36. Jace
The scent of melted cheese and herbs and freshly baked baguettes with garlic butter fills the kitchen and living room as I plate the creamy pasta dish I made and then break the baguette in half, putting one half on Kayla’s plate and the other on mine.
I stopped on the way back from the psychic reading to pick up some ingredients, and a ready-made baguette that I could just pop in the oven, since I had a feeling that Kayla needed some comfort food. She didn’t say it, but I could see it in her eyes. And food is the perfect cure for heartache.
Lifting the plates, I turn towards the table. Kayla is sitting there with a glass of wine, looking lost in thought. But she looks up when she sees me approaching the table.
Happiness pulses across her face when she glances down at the food.
The sight of it almost stops my heart, and I can’t suppress the smile that spreads across my lips. After setting down her plate, I walk around the table and drop down into the chair opposite her. A soft thud sounds as I set down my own plate.
She picks up her knife and fork, but then stops. Her gaze darts up to my face, as if waiting for me to tell her that it’s okay to start eating. An amused breath escapes my lips, and I motion with my hand for her to go ahead while I try the wine.
She grins and then digs into the food.
A small moan spills from her lips, and she closes her eyes for a second as she chews.
My heart does a backflip in my chest.
God, I love watching her eat. I love cooking for her. I love how happy it makes her.
Setting down my wine glass, I pick up my own utensils and dig in as well. And damn it’s good, if I may say so myself. I really am an excellent cook. My brothers really should be paying me when I grace their tables with my extraordinary food. Suspicion flickers through me while I chew because I suddenly realize that that’s probably why they all invite me over so often. Especially around dinner time. And with a surprising amount of ingredients waiting in the fridge. Huh. Clever.
“I don’t actually want him dead, by the way.”
I blink, pulled out of my thoughts about my sneaky brothers, and look up to meet Kayla’s beautiful blue eyes from across the table.
“The psychic,” she clarifies. “I don’t actually want to kill him.”
Alarm pulses through me. “You don’t?”
“No. He’s a scumbag but…” She shrugs. “Anyway, I just thought I’d clarify that.”
“Oh. Shit.” Dropping my fork back onto my plate, I shove my hand into the pocket of my jeans and yank out my phone. “Hold on.”
She jerks back and blinks at me in shock. “Wait, are you serious?”
I shoot her a glance over my phone while I send a quick message to the group chat I have with my brothers, telling them to stop our preparations.
“Well, yeah,” I reply as I slide my phone back into my pocket. Lifting my shoulders in a shrug, I hold her gaze with a mix of bewilderment and seriousness. “You said you wanted him dead, so…”
Candlelight dances in her astonished eyes as she looks back at me. “You would actually do that? You would kill someone for me?”
“Of course I would.”
“No, I don’t mean in a bodyguard-protecting-me-from-dying kind of way. You would actually kill someone for me, someone who isn’t a direct threat, just because I asked you to?”
“Yes.”
I would do a lot more than that. In fact, I don’t think there is anything I wouldn’t do for her.
Kayla Ashford is unlike anyone I have ever met. She is fire and life and explosions of color. And she has somehow managed to blast her way into my heart with air horns and snarky comebacks and creative escape attempts and with her intelligence and endurance and power and how she never apologizes for who she is. How she owns herself and the very world around her.
And she does own everything. My heart included.
“You know, I’ve been thinking…” she begins, suddenly sounding uncharacteristically uncertain. “I wouldn’t actually mind it if you stayed a little closer to me from now on.”
My heart leaps into my throat and hope flares up inside me, bright as a star. But I try to temper it as I carefully reply, “I thought you didn’t like feeling your bodyguard looming over you all the time.”
“Maybe I don’t feel like you’re just a bodyguard anymore.”
I can barely breathe. “Maybe I don’t feel like you’re just a job assignment either.”
Her eyes light up, and I swear I can see relief pulse across her face. I almost laugh. How could she not have known that I felt the same? That I’ve been feeling this way for weeks? Granted, I haven’t even dared to admit it to myself. But still.
“So maybe, instead of lurking in the shadows, I want you to sit next to me in class and at lunch and all that from now on.” She pauses for a second before adding, “Like a boyfriend.”
My heart bursts, and a wide grin spreads across my mouth. “Like a boyfriend, huh?”
A grin full of challenge slides home on her own lips as she raises her eyebrows. “Unless you don’t think you can handle me?”
Pushing up from my chair, I lean over the table and wrap my hand around her jaw. Her eyes dance with mischief as I lean closer, a sly smile on my lips. “Oh, I think I can handle you just fine, little demon.”
She steals a vicious kiss from me and then laughs against my lips. It’s a laugh full of villainous promises and epic challenges. And it makes my whole soul come alive.