“The fuck are you talking about?”
“Your stink-eye. Stop it. For starters, it’s making me miss Gabriel too much, and second, it’s not fair. Can you blame anyone for looking at Jax when he’s as chill as he is right now?”
“Chill?”
“Yeah. Chill. It’s almost like he got laid.”
“How do you know what that looks like?”
“Not the same reason as you, I’d imagine.” Eve tilts her head sideways, daring me to challenge her. I don’t. But as her gleeful laughter rings out, I wish I had. If Jax hasn’t told her he’s sharing my bed, I’m not going to take that away from him.
“If I promise to stop scowling at your friend, will you shut the fuck up?” Eve quiets as though I’ve put tape over her mouth. Her eyes light up with real joy, but I shake my head at her. “Don’t. Not yet.”
I carve the turkey for her, and she carries it to the dining table. There’s a million other dishes to go with it—mashed potatoes, green beans with almonds, sweet potatoes with brown sugar and cinnamon. Stuffing with Vermont apples and sage.
Grinning, I set the sweet potatoes near Jax. “Good guess,” he says with a wry grin. “Fight you for them?”
“If you like.”
His hot gaze has told me a dozen times what he likes, and I could easily forget every dish on the table in favor of another hour in bed with him, but he needs this, even if he doesn’t know it. Maybe we both do.
We overeat and drink too much cider. Eve’s friends are nice, Rumi included. We do the dishes together while everyone else falls asleep in front of a Lifetime movie. Jax is on the couch with his head on Eve’s thigh. She’s fiddling with his hair, and I’m jealous, but only because I love his hair.
“Are you two together?”
“Hmm?” I spin around, dish towel in hand.
Rumi is watching me gawk at Jax with a knowing grin. “You and Jax,” he clarifies as if I need him to. “You seem super close.”
I don’t know how he’s figured that when we’ve been in a room full of people all day, and we haven’t touched. But I’m too stuffed with good food and softened by booze to deny anything. I shrug. “We’re friends,” I say, because it’s the truth. Even without the fuck-hot sex, I feel closer to Jax than I ever dared dream. He doesn’t know all of me, and I don’t know all of him. But fuck, we’re getting there.
Rumi lets it go and returns his attention to the sink. I study him to keep my mind off Jax. He’s slim with shaggy hair. He looks like Klaus fromUmbrella Academy, and in another world I might’ve thought about banging him, but this world was built for me and Jax. I just need to fix the shit that makes his eyes go tight when I don’t give him enough words.
The realization threatens the lazy buzz in my veins. But Jax is my Patronus. He drifts into the kitchen and winds his arms around me, lips to my neck, not giving a single fuck who sees us. “Shh.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You don’t have to.”
“What…ever?”
“Don’t push it, Reid.” He takes more cider from the refrigerator and disappears again.
Rumi snorts as he lets the water out of the sink. “I want to paint you two.”
“Excuse me?”
“I’m a painter,” he says in case it isn’t obvious. “With my hands, not brushes, and you two are a fucking wet dream for me—artistically, not literally.”
“Erm…thanks? I think?”
He laughs again. “You’re welcome. Come find me when you’ve figured out your qi.”
“What?”
“Trust me, you’ll know.”
I don’t know much except I’m done with drying dishes and being away from Jax. Rumi knows Eve’s kitchen better than me. He volunteers to put the last few dishes away, and I leave him to it. I follow the sound of gentle guitar-strumming through the living room and to the den where Eve and Jax have escaped to. Jax has an old guitar in his hands, and he’s playing a quiet song I feel I should know, but I don’t.
