He loved the way Crisp laughed. “All that aside, I actually love it. It’s about a woman who started as a governess. She ends up pregnant under the worst circumstances, and the wife of the household has her beaten until she miscarries and then throws her in the street. A million things later, she ends up on a pirate ship. She catches the captain’s eye—who is the most horrible person alive, by the way. But he actually ends up helping her become so powerful and rich that she’s able to get her revenge. There’s a lot more, of course. Like literally everything under thesun happens to this woman, but it’s really good if you continually skip the eight-page descriptions of a blue couch, pink dress, her reflection, and every room in general. I can read it to you if you’d like. I finished my other book about five minutes ago, so I’ve just started this one. It’s nothing to go back to the first page.”
Jay heard the hope in Crisp’s tone. Truthfully, he kind of did want to hear these million things. “I’d like that.”
“Yay.” The whispered cheer had Jay smiling so big, it hurt. Not once had Jay seen his life turning into this. He couldn’t thank the universe enough.
It didn’t take long for Jay to get into the story. Crisp was amazing at adding emotion to the words. The realization jarred a memory from him. Crisp had said he had been trained to be an actor. It sounded like he would have made a good one.
He didn’t know how much time passed before he had to interrupt. “Holy shit. You weren’t lying about these descriptions. Feel free to skip them however you like. For fuck’s sake, I’ve never walked into someone’s home and spent an hour of my life looking at every finite detail of their furniture. Ridiculous.”
Crisp chuckled at his outburst. “You got it.”
Jay realized how outraged he sounded over such a simple thing, but now he got Crisp’s earlier irritation. The story was very good—action packed and whatnot. It was also just long in parts for what felt like for no reason other than the sake of being long. That was annoying.
After more time passed, no more painfully long descriptions popped up. Jay assumed Crisp had begun skipping those parts, but Jay didn’t notice anything lacking in the storyline. But he couldn’t stop himself from interrupting again later in the story. “Wait. She got attacked by wolves? You have to be fucking kidding me.”
“Well, she is in Siberia. That’s not a place you’d want to be alone and lost, even by today’s standards.” Crisp sounded pragmatic.
Jay had to concede that was a good point. “Sorry. Go on.”
Crisp read two more lines, and a phone rang, stopping the story. Jay growled at the interruption. He wanted to know how she got out of this one.
“It’s Foster,” Crisp said before answering the call. “Hello?” Pause. “Oh, hey. What do you mean, where am I? I’m up at Whistler Blackcomb, skiing. I don’t believe for a second Tracker didn’t know that. He keeps tabs on all of us. Where are you?”
Jay smiled at Crisp’s ingenuity. He had known there was no way to avoid his family tracking his phone. So Crisp had checked into a ski resort, left his phone there during surgery and recovery. Then they came here to stay until he was free of appointments and cleared to go home. Crisp’s lies were only partial and therefore easier to keep up.
“Well, damn it, Foster. Why didn’t you tell me you guys planned to go to Hawaii for Christmas? Why didn’t you call sooner? I could’ve come back Christmas Day.”
Jay bit his lip to keep from laughing.
Crisp huffed. “I mean, all you had to do was ask if I had plans. You could’ve done that without ruining the surprise.”
A minute passed. Jay caught the occasional word coming from the phone. Stuff about how they tried to call and kept getting a message saying the call couldn’t be completed as dialed. They had almost come up here; they had been so worried, but Beau had said they were being ridiculous. They couldn’t expect Crisp to sit around and do nothing because they had to make it a surprise. Rain had agreed it wouldn’t be fair to ruin his skiing trip since they didn’t let him know they were coming.
That Beau bit floored Jay. Beau had made it clear he didn’t intend to get involved. It also kind of sounded as if Rain knew the truth and saved them. Of course, he was married to Austen. If Austen refused to hide Jay from Beau, he definitely wouldn’t hide anything from his husband.
“I’m so sorry. Damn, I feel terrible. I never would’ve left if I’d known you were coming. I miss you guys. How long are you staying? I could come back early.”
Jay didn’t hear Foster’s response. He was too busy wondering if that was true. Did Crisp miss his family? Was Jay damaging Crisp’s relationship with the people he loved the most? He hated the idea that he might be making Crisp’s life worse while Crisp made his so much better.
“Okay. I’ll see you in about a week, then. Again, I’m so sorry.”
Crisp rubbed Jay’s forearm as he listened to Foster say his goodbyes.
“I love you too. We’ll act like it’s Christmas when I get back. Erase-y-rasy.”
Jay fought a laugh at Crisp’s childlike words. He honestly had no clue how he had ended up here, totally in love and feeling so much. Jay’s smile slipped away. Truth be told, his emotions were terrifying in an unexpected way. He still felt absolutely nothing beyond Crisp. When he had sat in Beau’s office, before realizing they weren’t in danger, he had been absolutely unmoved by the idea of killing everyone in that room other than Crisp. Admittedly, no one else in that house meant shit to him, but absolutely nothing did, so that was unsurprising. Whatever had been brought to life inside him belonged to Crisp and Crisp alone. He could kill every member of Crisp’s family tomorrow with zero regrets. The only thing stopping him was how that would make Crisp feel. He wondered what that said about him. Probably nothing good.
Crisp set his phone aside and tried to find where he had left off reading. He didn’t want to think about reality or what might happen next. Crisp had chosen to live for his happiness, and that was what he intended to do. He kind of wished lying to Foster wasn’t part of that. Tidy and Foster were his people. He had spent countless nights with both, talking about everything and nothing. They were the two who cared. He might doubt a lot of things right now, but he was incapable of a single bad thought toward either. They had leaned hard on each other over the years. He loved them.
“Where was I?” Crisp needed to move on from his racing mind.
Jay turned his face Crisp’s way as if he could see a single thing. “You were at the part where you tell me where your head is at. I don’t like the way this feels—this thing sitting on my chest, knowing being here with me is hurting you.”
Jay wouldn’t let this go and Crisp knew it. His Russian accent had gotten too thick, the way it always did when his emotions ran high. Crisp sat the book aside, face down again, and focused on Jay. He swallowed past the growing lump in his throat. “Okay. Well, let’s see.” He cleared his throat, fighting to sound normal. Sometimes Crisp struggled to talk about his feelings. Instead, he just picked a spot and started talking. “When we escaped, we had nothing. Not only did we have nothing, but we were also wildly unprepared for the real world. There were many times we went hungry. We definitely had no access to medicine. Unfortunately, I got ridiculously sick. I was basically useless. No one knew what was wrong with me. All I knew was that I couldn’t get out of bed any longer.”
Crisp’s shoulders relaxed. He could talk about the past. Some memories were good even when times were bad. “In fact, I don’t recall much about those days. Everything became like a fever dream. Foster and Tidy took turns staying with me. They kept me alive.” Crisp chuckled. “Foster actually kidnapped a whole-ass doctor to help me. Shit, I thought for sure we were caught and dead after that one. But crazily enough, he chose the right one. The woman took one look at me and went to work. She didn’t care about her safety any longer. She just became the doctor she was. It turned out I had a severe infection that was on the verge of sepsis. She had Foster running errands, finding everything she needed to keep me alive. Obviously, I lived, and she had no hard feelings. Compassion won, for once.”
“This is all very nice. I’m glad you’re alive, but you’re dodging my question.”
