11. #2
For some reason my mind hears this in his lower-octave voice from the hospital, and a stray flutter that has no business in this careful exploration flushes heat over my skin.
Grabbing my things, I scan the side of the building.
To the left of the main entrance, cut out of a corner, is a private door.
The stairs I find when I open it feels like they were built well before modern building codes, narrow and mountainside-steep.
Jamie must hear me climbing them, because as soon as I lift my fist to knock on the door at the top, it swings open and he’s there.
“Hi, friend.” He’s leaning casually on the door frame, wearing a grin that I feel like warm water poured all the way down to my toes.
My God, he’s a lot to handle. Exploring the possibility of fate is nerve wracking enough.
Exploring it with a man who looks and charms like Jamie Bishop is on a whole other level.
This new part of me who’s considering the idea of magic wonders if the cosmos knows this about me, and that’s why the vision was of Jamie and me in the safety of the afterglow.
Like when you recommend a romance novel to your grandmother but make sure it’s the fade-to-black kind.
Tonight, he has on a pair of gray joggers and a black zip-up hoodie, low socks that show his ankles. It’s a far cry from his crazy, sexy, cool vibe at the bar that first night, and somehow even more intimidating.
The hat is missing too, and a lock of hair (the one I knew about before I knew about it) somersaults onto his forehead as he steps aside to let me in.
He looks down at the grease-stained paper bag I’m holding and arches his bruised eyebrow. “You brought food?”
“Thai food. Do you like?”
He smiles. “I like.”
I’m pleased to my core at my choice, but I try to be casual. “I assumed you hadn’t eaten yet, and you bought my breakfast. It was my turn.”
“Thank you.”
Setting the bag on the counter, I spin around, taking in his space.
I’m not sure what I expected but I’m instantly impressed.
If Nana’s cottage is shabby chic, Jamie’s place is urban swank.
Cavernous lofted ceilings, an open floor plan—I feel cooler just being here.
A leather couch anchors and divides the space, set across from a huge TV hung over a gas fireplace.
To the right, three steps lead to a raised level that serves as a bedroom.
The far wall sports a row of windows that must have a killer view of the city, but my gaze homes in on a king-size, platform bed, unmade and fitted with wrinkled gray sheets that look softer than a newborn kitten.
My mind goes exactly where it’s led: Picturing him there. Me there. Us there.
It’s not the bed from the vision, though.
No headboard. No fireplace at the foot. I didn’t think about possibly walking in and seeing that bedroom until right now, and the discovery that it’s not here both shocks and disappoints me.
Not that I’m here with the intention of sleeping with him, of course.
Of course. But any clue about where or when that vision was from would be something.
“I’ll get some plates,” he says, tapping my hip as he passes on my right. I try not to jump at the contact. I want that comfortable company from before. I came here chasing it.
Jamie reaches for the upper cabinet, one hand over his ribs, and a flash of pain ripples through his expression. His cheeks are flushed, dark purple swept under his eyes.
“You’re hurting.”
“Pretty much everywhere, yeah.” He says this like not being in pain is something he should have been better at and it presses somewhere soft inside my chest.
“I’ll get this,” I say, taking the plates from him and waving toward the living room. “You sit.”
I’m slightly surprised when he takes that order with no more than a raised eyebrow, but when I see the way he eases himself onto the couch, I suspect he’s been waiting for an excuse to lie down.
“Have you been icing?” I ask, watching him over my shoulder while I unpack food boxes, scooping fried things onto plates.
“Uh…”
“What?”
“It’s just that the freezer is so far from the couch.” He smiles, though it’s significantly dulled by pain, and it’s a good thing he’s cute because what the hell.
“This is a pretty big injury, Jamie. You need to take it seriously.”
He winces. “Yeah, I’m starting to see that.”
The reusable ice packs they gave him at the hospital are shoved in the corner on the counter. I fill one with cubes from the dispenser on the fridge door, then twist it into a tight pack and hand it to him, my eyebrows raised expectantly.
He has the good sense to look chastised. “Thank you,” he says. “Again.”
“You’re welcome.” I set the plates on the coffee table, but I don’t join him on the couch yet. I’m easing into this, being in his space. Also, I want to keep snooping.
Lingering in the living room, I spot some photos in an impressive gallery formation and wander over for a closer look.
They’re snapshots, stuff you would see on social media—in fact I think I recognize one of them from Fortune’s Instagram—but displayed like this, they’re a whole vibe. “Were these taken downstairs?”
He nods, taking a bite of a spring roll, before pushing the plate away.
“Em took them throughout the first year we were open. She gave them to me last Christmas. You can see more and more customers in each photo, then the band playing when we added live music. It reminds me of those people who have photos done of their kids each year and hang them in a row so you can see the changes.”
I smile at Jamie showing off his bar child.
He’s in a handful of them and I notice the same effect with his various states of facial hair.
From clean-shaven just like when I first met him, to a couple of mountain-man looks, back to this thick stubble thing he has going on now.
In the center, there’s a photo of him and another guy standing back to back, arms across their chests, grinning.
Jamie has one of his sinfully tight-fitting Fortune tees on, and the other guy is in a shirt and tie.
It’s mid level beard and I try to guess the timeline.
Summer, based on the girls in dresses in the background.
Two of them are clearly staring at Jamie, their crushes accidentally immortalized.
Just like the flutter in the car, the jealous ping in my chest is also a surprise.
“Who’s the guy you’re posing with?”
“That’s my brother Wes. He’s my business partner.”
“Oh.” I look again with new interest . Jamie’s complexion is fair, like he might burn easily in the sun.
Wes, on the other hand, looks like he has a year-round tan.
They both have dark hair, but Jamie’s is soft, with a wave so perfect it must have been bestowed on him by an angel at birth.
Wes’s is sleek and near black, like a vintage cologne ad. He’s Armani to Jamie’s Abercrombie.
“You two don’t look like brothers.”
“We’re stepbrothers. Well, ex-step. His dad and my mom were married for three years. They divorced when we were seventeen. But we’re brothers in the ways that matter.”
“What ways are those?”
“We fight like brothers.” He laughs to himself, but it’s edgy like maybe he’s not speaking in generalities but in present tense. “I don’t know, growing up together, we just get each other on a different level. For good or bad.”
I give him a sympathetic smile, thinking of Mom and how I know exactly what he means about the bad. Sometimes I wish I didn’t know the reasons she does the things she does. It would make it a lot easier to be angry instead of sad when she disappoints me. “It’s hard to hide from family.”
“You can say that again.”
Rounding the couch, I take the seat beside him, and he hands me the TV remote.
I’m not sure if it’s because he thinks I don’t want to watch what I think is a rerun of The Walking Dead or because he’s in too much pain to pay attention anyway.
His eyelids are barely at half-mast, and he hasn’t touched the food he seemed excited about.
“Aren’t the meds helping? When’s your next dose?”
“Two hours.”
Oof. I glance at the ice pack beside him, then the way his chest rises and falls, controlled like he’s being careful with each breath. He’s clearly miserable, and I could help if I could muster the courage to touch him.
That element of this connection is still untested, though.
Both times it happened, my hands were on him or his on me.
But we’ve also touched without anything happening: In my car after the hospital, when he held the door for me at breakfast and my arm brushed his stomach, momentarily striking me with the fear of God.
I’m still as clueless as ever as to how and when these visions will come about.
But he looks so pathetic.
“Come on, sit up.” His eyes pop open, and I gesture for him to turn his body away from me. “Let me help you.”
He shuffles to the side and I lift the back of his sweatshirt, pressing the ice against his ribs. He groans. Or moans. I’m not sure, but flutter, flutter, flutter .
“I’m sorry,” I say, my voice suddenly raspy. “Did that hurt?”
“No, it feels good. Thank you.”
He curves forward so I can lift his shirt a little higher than I dared to, revealing more freckles on his lower back that match the ones on his stomach. The ones I shouldn’t know about.
I quickly refocus on the purple and red streaks like claw marks wrapped around his side. “God, this looks so painful.”
“I really appreciate this, Noel. I know you didn’t agree to hang out with me to play nurse.” He scratches his neck. “I’ll be better in no time. I’ll take you somewhere fun, okay?”
The guilt in his voice is too much. “It’s fine, Jamie. Really. You’re actually doing me a favor.”
He snorts. “Sure.”