“So was it my imagination or did I see three more hunky stud muffins going into your apartment this morning?” Madeleine said as she took a sip of her latte while sitting there trying to act all casual as she gazed at Jenna from across the table at Starbucks. “What, Trevor not enough for you?”
Jenna laughed, so glad she’d made the decision to come out and spend a little time with her best friend this morning instead of going on a ghoul recon with Trevor, Connor, and their teammates. While she wasn’t thrilled about Trevor being out there without her, the idea of spending time with her brother—who was still eyeing her with blatant discontent—was more than she was ready for today. Then there was the whole going underground thing. She definitely wasn’t up for that. Especially when they didn’t even know for sure that Hannah was down there.
“I suppose it was pure coincidence that you were looking through the peephole in your door when the three aforementioned hunky stud muffins arrived this morning?”
Madeleine put on an expression that was probably supposed to convey innocence but failedcompletely. “It’s not my fault those three were making so much noise, with those deep, rumbling voices of theirs. Any woman would have looked in that situation. And what kind of friend would I be if I didn’t pay attention when three big muscular men show up at their BFF’s apartment out of the blue?”
“Not quite out of the blue,” Jenna said, nibbling on the spinach, cheese, and egg whole wheat wrap she’d bought to go with her morning coffee. The combo was her go-to breakfast whenever she came here. “They actually arrived yesterday morning, but I can only guess that you were too busy looking at those big muscular bodies to recognize that my brother was one of them.”
Madeleine looked somewhat chastised at that as she put avocado spread on her whole wheat toast, but not much. “I have to admit, I wasn’t looking at their faces too much. But I could probably draw those butts from memory. So what’s your brother doing in town, who are his friends, and do you know if they’re taken?”
Jenna didn’t want to think about her best friend staring at her brother’s butt so long she’d memorized it, which was why she focused on the questions Madeleine had asked.
“It’s a long, complicated story,” Jenna said with a smile. “You sure you have enough time to get into it?”
Madeleine looked at her phone where it sat on the table to check the time before nodding. “I haveto start getting ready for one of those fancy pop-up dining experiences in Grand Hope Park soon, but I have a little time, so tell me what’s going on.”
“Okay, this is going to sound a little weird, but Trevor and I saw something the other night while we were down near Skid Row.”
“Something concerning Hannah?” Madeleine asked, the piece of avocado toast halfway to her mouth. “Did you see her again?”
Jenna shook her head. Until meeting Trevor, Madeleine was one of very few people she’d ever trusted enough to talk to about her missing sister. She hadn’t exactly told her everything. Like the details about which kind ofmonsterhad grabbed Hannah. Madeleine had assumed it was some kind of psychotic serial killer type, and Jenna had never corrected that assumption. But other than that, she’d been pretty open with her friend. Being able to unload at least some of that trauma had been a lifeline for Jenna, getting her through the past few years.
“No, we didn’t see her.” Jenna sipped her almond milk latte, not sure how to explain the next part. “But we did see the…guy…who kidnapped her. Trevor fought with him, but the guy got away and disappeared down into the sewers. Trevor decided to call in some backup from his SWAT team in Dallas to help find the guy and look for Hannah. That’s where Connor, Hale, and Mike come intoit.” She made a face. “Though I think my brother only came to try and keep Trevor and me apart. He doesn’t seem to think Trevor is good enough for me.”
Madeleine blinked. “Okay, there is so much in that whole thing to unpack. But let’s start at the beginning. You say you saw the guy who kidnapped your sister? But how do you know for sure it was the same person? It’s been a whole decade.”
“It was him,” Jenna said firmly, though she realized now after talking with Davina that the creature they’d seen probably wasn’t the exact same one who’d grabbed Hannah. Just one of many. But the principle was the same. “He was busy trying to drag off another woman when we stumbled across them, and he then disappeared down a manhole in the ground. With an MO like that, I think we can comfortably say it’s the same monster.”
Madeleine couldn’t seem to come up with anything to counter that argument, so after a moment of thought, she moved in another direction. “Did you tell the cops?”
“Why bother?” Jenna snorted. “They’ve never believed me before, so why would they start now?”
Madeleine looked like she wanted to argue but then must have thought better of it. “So to recap, you and Trevor find the monster that took your sister, your SWAT hunk calls in some of his hunky SWAT buddies from back home to come out tohelp find this guy—and hopefully Hannah, too—and in the bargain you get your overprotective brother. Does that sound about right?”
“That’s pretty much it,” Jenna agreed.
“And has he been successful in breaking up you and Trevor?”
“No, but not for lack of trying.”
“Does he know you and Trevor are sleeping together?” Madeleine asked.
“We haven’t slept together yet, at least not in the way you mean.”
Jenna took another long sip of her coffee before looking up to see a blatantly curious expression on her friend’s face. She sighed. “Trevor and I have made out, but we haven’t had sex yet. I mean, we’ve slept together in the same bed the past two nights, but that’s all we did—sleep. With everything going on down in Skid Row and then my brother showing up and being a dumbass, it didn’t seem like the right time.”
Madeleine sipped her coffee thoughtfully. “Would you have wanted to do more if all this other stuff wasn’t messing up the mood?”
Jenna didn’t have to think about that question very long.
“Yeah, I would,” she said, realizing how true that was—and how unusual. With the experiences she’d had in her life, trusting people came hard for her. And while she’d slept with a few guys, she’dmostly found it to be…well…less than amazing. She hadn’t thought too much about it but simply accepted that connecting with someone sexually required a level of intimacy that was never going to happen for her.
But it wasn’t difficult to imagine having that connection with Trevor. Even though they’d just met, in some ways, it seemed like they already had it. It was probably why the idea of sleeping with him already was so appealing.
“Do you believe in love at first sight?” Jenna asked suddenly.
She wasn’t sure where she’d found the courage to ask the question that had been bouncing around in the hidden recesses of her mind, but there it was.
