thing. Both your present and this thing we’re not talking about are good things. So don’t worry. If that is possible.”
As the other three exited the room, grumbling at each other, Jules shook his head and squeezed my hand. “Want me to tell you? He doesn’t get to tell me what to say or do. Even if he thinks he does. Jeremy is not in charge. You’re in charge. Want to know?”
I swallowed. “If it… No. But do me a favor, if it’s something that isn’t going to happen, like you know for sure that it isn’t going to happen, tell me then what it was?”
I wasn’t even sure I had said that coherently, but Julian nodded. He must speak and understand Alatheia. I was grateful for that. More than grateful. As the front door closed, indicating that the three of them had gone on an errand to buy me something they just thought I had to have because they loved me, I smiled at Julian.
We were alone. I was so rarely alone with any of them—and I wasn’t complaining—but I wanted to take advantage. I leaned over to kiss him. Jules caught his breath. He hadn’t anticipated I was going to do that.
“Wow.” His voice was low. “I love when you kiss me. When you spontaneously kiss me.”
I took his hand, leading him over to the couch. “Maybe we can do more of that.”
“Kiss? Yes.” He took over dragging me against him when we sat down on the couch to really kiss me. He had so much more experience with this stuff than me, and that was fine, I wasn’t going to think about it, particularly right then, but he could kiss like he had been born to do it. And if I was being romantic—and right then I was—I might think that he had been born to kiss me.
I was going with that.
His lips were smooth and warm. I sighed against him, and he deepened our embrace. Julian would never push me on anything physical, which was wonderful, but it really left it to me to take things to the next level if that was what I wanted. And it was what I wanted. Right then.
I pulled back to look at him. Maybe it wasn’t what he would want. I was pretty beat up still, quasi-bald, and a mess. Still, there was nothing I could do but ask.
“Julian Lent.” I had no idea why I started this exchange by saying his full name. Well, sort of his full name.
“Alatheia Winder.” He lifted an eyebrow. “Sorry. You did it, so I thought maybe that was something we were doing.”
I loved him so fucking much. “Actually, what is your middle name? That’s not the point of this conversation, but I realized I don’t know. I don’t know any of your middle names. Unless your parents weren’t middle name people.”
