Chapter 19 #2
I did, and when the chicken slipped each time I went to pick it up, he took the chopsticks from my hand, then wrapped my hand around his before showing me what he does with his fingers.
I inwardly clenched.
The scars on his hand felt textured and ridged in places. But his hand was so damn warm. And strong.
He wasn’t even intentionally doing anything to me, and I was dying inside.
Why did I want this man so much? What was it about him and his surly attitude and his bluntness that made me want him with every fiber of my being?
“Watch what I do with this finger.” He wiggled his finger as he went down for another bite of food.
This time he caught up one of the spicy beef chunks and brought it to his mouth.
I had to go onto my tiptoes to reach, causing him to laugh around the bite of beef.
He handed me the chopsticks back and said, “Now you try.”
I managed to get my own bite of chicken this time and squealed with excitement as I got it into my own mouth. “I did it!”
He flashed me a grin and ripped into the second set of chopsticks. “Now, try some rice.”
That didn’t go as well, and I did have to use my fork for the rice. But the chicken was my bitch, and I was able to eat nearly half the carton before I got way too full.
“I’m done,” I said as I pushed the box away, chopsticks still in the box. “I have zero room left.”
He took one last bite of his own meal before saying, “Can I try yours?”
I waved a hand at it and leaned back in the chair, my hands on my belly.
Absently, I slipped my shirt up to rub the smooth skin, slightly rounded from my meal.
I was one of those people who rarely ever had a flat stomach. Sometimes, if I fasted, and my bowels were working in a timely manner, I had the suggestion of almost flatness. But most of the time the tides were never in my favor.
When I was close to my period, I swelled and looked like I had a Buddha belly. When I ate too much. Buddha belly. When I ate something high in sodium. You guessed it. Belly.
And since I’d been eating nothing but bullshit, without a vegetable in sight, for the last week, I definitely had the belly.
“Are you purposefully pushing out?” he asked as he eyed me.
I grabbed my belly with both hands and shook it. “Nope.”
He snorted. “It’s cute. You look like one of those toddlers that’s all belly.”
I snorted and tugged my shirt down over my belly, which in turn pulled the low-cut top down a little lower than I intended.
He didn’t miss the move, either.
I, in turn, tugged the shirt up, which flashed my belly again.
He shook his head and turned away, but not before I noticed the slight tent in his sweatpants.
An inner fire lit inside me, and I wondered what would happen if I reached out and touched him right now.
Would he pull away?
Would he push closer?
I didn’t get to put too much thought into my words, however, because my doorbell rang again.
I frowned and turned toward it. “I’m seriously not expecting anyone.”
He walked to the door and looked through the peephole that Doc had installed for me.
He shook his head and said, “It’s her. Why don’t you answer the door?”
He stepped off to the side, and I moved in to do as he asked.
When I had the door open, she held out a package of food and I smiled. “Oh, I didn’t order anything.”
She made a show of checking the receipt. “Is this not…”
She read off the address.
“Oh, yeah. That’s me. But I didn’t order anything.”
“Well, I guess it’s your lucky day,” she said. “Free food.”
I stepped back and shook my head. “Nope. I’m good, thanks. You can have it.”
“Oh, I couldn’t,” she said, holding it out to me.
I took another step back and acted like I was about to close the door.
When she put her foot out to stop the door from closing, Jasper stepped into the open. “What the fuck are you doing, Max?”
Max’s eyes widened. “I…”
“How about you tell the truth.”
Max swallowed.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Jasper tossed the food outside right next to where he’d tossed the last one.
“Go home, Max.”
Max swallowed.
That’s when Jasper leaned forward and touched a black wire.
Max shook her head and mouthed the word “no!”
Jasper left it there before he said, “You should go before it gets too icy out. This is dangerous.”
Before anything more could be said, a car pulled up at the curb and Apollo got out.
He jogged up through the middle of the yard but slowed when he got to the icy sidewalk.
He pushed past us all and dragged Max inside with him when he passed.
Only when everyone was inside did he kick the door closed and then pull out a thin black recorder-type thing and set it down on the table.
The little red light blinked, and then he announced, “All righty then. Let’s talk about why you’re being tracked by the government, and who Adler Wilson is. Oh, and why he has a hard-on for Jasper. He’s not in the military anymore, and he’s not breaking any laws.”
Max looked like she was about to throw up.
“That box jams signals. They won’t hear anything.”
Max looked relieved. “Fuck.”
“Start talking,” Jasper said.
Apollo sidled over to the boxes of cookies and opened the lid of the snickerdoodles.
He took one and shoved half of it in his mouth before groaning.
I felt my lips curve up at the edges as I saw him, but he didn’t interrupt or say anything more while Jasper pushed Max.
“What the fuck is going on?” Jasper said for a third time. “What are you caught up in?”
Max seemed to wilt in front of us before she scrubbed her face up and down for a long second before saying, “I’m in a bit of a situation.”
Jasper crossed his arms over his bare chest—still in only a pair of gray sweatpants and nothing else—and waited.
“Adler Wilson is the father of my son.”
“Huh,” Apollo said. “Didn’t see that coming.”
“It was an affair,” she admitted. “He wanted nothing to do with the kid. And neither did I, really. It was a weird thing. But I knew that Bernie wanted a baby, and she hadn’t had one yet, and I thought…well, why not? Bernie can have him.”
“Jesus Christ,” Jasper said.
“What I didn’t know was that Adler had this complicated relationship with his wife.
Nor that they’d found out that they’d never be able to have kids of their own.
” She started to wring her hands. “I like my kid. But Bernie loves him. She’s had him since the day that he was born.
Legally, she adopted him. But a few months ago, Adler’s wife found out that they would never be able to have kids, and I guess he wanted to give her one.
He thought it would be best to give her ours. ”
“That’s fucked up,” Apollo said around a bite of cookie.
“It is,” Max grumbled. “I met him during the academy. And when I went to branch out on my own when I couldn’t make it into the FBI, Adler helped me set it up.
He helped fund my PI business. I thought it was because he was just a good guy…
but now he’s threatening to take my business back and my son if I don’t help him. ”
“Help him with what?” Apollo urged her on.
Max crossed her arms tightly over her chest and looked at Jasper. “Adler hates you.”
Jasper sighed, long and loud. “That man needs to get a life.”
“He has one,” Max snapped. “And he’s making it his life mission to fuck with me and Bernie. He’s using me to get to you.”
“That finally makes sense,” Apollo said. “What does Adler want out of all this?”
“Something he can use to take Jasper down,” she answered.
“Anything. I’m doing everything I can to make him think I’m cooperating.
But seriously, he’s ruining my life. And he’s about to take Bernie to court if I don’t help him—he’s using it as incentive to hurry me along.
I don’t think he actually wants my son. I think he’s just being an ass, and he’s making the moves that he knows will really fuck me up.
And Bernie’s happy, Jasper. For the first time in years, she’s happy. ”
Nothing needed to be said as to why Bernie hadn’t been happy over the last couple of years. It was obvious what Max was implying.
Jasper was the reason that Bernie was hurting.
And he needed to help her, because it was Jasper’s fault.
Which thoroughly pissed me off.
“I’ll help you figure it out,” Apollo said. “Go home, though. Jasper’s not in the middle of this anymore. From now on, your only point of contact is me. If that changes, we stop helping. Capiche?”
Apollo’s words took the wind out of my pissed-off sails.
Jasper shot Apollo a look that I couldn’t quite interpret before it was wiped off his face, and Apollo shook his head in a way that had me curious. But not curious enough to ask him while Max was still in the room.
“I don’t know…
“If you want out of this, you’ll take my help,” he said. “And when you’re done, for repayment, you’ll take someone home to New Orleans with you and help him get settled.”
Max opened her mouth but closed it before any words could make it past her lips.
Apollo jerked his head toward the door. “Leave your rental. You’ll ride back to my place and we’ll get this taken care of. Then you can take an Uber back to your hotel. In the morning, you’ll get on a flight back to New Orleans and you won’t look back.”
“Wait!” I called out.
Apollo and Max turned, but I didn’t have anything I wanted to give Max.
I ran to the kitchen and grabbed three boxes of cookies, hurrying back toward Apollo.
“Take these with you,” I urged. “I don’t have the capacity to eat fifteen dozen cookies.”
Apollo flashed me a grin. “Nice. Merry Christmas, Calamity Jane.”
I whipped my head around and glared at the jerk behind me.
He shrugged as he started to dig into my food again.
Max and Apollo disappeared outside, and I locked the door behind them. I did, however, watch them walk to Apollo’s car.
They were inside and driving off before I took a good look at mine and Jasper’s yard.
The ice was making the blow-ups droop, and icicles were forming on the wooden Rudolph that dominated the majority of the yard beside Jasper’s mailbox.
I absentmindedly raised the back of my camisole up to scratch my lower back. I kept scratching it even as I turned around and gave the winter wonderland outside my back.
When I did, my heart started to slam against my ribcage.