Chapter 16
SIXTEEN
KYRA
“Rough day?” I cross the street to where Jinx waits for me.
He picks up a takeaway coffee off the top of the stone wall and hands it to me. “A lot on my mind.”
“Anything I can help with?”
It’s become a habit. When he doesn’t have club business keeping him busy, he waits for me to finish work and we go for a walk through the gardens, often stopping beneath one of the oak trees when the weather permits, or finding shelter in the bandstand.
It’s cathartic. Peaceful. Sometimes neither of us says a word; we simply watch the raindrops hit the broad green leaves and let the gentle sounds of nature take away the stresses of our lives.
And all the while, the people continue to gossip to my father about whom I choose to spend my time with. To the point I’ve started waving at the nosy fuckers when they pass by, failing at hiding their interest in our coffee dates.
“Nothing I can tell you about.” Jinx pushes to his feet. “You wanna go somewhere different today?”
“Why?”
He tilts his head back, indicating the small party that already fills the bandstand in the center of the gardens.
“Oh.” The weather isn’t exactly great, but there’s no hint of rain, so I guess we’ll be okay. “Where did you want to go?”
“How about you take me to see this house of yours?” He smirks.
I tilt my head and smile. “I haven’t got the keys yet. You’re early by about two days.”
He rolls his lips, glancing down the street as though to come up with a Plan B.
He’s not as inked as some of the other members, but Jinx doesn’t have clean skin either.
The peek of artwork shows from beneath his wavy hair, curling behind his ear to almost meet the line of his trimmed beard.
I like it. It’s subtle, highlighting the strong column of his neck.
“How about we take a walk up the main street,” he suggests, “and I can buy you a housewarming present.”
“Aren’t I supposed to have a party for you to be able to do that?”
“Then it’s a new home gift. A welcome back token. Whatever the hell you’d like to call it.” He smirks.
“Fine.” I turn left and start walking. “But you’re not buying me anything. Your company, while I browse, will be gift enough.”
He mutters something that sounds like, “Try and stop me,” yet feigns nonchalance when I glance his way, sipping at his coffee.
“You know, buying the house has made us doing this easier.”
He glances at me. “How so?”
“Because if I wasn’t already moving out, I think my father would have kicked me out for defying his order.”
“Order?” Jinx frowns. “You said he didn’t want you to see me. Are you telling me the asshole actually ordered you not to talk to me?”
I nod. “What else did you expect?
“Fuck’s sake, Kyra. You’re a grown ass adult capable of making your own decisions.”
“That’s what I said.”
“What else has he said about me?”
I glance at him as we walk. Something about the way he asked the question is a little off. Stiff. “Not much. He doesn’t talk about work at home, so that basically rules out any interactions you two would have.”
“Huh.”
“Why?” Mrs. Tallomore comes to mind. “What should he talk about?”
Jinx gives me a side-eye. “Nice try.”
“What?” I shrug one shoulder. “You want to know more from me. Is it not fair that I want to do the same with you?”
“It’s fair,” he cedes. “But not a realistic expectation.”
And here it goes again—their damn code of silence. “How am I supposed to get to know you better, mister, if this—” I give his cut a flick “—rules out most topics of conversation.”
He studies me a beat before returning his focus to the pavement ahead. “You could ask what my favorite food is.”
“Why? So I can cook for you?”
He smiles. “Or what I do in my downtime.”
“Easy.” I smirk. “You waste far too many hours trying to figure out my user name.”
He tilts his head. “Perhaps. But I have other hobbies too.”
“Like?”
Jinx sets a hand to his chest. “Why, are you asking me a question I can actually answer?”
“Touché.”
His chuckle warms my heart, blooming through my chest. “I read.”
I stare at him, wide-eyed, and stop walking to face him. “Pardon?”
“What?” He folds his arms. “Did you expect me to be illiterate?”
“Not exactly, but I guess I never saw you as a bookworm.”
“You can blame Chaos.” He nods for us to continue and resumes walking.
“He devours information about anything and everything. History, philosophy, science, psychology. He loves learning new things, and so he always found places to hide books around the club so that our fathers didn’t know what he was doing. ”
“They wouldn’t approve of him reading?”
“Not reading, as such.” He squints a little. “But topics that made him better than them. They had fragile egos. His father the most.”
“Oh.” Sounds hard. “How does this relate to you, though?”
“He forced me to go to the library one day so he could exchange books. I got bored waiting for him, so I picked up the nearest thing to me—a thriller on the returns cart—and started skimming the pages. Checked it out under his name since I didn’t have a card, and the rest is history.”
“Thrillers, huh?” I tease him with my smile. “Don’t get enough of that in your day-to-day?”
“It started as thrillers,” Jinx clarifies, “and then progressed to historical novels.”
“Romance?” I raise an eyebrow.
His lips thin in a veiled smile. “Wouldn’t that just tickle you pink?”
It totally would.
“But no. War novels, mostly. The odd knights and kings kind of deal. Stuff with complex issues for the people to overcome.”
“I had a friend who read romance novels in college.”
“Didn’t like them?”
“Didn’t like the hope they gave me that nice guys exist.”
He stops walking when we reach an intersection and turns toward me. “Ouch.”
I lift my eyebrows. “You’re trying to tell me you can be a part of this,” I say, waving my hands at his badges and labels, “and be a one hundred percent through and through nice guy?”
He chews his bottom lip and stares down at me over the rise of his cheekbones. “So you,” Jinx counters, “Can charge people for those kinds of subscriptions and tell me you’re still a through-and-through nice girl?”
The label sends a little thrill along my spine. “You have me there.”
The road clears for us to cross, and Jinx leads me toward the antique store on the opposite corner. “Figured we could start here.”
“How’d you know this is where I wanted to go?”
“Because you don’t seem like a new and flashy kind of girl. You seem more like the kind of woman who wants a connection to the things she buys.”
Well, hot damn. Maybe he watched me closer than I gave him credit for back in school. “You’d be right.”
I walk inside and take a deep breath, relishing the dusty, leathery, and brassy smell of things that have been well-loved and cherished, time and time again.
Where most people would see a room full of junk, I see tiny warriors, proud of their ability to bring joy to people’s lives over and over again.
Where mass-produced trinkets have lost their luster and ended up in landfill, these soldiers have stood the test of time, gathering tiny battle wounds that paint a rich history.
My imagination runs riot in these kinds of stores, wondering who owned these items before and how they ended up here. Were they a gift initially? An impulse buy? Did they stand proud on someone’s mantle or table for decades before moving on to a new home?
I reach over a pair of candelabras and carefully extract a stone statue, the base no bigger than the palm of my hand.
It’s a rabbit, but unlike so many other decor items I’ve seen, it’s not in the typical pose on its hind legs, or crouched low to shrink itself.
No. Its head is tossed back on a slight angle, one front leg extended forward, and its barrel body rolled slightly as though ready to run.
I love it.
The curiosity it invokes. The wonder.
“Interesting,” Jinx mutters as he nods to my find.
“That’s why I’ll have it.”
He points to a brass candlestick with decorative leaves along the stem. “What about that? It’s old and vintage-like.”
“Too common. But this…” I retrieve a marble-like bust of a woman wearing a wide-brimmed hat, her face hidden. “This is curious.” I can picture it placed on an entry table with a lush green houseplant spilling tendrils all around the base.
My shoulders square, breath pulling a little deeper. I’ve searched for this feeling for so long—the sheer joy of doing something just for me, that’s wholly me—and never quite managed to grasp it more than a few fleeting times.
But now. I sigh, looking about the space. Now I get to create a home that’s all mine.
Not some landlord’s. Not some college dorm. And not my parents’.
Mine.
Jinx hangs back in silence, seemingly content to follow me through the store as I push myself to the point of overwhelm with all the curiosities there are to take in. I visited the store the first week I returned, but with no house to put anything in, my mind wasn’t really in the game.
Today… The man will regret suggesting this is what we do.
“If you want to move on, let me know,” I whisper, somehow filled with the need to stay quiet and respectful in the cluttered shop. “I could be here for hours.”
“So be here for hours.” He reaches for the items in my hands. “I like watching you do things that make you happy.”
He holds my gaze, and I can’t find it in me to look away; the moment feels too important. There’s something he doesn’t say, but I can’t tell if it relates to why he enjoys this or me. Regardless, it seems like something I shouldn’t ignore.
“What would you pick if you were decorating your house?”
He tilts his head a little, appearing amused by the question. I watch as he returns to the front of the store, gathers a basket for my things, and then comes back to my side. “Are you running out of ideas?”
“I’m thinking outside the box.”