I wanted to pull him into my arms then and there, but I’d just noticed the first photographer wandering up the sidewalk. The sharks had scented blood in the water.
“Of course I don’t mind,” I told him, and I drove off before the paparazzo could get a good look at who was in the car.
The last thing Miller needed right then was a picture of him next to some asshole like me, plastered all over the internet.
CHAPTER28
JACK
I drovethrough the Cali Corn Grill to get two Fiesta Corn Salads on the way home, because it was well past dinner time. But once we were home, Miller only pushed the leaves around in the cardboard box. I ate mine all up, because I was hungry, and also because it was pretty good.
And because I wasn’t the one with a sister in the morgue.
“You wanna talk about it?” I asked at last. Miller being so damnquietwas worrisome.
“Nope,” he said distantly.
“Either one of your parents give you a call?”
“I’m not supposed to put my phone on.”
Guilt stabbed right through me. I still hadn’t gotten the kid a burner, and if Sandro was sniffing around…but… “Just put it on. For a few minutes, anyway.”
He pulled it out from his pocket now and almost threw it on the table after switching it on. Dispassionately, he scrolled through the various messages. There were a lot of them. “Nothing from my parents.”
My rising anger at his two lousy parents was tempered by the sudden ringing of his phone. We both regarded the name that came up:Nate.
Without a word, Miller hit a button to send it to voicemail and turned the phone off again.
“It’s late,” I said after a minute.
“I’m not tired.”
I was starting to think that Chris Booker had been right, after all. I was not the guy for this. I was no one’s emotional support animal. I should call Nate and tell him to get his ass over here to comfort his friend.
“I’mma take a shower,” Miller said abruptly.
The first thing I did when he got in there was open my computer and search through all the news items about Anaïs Beaumont, but everything was still “breaking” and only had a line or two, or it was a puff piece with biographical information and pictures pulled from her media kits. I slammed the laptop lid down as the shower turned off, and then Miller came out a few minutes later wearing nothing but a look of determination.
He came straight to me, straddled me where I sat in the chair, and kissed me. It was all I ever wanted to do to him, so I let him, but then I pushed him back a little to ask, “You okay?”
“I want you,” he said. He was serious. Distant.
“Miller—”
“Please. I can’t think of anything except…I need to focus on something else. Please?”
There wasn’t a man alive, I decided, who could have resisted at that moment. I kissed him, letting him set the pace—even though it was fast, almost frantic. His heart was galloping in his chest; I could feel it when I slid a hand around his back to pull him closer.
The chair gave an ominous crack underneath us, and we both froze, expecting it to give way.
“I need you,” he whispered when it didn’t. “Please, JJ?”
It seemed like a bad idea to me, but then, I’d never lost a twin sister, and I wasn’t in the business of telling other people how to handle their emotions. “You sure?”
“I’ve been sure since the first time I saw you.”
He slid off me and I let him take charge, leading me over to stand by the bed. He pulled off my clothes and then pushed me a little until I got the idea and fell backward onto the bed, leaning up on my elbows. He looked me over for a second, and then crawled on top of me. He found my mouth again as my arms went around him, and I kissed him as long and as deep as he wanted.
