So, why don’t you?
Everything inside of him stilled. Because, seriously, what was there to stop him? Not his fucking career, clearly. It had been days since he’d demanded Paulson’s admin have the special agent in charge call him back—but had his SAC bothered to do so?
That would be a great big Hell, no. So why not think about changing careers? Working in an area that would keep him closer to his brothers and their families? To Tasha?
He went and took a seat on the couch to think about that.
A short while later, Tasha’s voice cut into his thoughts. “You’re kind of quiet tonight,” she said, and he looked up to find her standing over him.
“Yeah.” He moved over on the couch and patted the freed space on the cushion for her to sit down. “I’ve got some stuff on my mind.” Then he sat taller in his seat. “But that’s not why we’re here. So, I’ll put it out of my head for now so I can do my part for Max.”
“That can wait a sec,” Jake said and took the spot Luc had expected Tasha to occupy. “I’ve got something to ask you.”
“Sure. Shoot.”
“You know that Jenny and I are getting married in January, right?”
He nodded. “Yeah. Or I knew you were engaged, anyhow. I can’t say I was real clear on the when.”
“The when is January seventeenth. It’s going to be a small wedding, only family and a few friends—but a big-ass reception. Austin’s my best man and Max is my usher.” He looked Luc in the eye. “I’d like it if you’d be my other usher.”
“You want me to be your usher?”
“His other usher,” Max called from the far end of the room.
Jake laughed. “Right. My one of two. Not that there’ll be many people to usher, since, like I said, the wedding itself is going to be small and private. But you’re my brother and I’d like you to be part of it.” He studied him for a moment. “Tuxes will be involved, if that helps persuade you. That’s what sucked Max in.” He shook his head. “The guy loves his dress-up.”
“In guy clothes,” Max said, then muttered to Harper, “The way he says it, you’d think I had a closet full of women’s underwear I liked to strut around in.”
Austin shot him a horrified look. “Gross!”
“I know, right?” He shook his head. “Your dad’s weird.”
Luc laughed. But inside his heart was pounding, and an emotion so large he could barely contain it swelled in his chest. Jake wanted him to be part of his and Jenny’s wedding. Because they were brothers. Brothers in the same way that Jake and Max were. He met Jake’s steady, good-humored gaze and nodded. “I’d like that,” he said gruffly. “I’d like it a lot.”
“Score! The wedding party is now complete.” He looked over at Harper. “Okay, then, we’re here to work,” he said. “What do you want us to do first?”
* * *
PEYTON DUMPED THE bussing tub next to Bella T’s industrial-sized dishwasher and turned to Jeremy, propping her hands on her hips. “Do you ever plan on talking to me again?”
He had been giving her the silent treatment since last Friday. On the occasions when Tasha had been in the pizzeria kitchen with them and he couldn’t get away with ignoring Peyton entirely, he’d kept communication between them curt and chillingly polite.
But Peyton had apologized more than once. Tonight she’d reached her limit and was ready for a throw-down. Tasha was at Deputy Bradshaw’s place doing...whatever it was that people did on campaign stuff. Tiffany was out in the restaurant, chivying the last stragglers on their way, and would be busy after that for a bit wiping down their tables. So, while Peyton had a few moments when it was just her and Jeremy in the kitchen, she planned to find out once and for all if they had any relationship left to reclaim.
She stared at him, taking in his shuttered eyes and rigid jaw. She hated the frigid silences he’d been treating her to, but if she’d secretly hoped that tonight he would finally relent and start chatting her up—or, crap, even acknowledge her—she was clearly in for another disappointment. And, heart thudding with frustrated misery, she turned her attention to doing what Tasha paid her to do. Presenting him with her back, she unloaded the tub’s contents into the dishwasher.
For a while, the only sounds he made that let her know he was still in the kitchen with her were those of filling containers with the leftovers and depositing them in the fridge. During the seconds of silence that stretched between the clatter she generated transferring cutlery and dishes into the machine, she also heard him scraping dough off the work top. Finally she fit in the last of the soiled pans, put detergent in the dispenser, closed it up and started the washer.
Then she turned to look at him again and caught him gazing at her. His eyes immediately looked elsewhere.
“I’m sorry I insulted your car,” she said in a low voice. “But when I found out it was yours, I was...wrecked.”
His head came up. “Why?” he snapped. “Afraid someone might expect you to actually ride in that— How did you so eloquently put it? Oh. Yeah. Piece of shit?”
She should just let it go. Cut her losses. Because she could tell him the truth and still have him be pissed at her—only this time she’d have handed him even more ammunition than the kids at school who were giving her a bunch of crap had.
But, dammit, she remembered how Tasha had given her this job against her original better judgment. Peyton admired her fiercely—more than any other adult she’d ever known.
And every time Tash had given her advice, she’d advocated honesty.
So she drew in a breath, then shakily exhaled it. “No,” she answered. “Because giving you rides to and from work was the highlight of my days. And I knew that you having your own car meant an end to them.”
Once again Jeremy’s silence beat against her eardrums and she made up her mind that this was her last attempt at a reconciliation. She liked him better than any boy she’d ever met, but she couldn’t do this anymore. Shoulders tight, the base of her skull beginning to telegraph the beginnings of a stress headache, she stared down at the kitchen floor.
More than anything she’d love to meet this defeat with insouciance. Because, hey, you won some, you lost some.
But all she could think was: losing sucked.
“What?” he croaked, and her head came up.
He was actually looking at her instead of looking through her the way he’d been doing for the past five days. Fragile hope made her heartbeat stumble, and she squared her shoulders. “I said I hated that you have a car now and won’t be needing rides from me anymore.”
He stepped closer. “And it never occurred to you that you might ride with me occasionally instead?” He narrowed his eyes at her. “But then you probably don’t wanna be seen in a piece-of-shit car.”
“Oh, for God’s sake, Jeremy, would you let it go, already? I said that when I thought the car had been abandoned out back. I never would have said it if I’d known it was yours—and I sure as hell wouldn’t have insulted your father. I’m green with envy that you’ve got a dad who made a special trip from Seattle to give you a car. I keep waiting every day for my stepdad to repo the one he gave me back when he still loved me.” Her lower lip trembled, but she bit it hard to stop it.
Because damned if she’d let herself cry in front of him.
* * *
WATCHING PEYTON’S WHITE teeth clamp down on her full, pink lip broke Jeremy’s paralysis, and he closed the space between them. She’d been shooting him glances from the corners of her eyes, and he watched them go wide when she found herself suddenly nose to collarbone with him. He hauled her into his arms and drew in a deep breath, savoring the never-forgotten scent of her shampoo even as he demanded, “Is that what you said to my dad?”
Tipping her head back, she looked up at him. “What?” She scowled at him. “I haven’t seen your dad since last Friday.”
“He asks about you when he calls,” he said. “And he told me that night that you’d said something that made him question my
less-than-flattering assessment of you.”
Her eyes narrowed, and he grimaced apologetically, but then shrugged. “Hey, you’d dissed his present to me and I was pissed. So...did you say something that compared my dad to yours like you did just now?”
“I don’t remem— Oh. Yes. I guess I did. I said you were lucky to have him, and that I’d give a bundle for a father who cared half as much as he did.”
“I think that meant a lot to him.”
She stepped back, and he dropped his hands to his sides. “Yes, he accepted my apology right away. Why did you stay mad at me for so long?”
“Dad says I have a problem getting out of my own way even when just going with the flow would make my life so much easier.” His shoulders twitched. “He’s not wrong, and I have been working on that. But when I thought you were looking down on me and mine, it—I don’t know—just hit kind of hard. So I did my usual and shut down.”
She stepped close again. “Because I have the power to hurt you?”
He pulled himself up to his full height, and the stubborn look he slanted on her said, “Hell, no—real men don’t admit to that shit.” Yet when he opened his mouth, what came out was “Maybe.”
“You have the power to hurt me, too, you know. So, maybe we should try real hard not to do that to each other.”
“Yeah.” He took a step closer to her, as well. “Maybe that’s exactly what we should do.” And slowly, slowly, he lowered his head.
Clearly, he was going to kiss her. But just as clearly he was giving her ample time to stop him.
As if! She rose up on her toes, wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed her lips to his.
And, oh, God, it was heaven. Jeremy’s fingers, a little dry-skinned from the constant washing that was required in a kitchen, framed her face with a tenderness that made her ache. And his mouth was warm and soft-lipped, but firm. Wow. So, so firm. She opened her own and sighed when his tongue slid in.
Simultaneously, they tightened their hold on each other and clung, exchanging soft sounds of appreciation as they explored the other’s taste and textures. Peyton couldn’t say how much time passed before he finally lifted his head.
He touched his fingertips to the fringe of black hair feathering her temple. “So,” he said, gazing down at her.
Her eyes soft, she returned his look. “So.”
“Want to take a ride in my new car?”
“Yes.” She smiled at him. “I’d like that a lot. I thought you’d never ask.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CLAD IN RAGGEDY jeans and a threadbare sweatshirt, an old faded bandanna tied over her hair to keep it out of her way, Tasha charged into cleaning her apartment as though a horde of white-gloved cleanliness-is-next-to-godliness mavens was about to descend on her home and swipe their pristine fingertips across her furniture to judge her efforts. Her stupid crew down in the pizzeria had insisted they had things under control and sent her home.
Okay, not stupid—that was a crappy thing to even think. In fact, she oughtta be happy about their thoughtfulness, right? Grateful, even. Because how many times had she dreamed of having free time? Of getting so much as an hour devoid of responsibility, time in which she could maybe read a magazine or run errands without her mental clock infernally tick-tocking away the minutes taken from the work she felt she should be doing?
But this was different. It was Friday, for God’s sake—she truly shouldn’t be away from Bella T’s on a Friday! The kids had said it was a test—that they could always call her if something came up that they couldn’t handle. But then Jeremy had flashed her a cocky trust-me smile and assured her that wouldn’t happen, because he had it covered.
Huh. He’d probably wanted her out of there so he and Peyton could mess around in her kitchen. It hadn’t escaped her attention that they’d made up.
She really ought to go down and supervise.
“Oh, for God’s sake, girl, get a grip.” And really, she needed to do just that. Yet feeling grouchy for no good reason, she slammed the few dirty dishes scattered across the countertop into her dishwasher without consideration for their chipability.
Dammit, she was happy for them—and maybe even happier for herself, since both had been moping around all teenager-angsty for the past week. Plus, she knew perfectly well that Jeremy would always act professionally on the job. The truth was, her mood had nothing to do with the teens’ love lives and everything to do with the fact that her big talk about wanting occasional downtime was obviously just that: nothing but talk. Because without all the usual restaurant tasks to keep her occupied, she was climbing the damn walls. Feeling itchy and jumpy and thinking that a nice cathartic screaming meltdown would feel good about now.
There was such a thing as too much time to mull things over, dammit. Sometimes a woman just wanted to do and not have to think, think, think. Thus the manic cleanathon. She needed something to combat this hamster-on-a-wheel brain spin she was in.
All because a week ago yesterday Jenny had assured her—no, flat-out told her—that Tasha was not her mother. That she was, in fact, nothing like Nola. And never would be.
She’d thought about it a great deal since then. In her head, she knew her best friend was right. For as long as she could remember she’d worked like a demon to avoid following in Nola’s footsteps.
Yet here she was, falling for Luc all over again. Only this time it was worse than the first time around, because this wasn’t a few fantastical days out of time in a faraway exotic locale. She’d seen exactly how well he fit into her mundane daily life. Had garnered new scraps every time they were together that helped her understand what made him him.
And apparently she believed she was in loooove.
The mug that had been in her hand suddenly crashed against the wall, and she barely blinked when it shattered into a billion shards. She merely stood there, chest heaving with each labored breath as she stared blindly inward. Because...
If jumping from getting to know someone better to believing herself in love wasn’t Nola-like, she didn’t know what was.
Tasha couldn’t deny the way she felt. What she damn sure could do, however, was not erect a bunch of pie-in-the-sky dreams around it. Because Luc had never promised her anything. He’d told her outright, in fact, that he loved his job. And in truth, she expected any day to discover him packing his bags to disappear once again into his dark and dangerous world.
She just didn’t know what the hell she’d do when that happened.
* * *
LUC HAD BEEN listening to Tasha bang around in her apartment since arriving back at his place twenty minutes ago. And as much as he’d wanted to go over to see what she was doing, he’d decided maybe she needed some space. She was generally pretty quiet, and the noise she was making today sounded a little on the pissed-off side. No man wanted a piece of that, so the prudent thing, he decided, was to give her a wide berth.
Until something crashed inside her place. Then he was out the door and in front of hers before he even thought about it. He pounded his fist against the solid panel. “Tasha,” he called authoritatively, “let me in!”
There were several seconds of silence. He was getting ready to bang on the door again when her voice, from the other side, said flatly, “Go away, Luc.”
“Not gonna happen. Open the door or I’ll—”
It whipped open. “What, big shot?” she demanded. She faced him in the doorway, her skin flushed and her hands on her hips. “Bust it down, kick it in? Not if you want to stay out of your brother’s jail, you won’t. Because I will have him arrest you so fast it will make your head explode.”
He stared down at her, puzzled as to why she was mad at him. Yet there she stood, combatively blocking him from entering her apartment, and everything about her said No Trespassing in hard-to-miss neon.
“What the fuck is up with you?” he demanded. Then his eyebrows relaxed above his nose as he realized what the likely answer was. “Ahh.” He nodded sagely. “Is it that t
ime of the—?”
“Oh!” A you-did-not-just-say-that look on her face, she slapped her hands against his chest and gave him a shove that actually stopped the word he was about to speak and moved him back a step. “You do not want to finish that sentence, buster. Not if you know what’s good for you. I know this might be difficult for your tiny male brain to comprehend, but sometimes a woman has actual moods that have nothing to do with her menstrual cycle.”
“Okay, I’ll give you that. But why is it all right for you to make a point of insulting the size of my brain when you’re all up in my grill for thinking you might be on the—that is, having your period?”
She simply stared at him for a moment before muttering, “Crap.” Then she turned and stalked on fleece flower-power-patterned sock-clad feet back into her apartment.
He took the fact that she didn’t slam the door in his face as an invitation to come in and did so, quietly closing the door behind him.
“I have no good answer for that,” she said and blew out a breath. “Not a single comeback in sight, because as much as I hate to admit it, you’re right—I can’t have it both ways.” Shaking her head, she flopped down on her couch and looked up at him. “I really am in a mood, and when you turned up with your commands and demands, you became a handy target for my general pissiness. I’m sorry.”
He sat down next to her. “You want to talk about it?”
“No.” She slid down on her spine and rested her head against the back of the couch, staring at the thick white fog on the other side of the French doors. “It’s just stupid stuff.”
He should have been relieved not to have to listen to shit about feelings. So why did he have to bite his tongue against demanding she tell him all about it instead? God knew he’d ordinarily be trying to break land-speed records in the opposite direction. But he was coming to realize that he wanted to know everything about Tash. He wanted to know what made her tick. What had happened to set her off.
But she was clearly in no mood for a heart-to-heart, so he let it go. Instead, something his mom used to say when he was down or out of sorts popped into his head, and he asked, “Want a hug?”
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