With metal cranked up in his ears, he jogged along the city streets, dodging pedestrians. The morning air was clear and sharp, carrying with it unpleasant smells he didn’t care to know the origins of. Did Jay take this path—alone? Homeless people were shooting up in the middle of the public square and every second building seemed to have a dull, tired cast to it. Most of them had bars over the doors and windows. So did Jay’s apartment.
When he’d first hired that PI, the first thing he’d wanted to know was whether or not she was living alone. If he could find that out, anyone could.
He slowed as he approached the corner store. It was awashin grayish fluorescent lights and had a smell like old dishwater. 70s pop was playing from the speakers overhead. Nicholas grabbed whatever he thought he might have seen Jay eating before, reading the labels before dropping them into the basket. The little nerd had harped enough about gelatin and lard that he felt like he was basically vegan, once removed. As he went down the health aisle, he picked up a box of condoms.
(I don’t know how to love someone)
He was scowling by the time he dropped his basket on the conveyor belt and began unloading. The cashier bushed when she scanned his items, unable to look him in the face after she put the box of condoms in the bag. “Did you, ah, find everything okay?”
“Yeah,” he said slowly. “Thanks.”
“Have a good morning,” she said, clearly by rote, before making a panicked face as she clearly realized just howgoodhis morning might be about to be.
It almost made him smile.
Nicholas slung the bag over his wrist and headed back to Jay’s apartment. The homeless people were still there, much to his consternation, and now there was a man playing jazz on a sax. A regular fucking Broadway, this streetcorner. All it was missing was a siren.
Jay’s apartment was like a bubble of silence after those impossibly loud streets. She was still asleep, hugging the pillow in a way he found very sweet.Did I wear you out, little bird?He set a bottle of water on the nightstand, studying her sleeping face, and wondering what to do.
He had his plan regarding her career. And as for her mother, she had to be stopped. They weren’t children anymore and they could do as they damn well pleased. It was his fucking house, nothers, and so was everything inside it.
Including her daughter.
Whatever leverage Danielle thought she had over Jay was gone.
He’dbe the one to take care of her now. And as soon as they got back to Hollybrook, he was going to make sure Jay knew that.
The only family they needed was each other.
???????
Jay woke up alone.
She wondered, with a sick bolt of dread, if she’d dreamed last night’s encounter. Just thinking about it—I love you—made her squirm in discomfort. Groaning, she sat up and realized as soon as she felt the muted throb in her lower belly that the discomfort wasn’t entirely due to her imagination.
Shit, she thought.
Her eyes flicked to the other side of the bed.Hewas gone, but he’d come back long enough to leave a bottle of Evian on the stack of books that served as her nightstand. She uncapped it, noticing that there was a folded shirt on his side of the bed. When she unfurled it, she recognized it as the one he’d been wearing last night.
She traced the peeling logo on the front—Avenged Sevenfold—before pulling it over her head. The scent of him suffused her senses; he’d been wearing the same aftershave since he was a teenager and the sharpness of it sliced through her thoughts like pith.
(You’ve been a bad girl and now I’m going to fuck you likeone)
The sound of her bathroom door opening made her look up sharply as Nicholas padded out as comfortably as if this apartment was his. He was sweaty, like he’d been running, wearing mesh shorts and a snug T-shirt that was nearly sheer where the white material plastered against his skin.
He hadn’t noticed she was awake yet. Music was blasting from his earbuds and she thought she could make out who it was even at this distance. She was pretty sure she even knew the song: it had been one of his favorites to fuck her to.
She watched, incredulously, as he went right to her fridge and began loading things into it from a plastic bag. That propelled her into motion, walking across the room so quickly that it nearly left her dizzy as she tapped insistently at his arm.
He straightened up in surprise.
“What are you doing?”
It came out accusatory. She hadn’t meant it to. Luckily, he hadn’t seemed to have heard, eyes dropping to her legs in an automatic once-over as he pulled the buds out of his ears.
“Hmm?”
Jay repeated herself, resisting the urge to step out of reach when he leaned over the barrier of the fridge door. The front of his shirt was a near-transparent veil. Beneath the clingy material, she could make out the shadow of his chest hair.
