Page 53

“Excuse you.” She sticks her nose in the air. “Those were rage-running clothes. Very versatile.”

“Clearly.” I add another sweater to the suitcase. “Regardless, you’re coming home with me.” Her whole body jumps. “Yes. My house.”

She blinks at me, swaying slightly. I know why. She’s never been there.

“And Mom?” she asks. Good. Curiosity and concern, no arguments.

“Hotel. Somewhere nice for a few days while this gets handled. Room service. Comfortable bed. Spa package, if she wants one.”

“Gage—”

Down the hall, her mother reads another date aloud, tired but steady. “She sounds exhausted,” I say quietly.

Jubilee shifts her weight. “You can’t solve every problem with money.”

“No.” I face her down. “But I can solve a surprising number of them.”

“You’re insane.”

“Dedicated.”

She giggles, but the smile slips almost immediately. She clocks the suitcase instead of me. “You know I can pack myself.”

“I do.”

“I can book Mom a hotel.”

“Never doubted it.”

“I can handle the police.”

“Painfully fucking aware.”

Her arms slowly loosen at her sides. “So, why are you doing all this?”

The easy answer is because nobody else fucking has, but that isn’t fair anymore. Her mother has. Badly, painfully, in ways Jubilee never understood. But she has.

“Because you don’t have to do everything just because you can.”

Jubilee goes quiet.

I level with her. “You’ve spent years proving you can carry all of it, Jules. Congratulations. I believe you.” Her throat moves, and her eyes turn glassy. “Tonight, you can let somebody else carry some of it.”

She purses her lips. “We’ve been together for two months, and you’re already giving me a drawer at your house?”

I chuckle. “A drawer? Princess, you’ll have your own room.”

“My own room?”

“And probably several drawers, judging by your alarming quantity of stockings.”

“Gage.”

“I’m not judging. I’m deeply supportive of the stockings.”

Other than the amusement playing on her lips, she’s clearly overwhelmed. I step around the suitcase and close the distance between us. “I’m not saying this is permanent. I’m not secretly changing your mailing address or having monogrammed towels made.”

Her lips part. “Have you been thinking about monogrammed towels?”