Chapter 24
JAMIE
The door slides shut behind her, and my brother frowns.
“I thought she knew,” Patterson says.
“You’re an asshole.”
“Jamie.”
“Shut up.” I grab the bottle off the counter and my jacket off the back of the couch, and I follow after her.
Weeks of sneaking around a town of eight hundred people, and the one day we left to be alone, we were seen. It’s thirty-five degrees outside, and she looks down at the valley like the cold doesn’t affect her. The Ferris wheel turns slowly at the opposite end of the square.
I place my coat over her shoulders, and she snuggles into it.
“How long did you know?” she asks.
“I found out this morning. I didn’t want to ruin your day because nothing could be done until I spoke with Patterson, who was clearly on his way here.
” I stare out into the darkness. “I wanted to have one good night before everything went to hell. I’m really fucking sorry. I thought we were safe,” I explain.
She sucks in a deep breath, and it comes out as a puff of smoke. “They’re trying to figure out who I am.” Blaire looks at me for a second too long, then back down at the valley. “I don’t think I’m prepared for what’s to come. I feel it bubbling under the surface.”
“Yeah?” I ask. “Is it bubbling like The Tower card?”
Her head turns so fast that the coat slides off one shoulder.
“Sudden upheaval. A collapse. This card burns down illusions. Isn’t that what you said?”
“I thought you didn’t believe it?”
“I might not, but you do,” I say. “You told me what survives is forever.”
She downs the rest of her wine. “You know what else is forever? The internet.”
“I guess you’re right. But even then, people forget.”
She read my fortune, knowing my present was The Tower card. If anything, she predicted this all. I remember every word of it. I remember everything she’s ever said to me. Forgetting her isn’t something I ever want to do.
“I suppose we can either laugh or cry about it. Those are our two options right now,” she says.
I take the empty glass out of her hand and refill it. She’s quiet for a second, eyes focused just past me. I glance over my shoulder and see Patterson making a plate of pasta.
“Meeting him was a strange experience. It felt … off.”
I snicker. “Great way to describe him. I’m sure he gave you the warning speech? The ruthless heartbreaker one?”
Her eyes trail back to me. “Yeah, he did. Word for word, I’d guess.”
“Did it work?”
“You tell me. I’m still here.”
“Yeah, it only scares away the weak ones early,” I admit. “We both know you’re anything but weak.”
It’s a test Patterson gives women who are interested. One that Blaire passed.
“I’ll have to make a statement to save my brother’s marriage from being scrutinized. What would you like me to tell the public?”
Blaire shakes her head. “I don’t know the answer. I’ve never been in this situation before.”
“I can have my publicist give the just friends spin with a plea for privacy.”
“Just friends. Perfect.”
I catch a hint of something in those words. Is it disappointment maybe?
I thought she’d be relieved.
“How long until they stop caring?” she asks.
“A week. Ten days max. As long as nothing feeds the flame.”
The breeze blows through her hair, and I can smell her sweet skin.
“Your statement won’t convince my friends or Doris Jean,” she says.
She lists the reasons why that explanation only goes so far. Winter and Josie are already suspicious. She thinks Autumn and Julie have been trying to hook her up with me. Doris Jean has already started her own matchmaking committee to link us together.
“In the real world, a public statement doesn’t matter. The images speak for themselves,” she says. “So, what do you suggest we do about that? There is no putting the spirit back in the body.”
My eyebrow quirks up, and I smile. “That right there is why I fucking adore you.”
She tries to hold back a smile but loses the fight. I wrap my arm around her, and she wiggles away from me.
“You’re freezing.”
“Yeah. I’m keeping my snack warm right now.”
Blaire playfully swats me away, and I pull her in close.
“We’ll figure it out. Okay?”
“Okay,” she says, looking up into my eyes.
“Keep looking at me like that, and I’m going to have to kick my brother out of his own house.”
Laughter falls from her red lips. “It’s okay.”
“Now, shall we go eat?” I ask.
“Yeah, totally ready to eat your love pasta,” she says, and I shake my head.
“I’m going to fucking kill him,” I mutter, sliding the door open for her.
I shake off a shiver because it was cold as fuck out there. Patterson looks up at us with a mouthful. We hold a silent conversation, and he instantly relaxes. All is well in the world—for now. I pull Blaire’s chair out for her at the spots I reserved for us.
“This is romantic,” Blaire says, chuckling, as I move to the stovetop to make our plates. “I get to have dinner with two of you.”
Patterson wipes his mouth. He stands, opening another bottle of wine. “I think you need more of this.”
“Thanks,” she says. “So, tell me something about Jamie that not many people know.”
I cough.
“Hmm.” Patterson glances at me, then back at her. “The things I could share.”
“Careful, Pattycakes,” I warn.
“Well, while I was dating Kendall, I made my brother pretend to be me to see if she could actually tell the two of us apart.”
Blaire glances at me. “And you did it?”
“I was forced. I owed a favor,” I tell her, setting the food in front of her.
She looks down at it and smiles. “Wow. This is fancy.”
“Glad you think so. It’s the only thing I can cook,” I admit. “Other than eggs.”
The next hour is the two of them against me, and I lose every time I speak. My brother needed one car ride to tell her about my crush meal and how he’d married my ex-fiancée. In return, Blaire trades him the cellar story, where we were locked in the bottom of her house.
“Seems like you’ve had a good time,” Patterson says to me.
“Yeah.” I’m grinning wide. “Coming here was a good idea.”
“Glad I thought of it,” Patterson tells me.
Blaire wants to know other things about me, and my brother lights up like she asked for his greatest hits.
He answers her questions and is even vulnerable about how he believed Kendall still had a thing for me and how he was wrong.
She never wanted me. I was always his replacement.
Honestly, totally okay with that. I’d originally dated her to be a dick because I could. I liked her.
“We retired all twin swapping once I proposed,” Patterson explains. “Kendall would fuck us up if we tried to do that again.”
“She saw through it?” she asks.
“Yeah. It’s a feeling, apparently. I don’t know what that means, but that’s what she tells me,” Patterson explains.
“You two have different energies,” Blaire tells him.
“Ahh, but we can snap on each other’s personality effortlessly. When we’re wearing the same thing, only the best figure it out. Our parents still fuck up,” I tell her.
“I’d like to test that theory,” she says matter-of-factly.
Patterson shakes his head. “Oh, you’re so confident.”
“She is,” I say, meeting her eyes.
The love of your life. Your future. Your forever.
“Tomorrow then,” I offer.
“If you pass this test, well, I guess that means you move to the next level,” Patterson tells her.
Blaire is almost giddy at the thought of this. We finish eating, and Patterson picks up our plates and shoos me away as Blaire moves into the living room. I follow behind her and hook my finger with hers, leading her upstairs. When we’re alone, our lips crash together.
“I’ve been waiting all night to do that,” I confess against her lips, knowing no matter what happens, we’ll figure us out. “Stay,” I say.
She pulls me closer. “I’m not going anywhere.”
There are three more Saturdays before Halloween. I plan to spend every one of them with her. If the world wants to watch, they can take a seat while I eat her for dessert.
“I can’t get enough of you,” she says desperately. “This is so bad for both of us.”
“Who cares?” I run my fingers into her hair. “I have no fucks to give.”
Her fingers twist into my shirt, and she pushes it off my body.
“Kissing you feels like magic,” she says.
I unzip the dress from her body, and it drops to the floor.
Her breathing grows ragged as my fingers slide up her spine.
My eyes trail down her body and back up again.
With confidence, she stands, wearing nothing but high combat boots that go to her knees, a bra that barely contains her breasts, and some lacy black panties.
“You’re a fantasy.”
She presses her palm against my chest and walks me backward toward the bed like she owns the room. Then I realize we’re surrounded by glass walls.
“Hold that thought,” I tell her, knowing my brother’s downstairs.
She tracks me like a lioness watching her prey, and I fucking love being under her gaze. I move across the room and press a button I’ve never used since I arrived. The glass fogs from the bottom up, creating a sheet of frosted walls.
Blaire smiles. “Fun party trick.”
“We needed privacy.” I glide toward her like I’ve been summoned.
My lips brush against hers, and she pulls me closer. She reaches for my belt and pulls me in by it. There’s nothing shy about what she wants tonight. She’s greedy, ravenous, as she unzips my slacks and pushes them down.
“I’m starting to think you like being caught,” I growl in her ear, sitting her on the bed.
“What if I kinda do?” She takes her time removing the boots from her feet. She lies back, keeping herself propped up on her elbows.
“Bad fucking girl.”
A cocky smirk slides across my lips as I kiss the inside of her thigh.
I scrape my teeth across her skin, nibbling as I kiss.
Her hips lift off the bed, searching for me, as I hook my fingers into her panties and slide them from her body.
When I finally taste her, she gasps and says my name with her fingers through my hair.
I groan against her, and the sound makes her hips buck. She’s sweet and slick. I keep going until her thighs are shaking.
“Jamie.” My name comes out of her like a prayer.
I answer by sliding two fingers into her and curling them. Her back arches off the bed. She tries to stay quiet for the sake of the man who’s downstairs and fails immediately. A hand flies up to cover her own mouth. I reach over and pull it away, lacing our fingers against the sheets.
The TV volume increases.
She laughs, breathless.
I work her clit with my mouth and tongue and find a rhythm that ruins her.
When she comes hard, she’s not quiet. Her whole body pulls tight and lets go.
The last of today’s fear leaves her right there under my hands.
I work her as she throbs through it. Whatever she wants, whenever she wants it, the answer is already yes.
She hasn’t caught on to that yet, and I’m in no rush to tell her.
I kiss my way back up her body while she’s still trembling. I let her taste herself on my lips. She hums, pleased.
I flick her bra open with one hand, and it joins the dress on the floor.
She raises an eyebrow at the skill. “Of course the Fling King can snap a bra off in one motion.”
“Lucky you.”
When I finally push into her, we both swear at the same time. Her sigh transforms into a moan when I start to move.
“Don’t hold back,” she demands, nails scratching down my back. “I won’t break.”
I give her exactly what she asked for. The TV downstairs is fighting for its life.
Weeks ago, I confessed that love burned out, that it always left me faster than it arrived.
This is different from anything I’ve experienced.
Tonight, with her eyes locked on mine, I quit calling it anything but what it is.
I’m falling in love with her. The words climb up my throat, and I swallow them back down.
When I’m ready to admit it, I want her to believe every word.
The second one is more intense than the first, and she takes me with her. My vision blurs, and I say her name into her neck like it’s the only word I know.
We end up wrecked and tangled with blankets over half our bodies. Her lipstick is gone. My hair is a mess.
“I don’t want this to end yet.” She hums, curling up against me.
“Music to my fucking ears.” I hold her in my arms.
I don’t want this to end ever. This stopped being an arrangement a while ago, and I know that. She won’t admit it, and neither of us will say it, so I’ll keep dancing around it.
She lies draped across me, her fingers rubbing the hematite.
“Do you think we’ll make it through this?” she asks, searching my face.
“Of course,” I tell her without a dash of hesitation in my voice.
A month ago, I joked that I was under her spell. She never cast a thing, but I’m bewitched anyway. If this is what breaking the family curse feels like, I’d have done it sooner.
“Blaire.”
“Hmm?”
“Why was the rosemary dropping at Sophia’s interesting?”
She laughs. “It’s a remembrance herb. It’s a wedding herb. Not to be forgotten.”
The adrenaline rush happens.
“Your heart is racing,” she whispers, threading her fingers through mine. I kiss her knuckles. “Why?”
A wedding herb threw itself off a shelf at our feet, and a stranger told me she was my future and forever. I’ve never believed in signs. But they keep arriving.
She lifts her head off my chest and props her chin on her hand so she can see my face. “No lying, not to each other. That was your rule.”
Every question I’ve asked her, wanting the truth, she’s answered, even the ones that embarrassed her.
“I’m not going to lie to you,” I say. “But I’m also not going to answer.”
“That’s cheating.” She pokes me in the stomach, and I laugh.
“It’s the best I’ve got tonight.”
She studies me. “That’s the response you’re getting next time.”
“I’ll take it,” I say, smiling.
She lowers her head back down and settles against me. “Fine. Keep your secrets, Cross.”
“And you keep yours, Blaire Witch.”
Her thumb goes back to the stone. “Don’t let them turn me into a joke,” she whispers.
“I won’t. I promise.”
I stay awake, holding her as she falls asleep.
Tomorrow, I’ll put out the friend statement, give her a twin test, and figure out how to take the pressure away from her friend group.
My calendar used to be full of meetings and galas.
Now, it’s this, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Actually, I don’t want it to end. But I know it will.
On the nightstand, my phone lights up. I pick it up without letting her go. There are a dozen texts from numbers I don’t recognize and one from my brother.
Patterson
Rumors are spreading. It’s bad. Call me in the morning.
I lock my phone and put it right back where it was. I’ll deal with the bullshit tomorrow. Tonight is still ours.