“Yeah,” Chloe said. “Don’t scare us like that!”
He chuckled, both at the twins’ obvious concern and the two puppies, Sam and Dean, who were wandering around the kitchen behind the girls, licking the floor and shoving their noses into every corner. “Sorry about that. I told you that sometimes I wouldn’t be able to call you on time if I was busy with something.”
Zoe sighed with resignation. “We know. We know.”
Chloe, on the other hand, immediately tensed. “You’d tell us if you were doing something dangerous, right?”
Jake bit back a curse. Sometimes he thought Chloe was psychic. She definitely had a habit of making scary good guesses when it came to what he was up to.
“I’ll always tell you as much as I can,” he said, hating there were things he couldn’t be open and honest about with them. “But you know there are parts about what I do that I can’t talk about. You both knew that when I took the job. You have to trust that my teammates will keep me safe and that I’ll keep them safe.”
Neither girl looked very happy, but they both nodded. He didn’t mention the part where he and his teammates were currently in South America about to go on a dangerous-ass mission.
“Speaking of Jes,” Zoe said casually as she reached out to grab some M&M’s from the bowl on the counter, “have you and she been keeping each other safe…and warm?”
Jake’s eyes went wide. “I cannot believe you went there. I’m not having this conversation with you. Not going to happen.”
“I’ll take that as a yes,” Zoe said with a satisfied smirk. “So you and Jes went out on another date, huh? Where’d you go?”
Jake thought about telling them that he’d taken Jes on a romantic motorcycle ride through the city, but then his mind immediately jumped to visions of him and Jes together in his bed at the B&B in London, followed by the golden glow of her skin exposed by the sundress she’d had on earlier. He was so lost in the fantasy he didn’t realize he was sitting there with what had to be a ridiculous grin on his face until Zoe laughed.
“Wow,” she said. “You really like her, don’t you?”
“When did that happen?” Chloe asked. “A few days ago, you were insisting your date wasn’t even a date.”
Jake hesitated, trying to figure out how to explain it when his head was still kind of spinning over all of this.
On the other side of the laptop, Chloe was staring at him like he had Christmas tree lights wrapped around his head.
“What?” he demanded.
“You’re in love with her already, aren’t you?” Chloe asked, her eyes getting wider by the second. “Oh. My. God. She’sThe One.You found her…your soul mate!”
Zoe looked back and forth between her sister and Jake, as if she expected one of them to jump up and screampsyche!
“Is that true?” Zoe finally asked, as amazed now as her twin. “You and Jes? How is any of this possible?”
He opened his mouth, then closed it again. He shook his head. “I’m not really sure. It’s complicated. I tried to convince myself this didn’t have anything to do with her beingThe One,but it’s getting harder to keep telling myself that. When I’m around her, I feel more alive than I’ve ever felt.”
Jake expected to see as much confusion in their eyes as he felt in his head, but instead, Zoe and Chloe were looking at him with the most godawful sappy expressions he’d ever seen. Like they were holding a basket full of puppies while watching aTwilightmarathon. He should have known it was a bad idea to spill his heart out to a pair of teenage girls.
“What did Jes say when you told her about the legend ofThe One?” Chloe asked excitedly.
He sat back in the seat, running his hand through his hair. “I haven’t told her. There hasn’t been a good opportunity to get her alone long enough to do it right. And like I said, I only recently started believing it myself.”
Chloe studied him curiously. “How recently?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe within the past ten minutes?”
The girls turned to look at each other for a while, doing that silent communication thing the twins did all the time, which freaked some people out a little. After a long moment, Zoe turned back to regard him seriously.
“You have to tell Jes how you feel,” Zoe said. “If she’sThe Onefor you, she has a right to know everything because she’s probably feeling as confused as you do.”
Jake knew Zoe was right, but that didn’t make telling Jes any easier. “Well, as it turns out, Jes went to get takeout for dinner. She should be here any minute.”
“Great!” Chloe grinned. “You two can sit down and have a quiet dinner together while you talk about being soul mates and your future together.”
Jake almost laughed at how romantic Chloe made it all sound when the reality was that Jes would probably think he’d lost his frigging mind. He was about to tell the twins that when he heard Jes approaching his room. A few moments later, she knocked on the door.
