5. Jarvis
JARVIS
I wake up with her hair across my chest.
It is soft and smells like the lavender soap we used last night, mixed with something sweet that is just her. She is curled against me, her hand resting over my heart, breathing slowly and evenly. Jett is on her other side, one arm thrown over her waist, his face buried in the pillow.
I do not move. I lie there watching her.
Morning light slips through the curtains, catching the gold in her hair, the freckles on her shoulder, and the fading marks across her ribs from those bindings.
The marks are lighter now. Four days without them digging into her skin.
Four days of us helping her manage the pressure instead of hiding it.
Her eyelids flutter as she makes a small sound and settles deeper against me with her hand tightening on my chest. In her sleep, she seeks me out, and I know that means something.
Jett stirs. He lifts his head, blinks at me, and his mouth curves into a lazy grin.
"You're staring, brother," he whispers.
"She's worth staring at."
"Yeah," he says, his voice rough with sleep. "She is."
Jolie wakes slowly. Her eyes open, and for a second she looks confused, like she forgot where she was. Then she sees me. She sees Jett. Her cheeks flush pink, and she tries to pull the sheet up over her breasts.
I catch her wrist gently but firmly.
"Don't," I say.
She bites her lip and nods. I can feel how fragile her trust is, like thin ice under my fingers. One wrong move and she will shut down again.
"Morning, sunshine," Jett murmurs against her neck. He presses a kiss there, and she shivers. "How's my girl feeling?"
"Sore," she admits. Her voice is small. "But good. I feel... good."
I sit up, my back stiff from the bed. I swing my legs over the side and stretch, feeling the pull in my shoulders.
I'm forty-six years old, and I've earned every ache in my body.
But when I turn and see her watching me, her eyes tracing the tattoos on my arms and scars on my torso, I feel like I could level a building.
"We're working on the restaurant today," I say. "All three of us. No more hiding in your room, Jolie. You're part of this now."
She sits up, clutching the sheet to her chest despite what I just said. "I don't know enough about the restaurant business. I studied marketing, not hospitality management."
"And the restaurant needs marketing," Jett says. He rolls out of bed, completely unconcerned with his nakedness, and pulls on his jeans. "It needs someone who understands why twenty-year-olds aren't walking through the door. That's you."
She looks between us, and I see the war in her eyes. The part that wants to contribute fighting with the part that says she will fail and we will blame her.
"Shower," I say. "Coffee. Then we work."
The next several days fall into a rhythm I did not expect.
It's domestic and dangerous, the closest thing to a family I've had since Jett and I were kids sharing a bunk bed in our parents' cramped house.
Mornings start early. I am up at five thirty, as always.
I make coffee in the restaurant kitchen because the house coffeemaker is garbage.
Jett comes down around seven, grumbling about my obsession with dark roasts.
Jolie appears at eight, usually wearing one of my button-down shirts over her shorts, her hair still damp from the shower.
She blushes whenever she catches me looking. I look anyway.
We eat breakfast at the corner booth by the window. Jett jokes about my limited cooking skills, and Jolie laughs. It is a real laugh that crinkles her eyes and makes her cover her mouth. The first time I hear it, I stop mid-chew and stare. She notices, blushes, but keeps laughing.
After breakfast, we work.
Jolie sets up at the bar with her laptop, going through the restaurant's social media, website, and reviews. She takes notes in a small notebook, chewing on her pen when she concentrates. I watch her from the office doorway. I cannot help it.
On the third day, she comes to find me. She is holding a stack of printed screenshots, and her hands are shaking slightly.
"I have ideas," she says. "If you want to hear them."
"I want to hear them."
She lays them out on the desk. Her voice gets stronger as she speaks.
She points to the outdated Instagram page, the Facebook posts from two years ago, the website that looks like it was built in 2005.
She talks about target demographics, about brand storytelling, about making the restaurant feel like a place where young professionals want to bring dates instead of where their grandparents had anniversary dinners.
Her cheeks are flushed. Her eyes are bright.
She is alive in a way I have not seen before, and I realize this is what she was meant to do.
Not hide in a bedroom binding her chest. Not apologize for taking up space.
She was meant to stand in front of someone and say, here is what I know, and here is why it matters.
When she finishes, she looks at me like she is waiting for dismissal.
"Jett," I call out.
He appears in the doorway, coffee in hand. "Yeah?"
"Listen to this."
Jolie goes through it again, her voice steadier this time. Jett listens, his amusement shifting to genuine interest. He asks questions, and she answers without stumbling. When he challenges one of her points about pricing, she pushes back. She actually pushes back.
"She's right," Jett says, looking at me. "The Instagram presence is dead. We need what she's offering. The rebrand, the influencer outreach, the whole thing. It's smart. It's really smart."
I look at Jolie. She is holding her breath.
"You have a budget," I say. "Fifteen thousand to start. I'll get you a card tomorrow. You don't need my permission for every post. Use your judgment."
Her mouth opens. Closes. "Fifteen thousand?"
"Is it enough?"
"It's... yes. Yes, it's enough." She looks down at her hands, and I see them trembling. "You trust me with that?"
"I trust you with more than money, little one."
She looks up with wet eyes but doesn't cry, just gives a sharp, fast nod and gathers her papers with hands steadier than before.
That night, we celebrate.
Jett orders takeout from the Thai place two blocks over.
We eat at the bar, sharing pad thai and green curry while he tells stories about our early days in the restaurant business—the failures, the restaurants we bought that should have been torn down, and the time he accidentally set a commercial kitchen on fire trying to impress a waitress.
Jolie laughs so hard she snorts. She covers her face with her hands, mortified, and Jett crows with delight.
"Did you hear that? She snorted. Our girl snorts when she laughs."
"Shut up," she mumbles, but she is smiling. She is smiling so wide it hurts to look at.
She doesn't pull away, just threads her fingers through mine, and something in my chest loosens.
This is what it should have been, not the arrangement I had with her mother or a business deal dressed up as a marriage. Just this, her hand in mine, Jett's voice filling the room, the smell of curry, and the sound of her laugh.
But I see the calendar too.
It hangs on the wall near the kitchen door. A simple black and white grid. Jett put it there as a joke, circling day one in red marker when we started this. Now we are on day six. Then day seven. Then day eight.
Every morning, I catch her glancing at it, just for a split second. I see everything when it comes to her.
She's counting down, and I'm counting up.
On the evening of day nine, we run the trial dinner service.
It is not open to the public. Just the staff, a few local food bloggers Jolie invited, and us.
She has been working fourteen-hour days, directing the kitchen, coaching servers on the new menu, and posting behind-the-scenes content on the new Instagram account.
The engagement is already up. Comments are flooding in.
She did that. In nine days, she brings a dying restaurant back to life.
The service goes perfectly.
The bloggers take photos. The kitchen executes every dish.
Jolie moves through the dining room like she was born to it, checking on tables, adjusting a centerpiece, smiling at a server who looks nervous.
She's no longer the girl who trembled on the stairs with her blouse open, but a woman in full command.
When the last guest leaves, the staff cleans up and goes home. Jett locks the front door. I turn off the main lights, leaving only the soft amber glow of the bar lamps and the streetlights filtering through the windows.
Jolie is wiping down the corner booth. She has her back to us. Her hair is tied up in a messy knot, and she is wearing a black dress that hugs her waist, the one Jett bought her because he said her college clothes made her look like she was still studying for finals.
Jett walks up behind her, and I watch it happen without stopping it because I want to see.
He puts his hands on her hips, and she stills before relaxing back into him. I see the moment she surrenders when her head falls to the side and exposes her neck. Jett takes the invitation and presses his mouth there, and she makes a sound that carries across the empty dining room.
"Jett," she breathes.
"I've been watching you all night," he murmurs. His hands slide down her hips, over the curve of her ass, pulling her back against him. "Watching you command that room. Watching every man in here want what belongs to us. Do you know what that does to me, sunshine?"
She shakes her head. Her hands are flat against the table now, bracing herself.
"It makes me crazy," he says. "It makes me want to bend you over this booth and remind you exactly who you belong to."