by Kendra Mase
Jack asked her why she did what she did—he gave up asking himself a similar question long ago, Queen reached out her hand and brushed her thumb along the very back of his jaw he’d clenched tight, as if there was a speck of dirt there.
Her hand came away clean, nothing there that he could see, even as she rubbed the pads of her fingers together, tapping one after another to that thumb.
She only smiled, though a twinge of sadness crept up the back of Jack’s throat as he watched it form. She shrugged. “I don’t meet just anyone for the hell of it, Jack.”
He huffed out a breath at the way she said his name. A single syllable with all the meaning in the world. He shook his head and looked at the city, much like he did every single day and night after he met the formidable burlesque dancer who was not yet twenty-one at the time, yet somehow already managed to have the world twisted around her wrist like a charm bracelet of favors.
A few of them most certainly belonged to him, prepared to pay it all back one day.
Jack ground his teeth all the way up the steps of Avril and Reed’s castle along the river. Pen gripped his arm like a vise, trying to hold herself up. Passion and Prose finally came to an end. No one could shuffle the deck without dropping half the cards in the process for another speed round.
As of Thursday, of all days, Queen returned from wherever she had been hiding for the past month with her high and mighty boy toy who, Jack had already tried to inform her though it fell on deaf ears, was also an asshole. Either way, she came back with a vengeance and plenty of liquor to numb the harsh emotions Jack still couldn’t put his finger on all night as he stood next to her.
Penelope, on the other hand, he could tell exactly what she was feeling as her lips scraped up the one side of his neck where his shoulder met, and he felt her heat and arousal on his tongue like cinnamon.
Emotions, no matter whose they were, stuck to Jack like specks of glue and glitter left over from a night out. They made his blood run cold and his brain twist, like trying to find the correct answer to a complex math problem, and he was never very good with numbers. He never knew why, or if it was just him who had the constant joy of other people’s meltdowns alongside his own, and he never cared enough to ask.
Only Emilie, a shopkeeper who supplied Avril with her costuming and DuCain with everything else, called him an empath of sorts. Sensitive.
He snorted at the word. If there was one thing he wasn’t, it was that.
By the time he managed to haul the slim frame of Pen into his room, the guest room he’d been staying in since June after his roommates left, Jack grunted from the effort.
He didn’t know any of the three roommates he had last well besides the fact they stole most of the cereal he bought, but still, for some reason, Jack figured that he would’ve been told—or maybe he should’ve noticed before suddenly his landlord was handing him the full bill he sure as hell wouldn’t be paying alone. Living alone.
Coming back to Queen’s castle, half Jack’s shit he left behind the last time he needed a place to stay was still in the closet. It was as if he never left, however messy and pushed back the random pieces of his life from a few years ago were. A duffel bag of his first toys when he started at DuCain was propped up against an electric keyboard. Who knew who that belonged to?
Almost eight years he’d been living on his own in this city and he still hadn’t managed to do anything with his life that made it, well, his life.
Unlike his roommates, who suddenly all up and found their own places in a newer high-rise with girlfriends, or in new opportunities leading them to new places.
Scooping his head underneath Pen’s slim arm, he carefully sat her down on the edge of the gray plaid duvet. Looping her hands around his neck, she didn’t let go, even as her head lulled to the side.
At least her eyes were still opened. Most of the time, when he ended up dragging her home from a party, she was more a corpse than a woman in her late twenties who constantly insisted she had her shit together.
She sure looked it.
“No,” Penelope whispered. Rubbing her lips together, she blinked as she looked up at Jack with glassy eyes. They traveled over his shoulders and down his arms, never quite meeting his face. “Kiss me.”
“Pen.”
She tilted her chin. “Kiss. Me.”
He let her pull him down an inch. Jack adjusted his hand on the bed before his lips gently found hers, already damp from her tongue. She pushed her body against his, knowing exactly what she wanted and where this would end up while her lips twisted, seeking more from him while her movements were empty.
They always were when they held each other, evoking the reaction they wanted. For the past few years since he met her at Rosin, dancing for the first few times, it had been this way. Avril didn’t like her—and likely because Avril didn’t like her, Jack wanted Pen all the more. So, he had her.
She certainly had him whenever she wanted, like an open invitation for one of them to wreck the other whenever they cared enough to.
A finger tugged at the belt loops of his jeans.
He forced out a small chuckle at the wanton gesture. Better than shaking his head at it. “Get some rest, Pen. You’re drunk. You can fuck me whenever you want another night.”
“Is that right?”
Jack said nothing. He only tasted below her ear, where he knew she would make a tiny gasp.
She didn’t disappoint at the very least.
“Well.” She nipped at his ear. “Not forever.”
Jack stilled, letting her fingers trade-off from his pants to seek the top of his shirt. She gently pulled at it again, encouraging him to take it off. His hands remained braced over her, against the bed to hold him up.
“We both know that.”
“Hm.” Jack nudged her with his chin, making a sound for her to go on. He wanted to hear what she had to say as she continued to sloppily drool over any available section of skin.
“Like I’ve said,” she sighed, warm against him. “It’s not like you’re the kind of guy a girl like me takes home to meet the parents, right?”
Jack froze at the words, however unsurprised he was to hear them. Something in his chest still pitched forward at the blandness as she said it.
Cupping her chin, Jack squeezed just enough that Pen had to meet his eyes.
She gave a tiny squeak of surprise, but her eyes dilated just before Jack let his lips crash hard down onto hers. He kissed her until he could barely breathe. He kissed her the way he could always kiss girls, until they groaned into his mouth.
No, not just some guy anyone takes home to their parents.
Holding her bottom lip between his teeth, Jack gave a tug before letting her go, stepping back as she panted on the bed.
She almost pitched forward, reaching for more.
Jack shook his head. “Sleep.”
“You aren’t going to join me?”
“Water,” was Jack’s only explanation as he ran a hand through his hair. His fingers fixed at the base of his neck.
Her eyes rolled, rimmed from blue mascara. Pen didn’t say anymore, however. She sighed and rolled over on the bed. Unlike him, she’d lost her pants early in the Passion and Prose game when it took a turn for a strange combination of Never Have I Ever and strip poker. All that was left was her thong she must not have taken off from the show tonight, the back edge trimmed in peach-colored lace.
He didn’t look at her again when he stepped out into the quiet hallway. A few murmurs from others that didn’t want to risk not making it home in the state they were all in hummed through the space. It was a rough night. A rough game.
Even he had never gone so far into it as he had tonight, blinking a few times to adjust himself to the light and the fact he had no shoes. He let his hand slide against the wall to keep himself upright as he made it back to the stairs.
Before he went down, however, Jack wandered farther down the hall. Three people, in various states of dress, pulsed against each
other in Reed’s room, the gentle tones of music playing from a phone inside, though no one bothered to shut the door before they began their final fun of the night. Neither did Jack. He continued until he nudged the door open with his toe.
Inside the deep red and rose–colored bedroom that looked like it belonged to another dimension, the large bed against the wall was strewn with sheets and blankets piled up over each other before they fell onto the floor, never to be picked back up. Gentle voices murmured inside.
Reed laid there, still in his dress pants and collared shirt half unbuttoned. The glimmer of his rings he wore over his fingers glinted in the dark as he gripped Queen. She laid on his chest, eyes closed as she breathed, but not asleep. Not yet.
Jack could not count how many times he had seen a similar scene before. The two of them were always a package deal, even now when Reed didn’t come out as often as he once did with Avril, Jack his replacement. Every time, Jack questioned. Should he go in? Should he join them? In some of his more inebriated states, he did. Avril opened her arms wide and pulled him into the mold without question.
Today, Reed’s head lulled back to the door. He caught him standing there. Raising his eyebrows, there was the slight tilt of his chin, an offering.
Jack’s shoulders slumped. He was tired, and he knew how comfortable Queen’s bed was.
But it was also cold. Everything about her when he caught her off guard the past few days had been.
Something about Avril, as he glanced at her again, tight in Reed’s gentle protective hold, it sent his stomach churning. Jack was unsure what to make of the stark contrast of unabashed happiness and trickling fear whenever she drank too much, emotions raised too high lately. All of it brimmed over until the thoughts and feelings swirling around him as he tried to make sense of them became static.
Jack let the one corner of his lip quirk at Reed in appreciation, but shook his head, lifting a hand to his mouth for a drink, turning back to the stairs.
Reed only turned back to glance at Avril, eyes rimmed with dark purple circles before he shut them with her. Two exhausted royals.
Not bothering to look for anyone else, Jack, at this point, could make his way to the kitchen with his eyes closed, and almost did. His lashes fluttered low as his eyes burned. If not from lack of sleep, from glancing in the living room where someone was passed out on the couch, and on the floor still remained the wreckage of the game Avril had made up during one of her first Saturday night parties.
The problem with Passion and Prose, however, Jack always said, was that no one ever really knew the rules. They changed with every game, either because everyone was too lazy to write them down or because once anyone was finished, there was a high likelihood that no one would remember most of the game the next morning anyway.
Shot glasses from each and every state as well as tissues, chips, and empty bottles of tipped-over liquor littered the space.
He waved a hand at it, continuing down the hall to the kitchen. He hoped Reed already alerted the maid that showed up each month what she’d find and tipped her well. Queen was back in action, that was for sure.
Closing his eyes again, he grabbed a glass out of the cabinet before turning around to the faucet. He was still having trouble figuring out Reed’s new filtration system.
A sniff caught his ear as he turned toward it.
“You all right?” Jack looked down at the small frame curled up against the kitchen island beside him. He almost thought he managed to be alone for a second there, but he knew better. It was almost too quiet.
The girl, tucking her loose curls behind her ear, nodded, not looking up at him.
It was still too quiet.
With a deep sigh, Jack let the water run into the glass before grabbing another and filling it just the same. Lowering himself down, he gripped the edge of the granite for support.
Fuck for the second time.
The world tilted. And here he was thinking he didn’t have that much to drink. He couldn’t even remember the chick’s name next to him. She was the one who beat them all at their own game tonight. Literally.
She looked a lot smaller than he remembered curled in on herself like that. A lot younger too, not that he was sure they asked how old she was.
Not like anyone was going to call the cops about corrupting minors with the Queen.
He rolled his eyes at the suggestion.
The girl next to him continued to stare anywhere but at him, eyes locking on the swirling tile lightly coated in dust as it continued under the stove as she zoned.
“It’s okay, ya know—if you’re not,” Jack said, clearing the gruff sound in the back of his throat. “Just let me know because I’m pretty sure I’m up to my quota of drunk girls who’ve gotten sick on my shoes.”
If he was wearing any.
The girl continued to stare at the floor in front of them, as if counting the tiles.
“The last time I was here, I think I counted about thirty-eight before I got bored. Me and Queen were having a rough night and didn’t bother to sit at the table to eat a box of cereal at around midnight. Made me feel like a kid again.” Jack rambled on for some reason, not really sure why he was still talking. Or sitting here. He didn’t really want to go upstairs, for one thing.
He took a sip of his water and a deep breath.
On the inhale, he could taste an odd combination in the back of his throat coming from the girl. Herbal and honey.
It lulled into him, sticky and seeping. “An answer would make me believe you more. If you are still going in the all’s well in the kitchen front direction.”
A sound broke out of the back of her throat. It wasn’t exactly a laugh but was.
Encouraged, Jack waited for more, relaxing his own back against the cabinets. The last time he was on the kitchen floor that night with Avril, he remembered it being a lot more comfortable.
“I’m...” Her voice was soft, as if she was forcing herself to whisper out of some sort of shock. “I’m at a party. A party in Avril Queen’s house.”
“And you beat the shit out of everyone in P&P. Who knows when that last happened?” Never, if Jack remembered correctly. Avril and Reed had the game rigged for years, not that anyone cared enough halfway through playing.
The girl glanced around herself again, and Jack wondered what she saw. Crystal chandeliers and plush furniture that cost more than most people’s first home? A mess of bottles lined up by the back door when someone obviously couldn’t find the right recycle bin?
She shook her head at whatever it was.
“Queen.” He stretched out his arm before letting his fingers catch, pulling at the roots of his hair. “She has a habit of doing that to people.”
“What?”
“Collecting them.” Adopting them was more like it. He might as well welcome whoever this chick was to the family tree at this rate. Orientation passed with flying colors. Of course, he still had no fucking clue what her name was. “Her lost things. I’m—”
“Jack,” the girl cut him off before he could continue.
Finally, she turned her full attention to meet him. Her eyes weren’t just dark brown like he thought before when he glanced at them. They were warm and looked directly into his, even as she wrapped her arms around her knees. She effectively turned herself into a small ball.
“I know exactly who you are.”
Pursing his lips, of course she does. Probably heard all the back-alley compliments and insults.
“No.” She noticed his expression, trying to find the right words to make whatever it was she was thinking sound better. It was a hard sell, he was sure. Was told. “Not like that. I mean, the moment I walked into DuCain for the first time a few months ago, I asked. I asked who you were.”
“You did?”
Inhaling as if it took all the courage she had, she nodded.
He really doubted that was all she had in her now.
Of course, he also had to shake his head. “I’m going to sound like
an asshole then, not that I’m sure you’ll remember this.”
Her dark eyes flicked to him in distaste. They’d see.
“What is your name? I don’t think—I didn’t ask.”
For some reason, it felt like his tongue was too big for Jack’s mouth all of a sudden, words not finding the right spots like they normally did. He took another long gulp from his glass.
“Oh,” she breathed. “It’s Katherine. My name.”
“You don’t sound sure.”
“I’m pretty sure I sound a little drunk.”
Jack grinned.
Finally, she pushed herself up to sit next to him, no longer slouching. She swayed a little and Jack couldn’t help but imagine her head fitting right there between his chin and shoulder.
He blinked a few times, rushing a hand through his hair to ground himself.
“My aunt, she calls me Kit.” She grimaced.
“Not a fan?”
“It’s not like that.” Kit. It did really fit her better, and she attempted to rephrase, but too quickly she gave up, leaving it as it was in the silence. Closing her eyes, Jack watched closely. “Only she and my mom ever called me Kit.”
“Is that a bad thing?”
“My mom left when I was little.”
He didn’t know how much time passed before her eyes opened again, going back to the same glazed-over expression he found her with, eyebrows furrowed at the ground.
“What are you thinking about?” Jack asked.
“Why are you talking to me?”
“That’s what you are thinking of?”
“Partly,” she stared. “I kind of thought that you didn’t like me.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Maybe I’m dreaming.”
“You dream of me?”
She narrowed her eyes.
Interesting. “Humor me, then.”
She pulled her gaze away from him, repositioning as her hands clasped one another.
“I’m thinking now...” Again, her teeth clenched shut as if debating. How painful it must’ve been to be inside of this girl’s head. Kit’s. “I’m thinking about the last time I was at a party.”