I felt Stick’s hand untwine from mine, after a gentle squeeze, and it went to the small of my back. He didn’t push me, just kept his hand there. Afraid I might bolt?
Lily and Lucas came up from behind us. “Were you surprised?” Lily asked, a big smile on her face. “That was the one part I didn’t like of this whole plan—that we weren’t already in here and could see your face when they yelled surprise.”
“I was surprised,” I said, my voice flat.
Lily and Lucas stepped past Stick and me and into the room. Lily going to her parents, hugging them. Her mother kissing Lucas on the cheek and Grayson shaking his hand.
Caro still stood in the center of the room, waiting for me, though her hand had dropped. My father moved to stand next to her, placing his hand at her back, much like Stick had done with me.
I bristled at the thought that Stick and I were—in any way—like my father and Caro. Stick, feeling my tension, bent and whispered in my ear.
“Shit. Did we fuck up? Say the word and we’re out of here. Let them eat the damn cake by themselves.”
And that was what gave me the strength to smile and enter the room, embraced by my father and his ex-wife.
Stick had my back.
Chapter25
Stick
Shit.She hated this. With a passion. It was obvious, at least to me. And to Lily too, judging by the concerned look she gave Jane about a half-hour into the party. Then Lily looked over at me, seeing if I was aware.
I nodded at her that I was, and that seemed to be enough for Lily, who went back to putting food on a plate from the huge buffet that someone had laid out in the dining room. Caterers probably, as it seemed too much to have come just from Dotty. And the birthday cake was definitely from a bakery—it looked like a miniature wedding cake, for Christ’s sake.
It was lovely and tasteful…and it seemed like Jane hated it.
I got that maybe the shock of the surprise, and the surrounding subterfuge, would have thrown her off her game, but now, a couple of hours in, she still hadn’t warmed up to the idea that these people were here to help her celebrate turning nineteen.
Elliot Somethingorother was walking around with his phone taking pictures and shooting video. He’d been there other times when I had, taking meetings with Caro about the campaign. I didn’t think he’d been here when Jane had been, and I could tell that she was uncomfortable around him. Or uncomfortable with him taking pictures of the whole thing.
I mostly hung with Syd—the third roommate Jane had spoken about, but whom I’d never met. She was cool, and seemed to get how uncomfortable Jane was with it all.
“You know,” she said to me as we sat in the living room, plates from the buffet balanced on our laps, “Jane never even mentioned that it was her birthday today. And I don’t mean just today. Most people will say stuff like ‘my birthday’s coming up’ or ‘when I turn nineteen in a couple of weeks’ or something like that. Nothing from Jane. If Grayson hadn’t mentioned it to Lily, and then planned this party, we would never have known. Don’t you find that weird?”
For most college kids, yes. But not Jane. Well, yeah, I found it weird even for Jane, but the fact that Jane did stuff out of the norm no longer surprised me.
“I mean,” Syd continued, “obviously Jane’s good at keeping secrets.” She looked pointedly at me—the biggest secret Jane was keeping.Hadbeen keeping. “But why bother hiding your birthday?”
“Maybe she didn’t want any fuss?” I said as I watched Jane. She’d gotten a plate from the buffet and had come back into the living room with it. When her eyes found Syd and me, I motioned with my head to the empty seat beside me on the couch. And then (God, I hated to admit it) held my breath until she gave a small nod and moved toward me.
Man, she was a knockout in that green dress. The way it hugged her curves, outlined her gorgeous bust and hips, which were all swaying slightly with every step she took. The dress brought out her green eyes, and her straightened hair was sleek and stylish.
And…hot as she was, it wasn’t the Jane I knew. The Jane I craved. Though I sure craved getting her alone and peeling that tight dress down and over all that body.
“Ya perv,” Jane said as she got to the couch and sat beside me. “You were looking at me like Edgar Prescott did when I was wearing that bridesmaid’s dress.”
The comparison stung, but there was no bite in her voice. “But there’s a difference,” I said.
“Yeah? What?”
I leaned closer to her so Syd, on a chair across from us, wouldn’t hear. “Youwantmy hands all over you.”
I waited for her comeback. I loved how I waited for Jane’s comebacks—would it be funny, would it be lethal, would it total eviscerate me?
She looked me up and down, much like I’d just done to her as she walked over to me.
“You’d be right about that,” she said. Yeah, totally eviscerated me—but in a good way this time.
