Page 27

Angry Silverback makes a noise probably intended as an affirmation but portrays more like a throaty growl, and stomps off.

“C’mon, this dude does not have a career as a caterer.” But I let him go, tilt my shoulders against the glass wall to sip and study. “Don’t you have more interesting people to bother?”

“More interesting than you, Jax my darling?”

I grunt, conceding. “Less busy, then?”

“No way.” Rachel smirks. “I love watching you . . . do whatever the fuck it is you do.”

“Yeah. Right. ’Cause what I’m doing is literally just studying my persons of interest.” I peer over the top of my glass at the three folks I’ve now got eyeballs on. Silverback stomps past a cluster of thirsty-looking elites without showing any signs of slowing, despite the desperate marooned-in-the-ocean, dying-of-thirst look several folks shoot his way. “So not a caterer!”

Beanpole’s carrying his tray with both hands, like he’s not sure his little stick arms can hold the damn thing up, but he does at least pause at a cluster of older women with beehive hairdos.

“Still no sign of your friend?” Rachel drains her glass, drops it off with a passing—and unremarkable, probably legitimate—waiter. “Nick?”

“Nope. He’s not here yet.” Haven’t seen hide nor hair of him, which again points to them not being ready to make their move. Waiting.

I don’t like it. What’s your play, Nick?

When a crackling pop explodes somewhere outside, beyond the brick and stone of this modern monstrosity, I can’t help the grin that cracks across my face.

“Ooh, fireworks!” Rachel straightens from the wall. “I didn’t realize Eddie had a show planned.”

Ah, finally! The show begins. And what do we have for Act One? The distraction!

Bang, bang, punch, punch!

“I’m sure Eddie doesn’t have any idea about the fireworks,” I mutter, but as another volley of answering explosions echoes in the wake of the first, drowning out the soft jazz humming in the background, I don’t think Rachel hears me. Just as well; nobody needs to know this little show is probably as much a surprise to the party host as it is to his guests.

Like a siren call of entertainment, the light show draws the crowd to the edges of the room—to the wide floor-to-ceiling French doors leading out onto the sprawling patios—thereby clearing out the ballroom.

Rachel, however, lingers at my side. Like we’re a couple of high school wallflowers too intimidated to join the cool kids on the dance floor.

“Not swayed by a show of pretty colors?” I croon.

She snorts. “Sit outside in a Christian Dior? In Boston humidity? I think not.”

“Touché.” I smirk.

Well, I’m smiling on the outside. Inside, I’m thinking what an expensive fucking distraction this is. Fireworks, Nicky? To say I’m intrigued would be . . . maybe the understatement of the century.

My heart thrums with the buzz of mystery.

What the fuck is he after?

“You really don’t want to watch the show?” I ask, letting my eyes slide slightly out of focus as I track the three unmoving rocks in the sudden tide of the crowd’s movement. “With all the rest of the rich pricks?”

Rachel snorts. “Maybe I want to watch the Jax Show.”

“Too canny for your own good.”

More explosions flicker against my skin, reverberate in my bones. Fireworks paint the sky in a cascade of color. Everyone looks out and up into the night-blackened heavens to ooh and aah and point their fingers and snuggle up to their spouses and boy toys and other various forms of significant other. The patios are a crush of people, all looking the same way—up at the show, where there’s objectively nothing to see.

So I look the other way.

Beanpole slinks along the edge of the room. Silverback, too, is on the move. Neither of them seems to be going anywhere just yet. Or at least not with any kind of speed or purpose. Fortunately.

My dilemma, of course, is that there’s one of me and two of them.