Rogue Ever After (The Rogue Series Book 7)

by Tamsen Parker

  She called every Wednesday afternoon at the same time, read off a statement she had prepared, and thanked Jasper for taking her message, and hung up as quickly as she could.

  She refused to have personal conversations with him when she called. She said it wasn't professional and that there was probably some gross HR violation involved if their conversations actually got personal. When you were best friends with someone for twenty years (Jesus Christ how was he old enough to have done anything for that long?), chances were that their conversations would have been some gross HR violation. So instead he pretended he didn't know her when she called, because she said it made it easier.

  He also pretended that he wasn't in love with her. But that was because it made it easier for him.

  Except he apparently did a shit job when it came to hiding his feelings about Raina, because his co-workers had a running bet about when he would actually admit his feelings to her.

  Which was going to be never. He wasn't going to ruin the best thing he had. And if that meant that he would have to watch her date other people, then fine.

  Okay, it wouldn’t be fine. But he had survived her past boyfriends with only a little emotional damage. He could do it again.

  He would do anything for her. And like the overdramatic child he was, he was going to make sure she never found out.

  Which would be easier if he could stop thinking about her like that. He took a swig of coffee, and winced. Cold.

  “Want another cup of coffee?” Jasper asked Sandy.

  “Still working on my last one,” she replied from behind the pile of research materials on her desk. “You’re going to give yourself an ulcer or something if you keep this up.”

  Jasper laughed. “Pretty sure it’s too late for that.”

  He was swan diving straight toward burnout, and he didn’t know what to do about it.

  There was never a point in Jasper’s life that he thought that working in politics was going to be an easy job, nor did he ever think it was going to pay that much. But he didn’t quite take how soul-sucking it all was into full consideration back when he first started working for the Congressperson.

  And he hadn’t counted on having to move to Washington D.C., either. Which, while it sounded hilariously naive, Jasper had always wanted to work locally, wanted to stay where he was. Some people were meant for the Capital, but those people were not Jasper Kazan. But then Mel was elected, and had offered Jasper a D.C. position.

  It had only been five months since Mel officially took office, and Jasper was emotionally nothing but an exhausted husk of doubt, and it was trickling into his work.

  Not to mention he was hovering way too close to broke for his comfort.

  Not that Sleepy Hollow was cheap and affordable—Jasper had talked to some of the Congressional aides from other states and holy shit, rent was practically free where some of them were from. But D.C.? For the amount of money Jasper was paying in rent on a quarter of an apartment in D.C., he could be renting at least an entire apartment back home. Add on his student loans, his medical bills, and his truly terrible salary, and things were looking pretty fucking bleak.

  His phone buzzed. Raina.

  You’re going to get in trouble if you keep on trying to have personal conversations with me when I call the office. Or I’m just going to get used to you answering the phone and then one day you’re not going to answer the phone and it’s going to be someone else and I’m going to say something that would definitely count as an HR violation and we’d all be fucked. Well. Mostly I would be. But.

  Jasper grinned.

  What kind of thing would you be saying that would count as an HR violation?

  What do you think?

  ...I’m not sure you want to know.

  Raina sent an eyerolling emoji. Jas, you butthead.

  You asked.

  True, she responded.

  There was nothing else for a few minutes.

  And then.

  What if I wanted to know, though?

  Jasper stared at his phone. The fuck did that mean?

  “Jasper! Just who I was looking for!” Mel Ramirez walked by Jasper and his cup of sludge masquerading as coffee. “I was actually on my way to find you.” They looked at Jasper’s cup and sighed. “We really need to something about the coffee situation here.”

  Jasper shrugged. “I’m spoiled. Anything that’s not from Hot Bean Water isn’t good enough for me.”

  Mel sighed. “Oh, man, Hot Bean Water coffee. Everything else is shit in comparison.” They grinned. “That’s actually what I wanted to talk to you about.”

  “Hot Bean Water?”

  “Well, kind of.” The Congressperson lead Jasper into their office, and closed the door. “More just a quick catch-up, see how you’re doing, how you’re settling in here.”

  Jasper pasted a smile on. “Everything’s great,” he lied.

  What was he going to do, tell the truth?

  That would be admitting that he wasn’t good enough for this.

  And even if that was true, he was going to try like hell to prove that maybe he could be.

  * * *

  Jasper didn’t get home until nearly midnight, and by the time he got home, his stomach had nearly eaten a hole through itself.

  He hadn’t grocery shopped in far too long, if not for lack of time, but also a lack of funds. As soon as this resolution was written, Jasper was going to start looking around to see if there was some way he could fit some part-time job in somewhere again, so the thought of paying his rent every month wasn’t one that made him want to vomit a little.

  Maybe also get some actual food, too.

  His roommates weren’t home—Jessica was probably sleeping at her boyfriend’s, Matt was back in Arkansas with Congressman Jones, and Mo was working on his thesis somewhere. So there was nobody here who could ask. Not that he would have, anyway. His roommates were great, but none of them understood the full extent of just how broke he was.

  He looked in his cabinet and winced. Opened the fridge, even though he knew what was going to be in there that was his.

  Condiments. That was it.

  Raina would still be up, and they still hadn’t discussed her existential crisis. He’d FaceTime her while he was making ‘dinner’, and pretend that everything was normal.

  They had made a pact when they were in eleventh grade, after a particularly hellish week, that only one of them were allowed to have a crisis at a time. Both of them losing their shit simultaneously was too much, and they’d never get anything done.

  And since Raina was having an existential crisis, Jasper was going to shove his feelings into a box and keep them there for a little while longer.

  “Aren’t you supposed to be sleeping?” Raina demanded as she answered the phone.

  “Hi, Mom,” Jasper said, leaning the phone against the kitchen counter. “I’m sleeping in tomorrow morning, so I can stay up past my bedtime.”

  Raina snorted. “That’s bullshit.”

  “Okay, it is bullshit, but I’m awake anyway,” he replied. Three cans of beans and one bag of rice that was...maybe moving? He must have really been tired, there was no way a bag of rice would have things moving inside it yet. Right? “And if I’m anyway awake, I can talk to you.” He pulled out the bag of rice. “Would a bag of rice have things moving in it if I bought it a few months ago?”

  “Moving?” Raina demanded.

  “Mmhmm.” Jasper eyed the bag, and sighed. Rice took too long to cook. “Actually, never mind.”

  “It isn’t moving?”

  “I have no idea. But rice takes too long to cook.” Jasper pulled out a beat up can of beans. Beans and...spray cheese?

  “Beans and spray cheese?” Raina repeated. Shit, apparently he had said that out loud. “Are you planning on eating that for dinner?”

  “Uhhh, maybe?”

  “Jesus Christ, Jas, you’re going to get scurvy.”

  “I’ll be fine. I’ll go grocery shopping tomorrow.”
Maybe. Hopefully. If he had time. Tomorrow he was getting paid. He’d buy a new bag of rice. One that didn’t move.

  “Promise?”

  “I’m going to try,” he replied, rinsing the beans.

  “That’s not the same thing as promising,” Raina pointed out.

  “Which is why I didn’t promise,” Jasper replied.

  “I’m worried about you,” Raina said quietly.

  Jasper took his bowl of beans (shout out to sriracha, garlic powder, salt, and pepper for trying their best) and sat on the couch. Raina was curled up in a chair he didn’t recognize, her hair in braids, glasses on, face mask on, too. “Why are you worried about me?”

  “Because you’re eating a can of beans for dinner at midnight after working too many hours today,” she replied. “Duh.”

  Jasper rolled his eyes. “Duh to you, too. And the beans are good. Lots of protein and carbs and stuff.”

  “Stuff. The most nutritious of them all.”

  “You know it.” Jasper paused. “You’re trying to distract me from your crisis, Ray, and it’s not working. Tell me the things.”

  Raina sighed. “It’s the damn high school reunion,” she said. “It’s been fucking me up for months now.”

  “Still the high school reunion? Didn’t we talk about this in January? And February?”

  “And March and April? Well, yeah, and it’s just this ugly friend that follows me around and piggybacks itself onto every other existential crisis I’ve been having for the past few months. Which is shitty as hell, because, really, why do I care what anyone we went to high school with thinks about my life? Especially the people I had nothing to do with then?” Raina paused. “Hold on, I have to take off my face mask.”

  “Where are you?” Jasper asked. “That’s not your apartment.”

  “Hannah’s,” Raina replied. “I sleep here every once in a while. Harin just came back from a business trip, and her girlfriend is sleeping over. Figured I’d give them some privacy, and also spend some time on Hannah’s couch, which is a hell of a lot more comfortable than mine is.”

  “Gotcha.” Jasper took another bite of beans. “So. High school reunion stress backpacking onto other things.”

  Raina nodded, and placed the phone on the windowsill by the bathroom sink. “Yeah. It’s just that it’s been a decade since we’ve graduated and I don’t have much to show for it.”

  She leaned over the sink to rinse off her face, giving Jasper a clear view directly down the front of her shirt. “Like, okay, I went to college and got a degree and yeah, I freelance on the side, but I’m still working in the same place I was when I graduated.”

  “You get paid quite a bit more than you did then,” Jasper pointed out, trying to concentrate on the conversation and not the view, and failing miserably.

  It wasn’t like he hadn’t seen Raina shirtless. There had been plenty of beach trips and sunbathing in parks and crop tops. There had been plenty of pajama days where Raina hadn’t bothered with a bra, but never had those days ever had her bending forward for a clear shot down her shirt, and fuck, it was distracting as hell.

  “Yeah, I know. And, like, for the first time in my life, I have some disposable income, which is a big fucking deal. I like my job, I have health insurance, I’m mostly healthy, blah, blah, blah.” Raina finished rinsing her face and picked the phone back up. “But. I don’t think I’m doing anything that makes a difference.”

  “Of course you’re making a difference,” Jasper said. “The Congressperson was actually talking about the coffee shop today, and how much they miss it.”

  “Well, that’s sweet, but that’s everyone. That’s not me.”

  “Honey, it is you,” Jasper pointed out gently. “You’re the one managing it, aren’t you?”

  “I guess.”

  “And have you or have you not implemented all sorts of activities in the shop to help the neighborhood stay politically engaged?”

  “I’m just doing the bare minimum,” Raina said. “Hell, I can’t even make a phone call without having a baby panic attack before I do it. And that’s knowing you’re the one picking up the phone.” She sighed. “Ugh, I sound like such a brat. Like I’m fishing for compliments. Which I’m not. I just don’t like feeling helpless, you know? Like I’m not doing enough?”

  Jasper nodded. “I know.”

  Raina paused. “Jas?” she asked quietly.

  “Hmm?”

  “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine, just tired,” he lied. “Why?”

  “You looked sad.”

  “I’m okay,” he lied again. “At the beginning stages of an existential crisis, but not far enough in for anyone to worry about me.” He yawned. “But I’m actually coming home for a few days in three weeks. Mel asked me if I wanted to come with them.”

  Raina shrieked. “You’re coming back? Why didn’t you start the conversation with that, asshole?”

  Jasper shrugged. “Your crisis comes first?”

  “Jasper, you ass, no it doesn’t.” She bounced up and down. “You’re coming to visit! Where are you staying? How long are you here for? Tell me the things!”

  “Not sure where I’m staying yet, there for three days, I’ll let you know when I know,” Jasper replied, and dumped his bowl in the sink. He’d wash it in the morning.

  “Want to stay with me?” Raina asked. “Harin’s going on vacation with Mari around then, I think, so there’s room. You can watch Planet Earth with me in person.”

  Alone with Raina in an apartment was everything he wanted and everything he probably shouldn’t do. But, fuck it. He was tired. He missed her.

  “Sure,” he agreed. “But maybe we can watch a different nature documentary instead?”

  “Maybe. But if David Attenborough isn’t narrating, it doesn’t count.”

  “Obviously not,” Jasper agreed.

  “Yay,” Raina bounced on the couch. “You’re coming home soon!”

  “I’ll save my crisis until then,” he said. “We’ll eat shitty takeout and talk about it in person.”

  “Yay,” Raina repeated. She grinned at him. “This just made my whole week. I miss having you here.”

  “I miss having me there, too,” he said.

  * * *

  Three weeks, he told himself the next morning. He had indeed lied to Raina—he was awake at his usual way too early, after staying up too late the night before talking to her.

  He had three weeks, and he was going to give everything his best. He was going to figure out a way to make this job work, even though it was shredding his soul slowly. He was going to leave work on time today, he was going to buy groceries, and he was going to sit down and find a way to tell the Congressperson that maybe they made a mistake hiring him for the job.

  Just the thought of it was enough to make him break out into hives.

  Okay, maybe just the grocery shopping.

  His phone buzzed. Raina.

  Go to the grocery store today so I don’t worry about you eating moving rice k thanks love you byeeeeeeeeeeee

  Moving rice means extra protein, Jasper texted back.

  But how MUCH extra protein? You could also just, idk, eat an egg or something for protein that doesn’t have antennas.

  Yeah yeah yeah, he texted back. And because he did, he added, love you too you’re welcome byeeeeeeeeee.

  * * *

  Really, the fact that she was still fixated on this was getting to be a bit much, Raina thought as she watered Flopsy, Mopsy, and Cotton-tail later that evening. There was no reason for her care this much about what other people had accomplished in the past ten years. It wasn’t like she wasn’t happy with her life.

  She was. Mostly.

  But the world was going to hell, and there were people out there building all sorts of machines and things that bailed out humanity from the epic shitshow that was now. In the hypothetical sinking ship of humanity, there were people out there plugging holes with all sorts of advanced technology, and Raina was par
celing water out of the ship with a teaspoon, one spoon at a time.

  Yeah, she was doing something, but comparatively, it wasn’t enough.

  Not that she knew if she wanted to have kids at all.

  But if she did, and one day they asked her what she did to fix things, saying, ‘I made weekly phone calls to my elected member of Congress, and I set up easy information for people to help them get involved politically’ just didn’t seem like enough when there were children in cages, and an entire branch of the government corrupt.

  Maybe that was part of it, though. Feeling like she could be doing more. It wasn’t like she didn’t have the privilege to say and do things other people would get wrongfully imprisoned for, or worse. She knew just how lucky she was. Living where she lived, in the body she had, with her skin color and her sexuality.

  All things she knew not to take for granted, but sometimes forgot just how many privileges they afforded her. But did she want to do more because of some white savior narrative, because of an overwhelming guilt for not being as directly affected as other people? And how much did that matter why she wanted to help? Because it did matter.

  It had to matter.

  Not that Raina could say that people’s good intentions were what had gotten them into this mess, because white supremacy and greed weren’t good intentions, no matter how you dressed them up.

  And regardless of the mess of reasons why she wanted to be doing more, Raina was still waking up every day with a pit in her stomach, feeling like there was a fire somewhere that she should be putting out, but she didn’t know where it was, and didn’t have any water.

  Anxiety combined with the current political climate, plus whatever existential nostalgia-based crisis that was plaguing Raina truly was a bitch.

  * * *

  How many energy drinks were too many energy drinks? Jasper wondered the next day.

  The fact that he thought that maybe he was hearing colors was something that he should have been concerned about, especially since he didn’t have synthesia.