Chapter 46
Present Day
Nova passes out nearly the second that Jimmy pulls out of her, curling up between us as we bookend her. Her slow, steady breaths are beautiful. I watch her chest rise and fall, her bare breasts still on display, each sigh like an antidote to whatever I thought could happen to her.
“Do…do we need to talk about it?” Jimmy asks quietly.
I look at him, scanning the way he’s on his side, propped on one arm. The look he’s giving me is serious, if not grave. My lips part with a lick, preparing to ask him what he wants to talk about, though I already know.
It’s not every day that two supposedly straight men suck each other’s dicks.
“I love both of you,” Nova murmurs with a sigh. “Wished for you.”
My gaze darts to her, but she’s still fast asleep, one hand curled and tucked under her chin. My chest aches with the way I want to shake her awake, tell her I love her too, despite how little time we’ve known one another.
Time. Wasn’t it Einstein that said the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion? Right here, right now, that’s all we have, and all we could ever wish to have. That’s how we should all operate. Not like I have been, staying as far away from Nova as I can out of fear and trepidation.
“I’ve never done anything with a guy,” Jimmy murmurs.
I drag my gaze off her and back to him. “Me either.”
He drops his hand, laying atop the same pillow as Nova. “It doesn’t make sense. At one point in my life, I might have cracked a joke about being so damn good looking that now even men want to sleep with me, but…” he trails off. “But I have never been interested in a man. But now? I don’t know what to think.”
I hesitate before nodding. “If it makes you feel better, I have never been attracted to a man before, either.”
He props his head up on his hand again, meeting my eyes. “Can I ask you something?”
“Beyond my sexual orientation?”
“Yes,” he says, smirking. He glances down at Nova. “Does this feel like this—all of this—has happened before?”
I nod. “Like déjà vu.”
“Yes!” Jimmy flinches when Nova stirs at his outburst, then lowers his voice as he strokes soothing passes up and down her arm. “Exactly. Like a dream I might have had once, a long time ago.”
I place my hand atop his and he pauses. “Now you’ve been dreaming about me? You sure you weren’t bi before?”
He chuckles, his eyes crinkling with humor as they find mine. “Oh, now you have jokes, you miserable bastard.”
Koda appears at the foot of the bed before I can do anything but grin. He throws up a hand to block us from his sight with a groan. “Fucking hell. Put on some clothes. I did not need to see both of your dicks.”
Neither Jimmy nor I move.
“You are the one who chose to come in here,” I point out, shrugging.
“Fine. What-fucking-ever.” He drops his hand, his jaw muscle twitching. “Rhea heard you guys.”
Every muscle tenses in my body and Jimmy lurches upright. Nova mumbles at the sharp movement, sighing contentedly when he pets her hair.
“Why was she home early?” I hiss when I’m sure she’s still asleep.
“How should I know?” he snaps. “We didn’t hear her come home over Nova getting her brains fucked out. By the way”—he points at us—“not thrilled with not getting an invite to the party, you assholes.”
I ignore the last bit. I might have been impressed that Jimmy and I caused Nova to be that loud if it didn’t mean that Rhea would be on the warpath.
“What is she doing now?” Jimmy urges, clothes appearing as he pushes off the bed, covering up the body I touched and licked not too long ago.
Fuck, my life—death?—really has done a one-eighty.
“She dragged one of the dining table chairs in there, and she’s…just sitting. Staring at the hallway.” Koda drags a hand down his face. “She’s got that look,” he whispers. “The one she gets when she kills someone.”
The only sound is Nova’s deep, even breathing for a long minute.
Jimmy looks back at me. “You got our girl?” he asks tightly.
“I’ll stay with her,” I confirm. “What are you going to do?”
He shakes his head, looking at Koda, who only turns his head each way once, his mouth set in a grim line. “I have no idea.”
They vanish, leaving me alone with Nova.
I gaze at her, at her slack mouth and her full lashes resting on high cheekbones. Some part of me is screaming at the danger looming. We’ve kept a massive thing from Nova, in an attempt to protect her, and now I’m not wondering if we—or at least the others, since I’ve tried to stay away—didn’t do it for selfish reasons. The best thing for Nova would have been to get her out of this house, to get her away from Rhea.
She was convinced to stay instead, na?ve to the psychopath in sister’s clothing living down the hall.
And yet…
It doesn’t feel like another option existed. For some reason, we’re being forced to walk this path. Forced to watch things fall apart. I furrow my brow as grief plucks at my nerves, some long deep-seated guilt flaring to tell me I’m responsible for it. I don’t know how, but I just know that whatever happens, whatever is coming, I may as well have lit the fuse myself.