I focus back on the card. And the girl beside me. Jane perches her hands on her hips, sweater pink and fuzzy, and a 50s checkered scarf is tied around her neck.
I’d give her a Best Dressed award every day, every time. No contest.
She smiles up at me. “You first?”
Easy. “I’ve never paid for sex.”
She tells me, “Neither have I.” Her whole face brightens, treasuring a common fact that we share, and I try to force my affection in a cramped box.
Don’t go there.
Being stoic used to be too easy, but I have a serious problem now. I can’t look at Jane Cobalt with a blank expression—not when I’m engulfed with affection that ranges from innocent my-heart-is-yours to sensual I-want-to-fuck-you-on-this-piano.
Counteract this shit.
I stare at the window. Where heavy drapes frame a snow-piled landscape, so glaringly white that it practically sears the eye.
Christmas Eve is tomorrow, and as we all take breaks from executing “escape plans”—Jane’s cousins and siblings have slowly started to realize we can’t defeat Mother Nature. We have to wait, and the team now has a new objective.
Keep morale high.
Not just among bodyguards.
No one wants their client to be sad or moping during the holiday, and if we can make this snowed-in catastrophe easy for them, we’ll try.
Charlie plucks the card from my fingers. He burns it in a glass cup.
Arms crossed, I glance to my three o’clock. Sensing Tony’s presence, and sure enough, he lingers near the doorframe. His arrogant smirk on me.
I glare.
Oscar chats with him.
“Ignore Tony,” Jane whispers. “He’s bored and looking for entertainment.”
I nod once and bite harder on the toothpick. I hate the taste. I hate how my jaw aches, but I could hug Banks for his obsession with these motherfuckers because it’s a shield that could help me through the extended snowstorm. How is Banks doing pretending to be me in Philly? …I can’t know.
Hopefully he’s kept his head up. It’s hard not to worry about him.
Jane starts to gather the deck off the piano.
“We’re not done,” Charlie declares and bangs a high-pitched key. “Leave them there. Choose another.”
I eye Tony. He’s out of earshot, but he gesticulates towards us and speaks to Oscar. My best guess: he’s asking what Banks (aka me) and Jane are doing over here. You know, just playing with Truth or Dare cards.
Talking about sex.
A weird thing for my brother to be doing alone with my girlfriend.
Clear-cut, the risk has just heightened, and we’ve been toying with trouble enough.
“Later,” I tell Charlie.
“No. Now.”
“Charlie,” Jane says hotly. “This is serious.”
“So is this.” His left hand presses keys, playing a melodic classical tune. “You should thank me, I’m giving you ample time to spend with your—”
“Charlie,” she hisses, wide-eyed.
“He can’t hear us over the music.”
Maybe, and that’s a weak maybe.
“And anyway, he already thinks you’re sleeping with both Moretti brothers. This won’t make a difference.”
“God,” she winces and sends me an apologetic look.
I’m used to it, and I just make a fast decision. “Let’s do it.”
“Really?” Her eyes bug more.
“Yeah.” Through all this Tony horseshit, these cards have strangely brought Jane and I closer—and I want to flip another.
She pulls back her shoulders. “We’ll carry on then—” Her voice cuts off, and our heads turn at the thundering sound of indoor jogging.
Five people pass the doorway in workout gear. Sulli, Maximoff, Will, Quinn, and Joana.
While Maximoff jogs past, Farrow gives him a blatant once-over, and we all watch Maximoff trip on a rug.
Everyone laughs, and my lip begins to lift.
“Jesus Christ,” Maximoff curses. “You didn’t see that.”
“I definitely did,” Farrow teases.
I stare down at Jane. She’s radiant seeing their love, and the only reprieve I can give myself is this: I didn’t ruin Maximoff and Farrow. I would’ve never forgiven myself if I had been a cause to rip them apart, but those two—they’re unshakable.
I’m jealous of how good Farrow is at navigating rough terrain in relationships. I feel about as graceful as an ox on a ship.
Those five start to jog away. Footsteps trailing in the distance.
Luna Hale nicknamed that group “House Fit” since they’ve been running through hallways and up and down stairs. Sulli invited me, but I have little patience for group workouts unless a punching bag or gloves are involved.
Normally Akara would join the runners, and I’m not sure why he declined. Beckett is also noticeably missing from House Fit. His absence isn’t a mystery.
Sulli invited everyone but him.
I hear piano music, and I focus back on Charlie. I want to be there for Jane’s brothers, so I leap over a professional line and ask, “How’s Beckett?”
Charlie blinks for a long second and then motions to the spread cards. “Pick one.”
Jane glares on my behalf. “He asked you a question.”
“And I chose not to answer it.” Charlie breathes into a tired sigh. “As is my right to choose.”
“Well, I’d also like to know how Beckett is doing,” Jane snaps. “He won’t talk to anyone but you.”
Charlie plays an angrier melody with one hand. “Let’s be thankful he’s talking to me then. Because if he were smarter, he wouldn’t be. I’m just as complicit in bringing him here.” He looks to me. “Put me out of my fucking misery and pick.”
I tried.
I peel a card off the piano and hand it to Jane.
She reads, “‘Tell us if you believe in love at first sight. Explain.’” Her eyes are like saucers, and my pulse pounds in my ears.
“We don’t have to agree here,” I remind Jane before either of us answer. “It doesn’t mean we’re incompatible.”
“Right.” She nods, more confidently. “It just means we view love differently, and two adults can have different opinions on love and still have feelings for each other.”
“Right,” I confirm, feeling Tony watching us from the door.
Charlie hits louder keys on the piano.
“Right.” She wafts her sweater. “My answer is no. I don’t believe in love at first sight, not as much as I believe in fascination at first sight. Which I felt with you—which, you must know.” She blushes. “Right?”
I shake my head. “I didn’t know.”
Don’t stare below her neck. Don’t look at her like that. I narrow my eyes on the window, and I revisit our first encounter at the Hale house. How she was frazzled but poised, how she tried to capture and harness her black cat. Did I think that someone like me—poor Italian-American trash, too serious, too stern, fresh out of war—would interest an American princess?
No.
Before I start reevaluating our first encounter, I remind myself that she was seventeen. For fuck’s sake.
“You helped me with my cat,” she says like a fact, cheeks beet-red as I look back down at her.
“I did,” I say. “She’s a cute cat.”
Jane can’t holster a smile.
I ask straight out, “I fascinated you from the beginning?”
She nods. “You very much did.”
This is when I’d pick her up and carry her towards heaven, but we’re still living inside my hell. Where I can’t touch the woman I love.
Charlie drills his eyes into me. “It’s your turn.”
I tell her the answer. “I don’t believe in love at first sight either.” But I also can’t imagine a time where I wouldn’t love Jane.
Her brows crinkle. “Why not?”
“I can’t love someone until I know them. Attraction—that’s not lo
ve.”
She smiles. “I concur.”
I stop short from adding more. I might if her brother weren’t here. I’d say how attraction is just my cock wanting pussy. It’s my hands wanting her body. It’s my ears wanting her voice and to be drowned out by her. It’s lust.
Love is more.
It’s the days I wake up, feeling a need, an urgency to protect her. Not just her body but her spirit—her entire soul. It’s the days I imagine losing her, and I’m met with a bottomless empty, nothing there but hollow numbness.
Worse than death.
It’s the days I yearn for her laugh, for her companionship, and thoughts. It’s every day she makes me feel worthy of her and this life. All of it and more.
Charlie rubs at the edges of his eyes, almost irritably. “Pick another.”
“We can break,” Jane suggests for him.
“No.” He points at the deck.
She draws a card and passes it to me. I glance at the words.
Fuck.
No.
My jaw hardens.
“It’s that bad?” Jane wonders.
I rake a hand over my mouth before reading, “‘Tell us if you’ve seen a Rose Calloway and Connor Cobalt sex tape.’” I solidify.
Worry cinches my girlfriend’s eyes.
Shit.
Is this a deal-breaker question? Will my answer put a chink in our relationship? And I wonder if that’s the purpose of these cards: to make sure I’m the perfect man for Jane.
I go cold. Colder than the already frigid-ass room.
Jane shifts her weight uneasily.
She can’t read me. I’m suddenly a fortress unwilling to be unlocked, and I’m aware that’s the opposite intent of Truth or Dare.
Jane addresses her brother, “I haven’t seen any of the tapes. Nor do I ever want to.”
Charlie cocks his head. “You never stumbled on one?”
She gapes. “Have you?”
“A thumbnail,” Charlie admits. “I didn’t click into it. I’m not that much of a fucking masochist.”
I’m not either, but things were different when I was a teenager.
I didn’t know the Hales, Meadows, and Cobalts.
I didn’t know her.
Charlie sizes me up. “And?”
Jane frowns. “Thatcher?”
“I didn’t go looking for it,” I explain, my voice void of emotion. “Guys in my unit were playing a clip. I saw maybe three minutes.” I can barely even remember the images in my head. It was just another porno that my platoon laughed at or jerked off to. It didn’t mean anything then.
Her jaw is unhinged. Completely fucking shocked. “You didn’t…”
“I did,” I say again.
“Oh my God.” She cringes, fingers steepled to her lips. “You’ve seen my parents having sex.”
I grimace. “Yeah.”
I think she already believed I’d never watch one of their porn tapes. Because the man I am now would never. But I was eighteen. I was just a kid, and I didn’t know then what I know now.
“You didn’t look away?” she asks, confusion and hurt cinching her eyes.
I’m hurting her, and it’s like stepping across broken glass, rolling around in it, willfully slicing and tearing apart my flesh.
“I didn’t look away,” I confirm. “I was eighteen. Back then, it was just porn to me.”
Deep wrinkles crease her forehead in a frown, and she shakes her head. “But you knew how their sex tapes came about. They didn’t consent to have them taken. They were illegally filmed and leaked online.”
My throat feels like sandpaper. “I didn’t know that until I started working for your families. Honestly, I didn’t know much about your parents except the basics.”
She’s quiet, and I think she’s just in her head.
But goddammit, I feel like I’m fucking this up. So I fight to say more. “It probably seems like common sense—that if someone knows about those sex tapes, they must know how they originated. But the un-fucking-fortunate truth is, people didn’t care about those details enough to share them.”
Charlie plays a dramatic song on the piano while eyeing me. Having a third-party witnessing my inability to speak is just the cherry on top of this shit pie.
Jane lets out a breath, shoulders dropping. “I understand.” She nods. “It’d be wildly self-absorbed to think that everyone knows every little thing about my family. Most people aren’t doing deep-dive wiki searches on Rose and Connor Cobalt.” She nods again, certain about this.
“Did you get off on it?” Charlie suddenly asks.
Jane chokes on a noise. “Charlie!”
“It’s porn, Jane. It’s there to arouse. I’m just asking what our brothers would want to know for the sake of this game.”
“For the sake of your own curiosity,” Jane counters.
“That too.” Charlie is unabashed.
I run my fingers through my hair. “No, I didn’t jerk off to it.”
“Because there were other people in the room?” Charlie asks.
Jane groans and flashes me an apologetic look.
I’m fine, honey. “Because I didn’t. It was ten years ago. If you want to know if I was hard, I don’t remember. Is that good enough?”
“I’m satisfied with your answer, if Jane is.”
“I’m highly satisfied, thank you,” she says without hesitation. She’s what I care most about, and she gives me an assured nod.
I didn’t completely fuck this into the ground. That’s something.
“One more.” Charlie nods towards the cards.
I pick the last one and I silently read the words.
Take three nudes and send them to Jane.
Unholy fucking shit.
“Charlie, he can’t do this,” Jane says after reading the card in my grip.
I can.
I will.
I’m not worried about me. I’m concerned about her. She can’t join me in this. Not a fucking chance. Her brothers might have thought twice about this card, had they known she’d be a part of the game.
Charlie’s shoulders rise in an apathetic shrug. “Then he loses.”
“I’m doing it.” Resoluteness bleeds from every word.
“What?” Her lips part, eyes widening tenfold. “You want to?”
“I’m happy to send you nudes of myself. It’s not a problem.”
“You’re certain?” She’s in a daze, disbelieving.
“Yeah.” It’s easy for me. I meant what I told her on tour—when my bare ass and the nickname jockstrap circulated online and on entertainment TV. I didn’t care.
I was just glad it didn’t happen to her.
She smiles but as her turn to make a decision approaches, her lips falter and flat-line.
I wait for Jane to tell me that this is something she absolutely can’t do. Can’t fathom. We just went through a whole discussion about her parent’s sex tapes, ones that were leaked online. I know Jane’s feelings about nudes.
I know she wouldn’t dare. Not for a second. Because as soon as there are naked photos of her on any device, she’s created a probability where they could be leaked. No matter how small that probability, it’s always been too great a risk for her.
I know that.
I’ve heard those words verbatim from her lips to my ears.
She was my client.
She is my girlfriend.
So right now, Jane lifts her chin and eyes on my eyes, she tells me, “I’ll do it, too.”
I bite down too hard and break the toothpick in half.
31
JANE COBALT
3 Days Snowed-In
Thatcher spits out his broken toothpick.
If he’s willing to shed his clothes and take nudes, then I surely can do the same. We’re equals.
Right?
I’m frozen. Collarbones jutted out, eyes perilously big. I imagine bracing the weather outside would feel better than my iced-over bewilderment.
Thatcher
is looking at me like I’m a book he can no longer read. Missing pages and smudged font. His own confusion draws his brows together. “I must not have heard you right.”
I word-vomit. “I’m going to do it too.” Every syllable is a stab to my own heart.
“Jane—”
“I understand the consequences.” We’re equals. I can do this for him. For us. I clear my swollen throat.
Charlie has been playing obscure piano pieces, until now. He switches to Chopin, the romantic melody often accompanied with waltzes. He’s poking fun since Thatcher and I are more at odds with each other.
I want to be unconcerned about my brother, but he’ll voice his opinion—whether on my side or not. He’s just biding his time.
Thatcher never breaks my gaze. “I’d like to go over the consequences one more time before you make this decision.”
“That’s fair.” I face him more, but I’m careful of our distance. Tony is still loitering outside the parlor door. “And it’s simple really. If we both take nudes, then there’s a fraction of a chance they could be leaked online.” Easy enough, Jane.
Right?
Right.
His forehead wrinkles in heavier concern. “And…” He waits for me to keep going.
“And we’ll both have nudes online. Simply that.” I weave my arms over my body.
Confidence. I scrounge for more.
“You’re not that daft,” Charlie butts in.
“What do you want me to say, Charlie?” I question. “That men will masturbate to naked pictures of me? That people will jeer? That I will be critiqued and criticized from my areola size down to my pubic hair. I understand. All of it.” Tears threaten to rise and knives wedge between my ribs. Every breath tight.
I can do this.
I can.
I can.
Can I?
Charlie bangs keys with twice as much agitation.
I spin back to my boyfriend.
He’s locked down, walled up. He’s now the book I can no longer read.
“Why don’t you care about those consequences for yourself?” I question. “Fans are just as likely to spread your dick over the internet and jack off to the photos.”
“It doesn’t bother me.” He sighs out frustration. “Except…”
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