“Mont’s cute, don’t you think?” Tessa said over the speakers’ frantic cascade of “From the Ritz to the Rubble.”
Eve blinked, caught unawares. “Erm . . . weren’t we just talking about macramé?”
Alex rolled her eyes. “Tess thinks that if you ask people unexpected questions they’ll get confused and tell the truth.”
“Oh. Well. Yes, your brother is cute.”
“Perfect,” Tess beamed. “Want to date him?”
“No, she doesn’t want to date him, genius,” Alex interjected. “Anyway, we’re supposed to be bonding. No man-talk. It’s boring.”
Tessa gave a mournful sigh. “Fine. Fine! Come on. Eve, lemon or lime?”
Eve wrinkled her nose as they approached the bar. “You need to be more specific. In general? In drinks? Appearance-wise? As the base flavor for a citrus drizzle cake?”
“Oh my God, all of those.”
“Okay, well, lemon is better in drinks—sharper. Limes look more interesting. But lemon goes better in cake, unless it’s cheesecake.”
“Best color for a Suzuki GSX?” Alex asked.
“I have no idea what a Suzuki is, but I’m going to say lime.”
“Amazing,” Alex said. “You don’t even know what you’re saying and you’re saying everything right.”
Eve laughed, feeling strangely . . . light. She’d never been in this situation, the kind where you met new people with the aim of making friends, yet didn’t experience the crushing weight of self-consciousness. With everyone except her sisters, she felt a slight pressure to perform, to hide away the most annoying parts of herself in order to be liked.
But she hadn’t bothered to do that with Jacob, because she hadn’t wanted him to like her, at first. So maybe now she was out of the habit, and she was forgetting to do it with the twins. Or maybe she simply wasn’t as worried about being annoying anymore, because she hadn’t annoyed herself in quite a while.
Here in Skybriar, there was no pandering to friends who found her more useful than lovable. No whining about mistakes she hadn’t bothered to fix in her journal. No avoiding her parents’ disappointed stares, pretending she couldn’t see them or didn’t deserve it. No wriggling out of the first difficulty she encountered. These days, Eve felt like someone who kept going, and she liked that someone, so she didn’t care quite as much if everyone else liked her, too.
Interesting.
“Eve,” Mont said, appearing in front of the barstools they’d commandeered and snapping her out of her thoughts. “The bloody hell are you doing with these two?”
“We’re best friends now,” Eve said, “like in Totally Spies.”
Mont rolled his eyes. “Has Alex told you she refuses to be Alex? Apparently, she’s Sam.”
“Has Eric told you he refuses to be Clover?” Tessa piped up.
“Uh, because I’m not a little white girl.”
“Don’t be so basic, brother-mine. Anyway, you’re uninvited from the trio. Eve is Clover now. Isn’t she perfect?”
Mont snorted. “Sure. What are you drinking?”
“Lemonade,” Eve said firmly. “Just lemonade, for me. Belvoir, if you have it.” She’d decided on the walk here that she couldn’t get drunk. Not even tipsy.
Because she had plans when she got home, and if Jacob decided to negate those plans, it wouldn’t be down to possible issues of consent.
“Yes, ma’am.” Mont winked, and walked off toward the fridge.
“Ah, hello?” Alex waved. “What about us? Service, barkeep. Service.”
“You can wait,” he said. “It’s good for you.”
Alex kissed her teeth and turned away from him, focusing on Eve. To the right, Tessa was doing pretty much the same thing. Eve suddenly realized she’d never met identical twins before. This close up, despite the differences in hair and makeup, it was kind of trippy.
“So,” Tessa said. “You’re a chef. I should tell you, I can’t cook.”
“She doesn’t need to cook,” Alex added. “She’s the provider. She just needs a happy little homemaker husband.”
“I thought you said no man-talk?”
“They’re like ants. They get into everything.”
Eve could see this escalating, so she interjected, “What do you provide?”
Tessa winked and kissed her admittedly impressive biceps. “Everything, baby.”
Alex rolled her eyes and pulled out her phone. “Look, this is Tess.” She opened up a YouTube channel called DIYTessa. The header was a picture of Tessa wearing red lipstick and waving a hot pink drill. “She makes shit. Like, builds furniture and paints walls and whatever else.”
“I create aesthetic spaces,” Tessa said smoothly. “From social media projects to local interior design contracts.” Suddenly she sounded like exactly the kind of person who could make money talking into a camera: confident, put together, with the polished charisma of a radio DJ or a TV newscaster. Then she grinned and turned to holler at her brother, “Hurry it up, big head,” and the moment passed.
Eve took Alex’s phone and scrolled through the videos. Upscaling IKEA Furniture, Creating a Feature Wall, DIY Macramé Planter—no wonder Tessa had been extolling the virtues on their way here.
“Wow,” Eve murmured. So many videos, so many views, so many followers. The woman beside her had built a DIY empire in more ways than one, and instead of feeling envious or lesser, Eve felt inspired. One day, she wanted to have something like this—well, not like this, not YouTube, but something to show for herself. Evidence of a passion committed to.
She would. She was on her way.
Except she realized abruptly that the passion she was imagining was Castell Cottage. Not years of party planning for old school friends who still made her uncomfortable, but years of high tea and recipes. Which was rather a problem, since she planned to leave by the end of the month.
Just the thought was making her queasy. Shit, shit, shit.
She bit her lip and handed back the phone. “That’s amazing, Tess. I’ll subscribe.”
“Oh, thanks. You’re a doll.”
“What do you do?” Eve asked Alex, not just because she needed to change the subject before she overthought—well, everything, but because she really wanted to know.
Alex ran a hand over her buzz cut and offered a sheepish grin. “Oh, I’m a mechanic.”
“She runs the only local autoshop,” Tessa corrected sternly. “And she rebuilds classic cars.”
“That part’s just a hobby.”
“It could be a business, if she was more confident,” Tessa singsonged. It had the cadence of an oft-repeated argument.
Alex waved at Montrose. “Seriously, get me some vodka.”
Eve giggled—and tried not to feel too at home with these wonderful people, in this wonderful place. Tried not to feel more and more threads twining between her soul and Skybriar. Tried, and spectacularly failed.
But she was still scheduled to leave in less than two weeks.
“Anyway,” Alex said, turning back to the group. “Eve. What’s your thing?”
“I take care of people,” Eve replied. Nothing had ever sounded so right.
* * *
Jacob found himself staring sightlessly at the clock for what must be the thousandth time and dragged his eyes back to his computer. Technically, he supposed, he didn’t need to update the accounts at 1:15 A.M. on a Thursday. Technically, it wasn’t even the end of the month yet, so he shouldn’t be doing this at all. But he needed to do something while Eve was out—something other than lying in bed, thinking about her, wondering if she was having fun. Something other than calling Mont to report on her movements, which Mont would almost certainly refuse to do, and which would make Jacob an actual, official creep.
It wasn’t that he wanted to monitor her, exactly. It was just—every five minutes, he found himself wondering if he’d done the right thing, if this evening was making her happy, and the desire to know for sure was kind of eating him alive.
&nb
sp; But. No creepy phone calls. Watching people too closely could stifle them. He’d learned that after his first girlfriend had found his spreadsheet tracking the details of their relationship and dumped him outside the local library.
So these accounts would have to do as a distraction. He turned back to his spreadsheet—this one thoroughly legitimate—and typed in a few more numbers before he heard it: the click of a key in the lock. That was the spare key to his private area, the one he’d given Eve shortly after discovering she’d, y’know, moved in.
She was back.
He wouldn’t go out to see her. That would be weird. That would be like handing someone an unexpected and unasked-for gift, then hovering as they opened it and demanding to know if they liked it. He also couldn’t go out there because he’d made a private vow to himself: no being alone with Eve at night. He could not be trusted. Jacob was certain of that.
So he typed nonsense into his spreadsheet, completely fucking up his equations, as the creak of her footsteps sounded down the hall. Ignore. Ignore. Ig—
A knock came at his office door.
Well, shit.
“Jacob?” she called softly. “The light’s on.”
She’d hated it. She’d hated the entire night and was horrified by his presumption. She’d felt corralled into an evening of socializing, like a child, which was frankly Jacob’s worst nightmare, so—
“Can I come in?”
To hit him with a brick, probably. Ah, well. Better face the consequences of his actions like a man. “Yes,” he said, his voice rough with—tiredness. Probably.
The door opened, and Eve didn’t look like she was going to hit him with a brick. For one thing, she didn’t even have a brick. Just a pair of white Converse with neon, rainbow laces, hanging from one hand—Converse that had presumably been on her feet, once, because now her feet were bare. And she probably didn’t intend to hit him with the shoes, because she was smiling. She was smiling so big that her cheeks plumped and her eyes crinkled at the corners and his heart began to thump a frantic dance beat against his ribs.
“Hi,” she said, leaning against the doorway. God, he wished she hadn’t done that. She was wearing this tiny white dress, a silky, strapless thing with random flecks of color, that clung to every last one of her curves. And there were many. Her hips strained the fabric, pulling it so tight she might as well be fucking naked. She leaned forward slightly, her movements lazy and loose, and her cleavage basically spilled over the neckline. That dress was precarious, to say the least. It was clearly his duty, as the nearest authority figure, to watch her breasts as closely as possible. The minute they bounced free, he would spring into action and . . . put them back in? No, that didn’t seem right.
“I know what you did,” she murmured, and he immediately thought back to this morning—to the way he’d fucked his hand underneath the spray of the shower while she sang “Good Morning Baltimore,” of all things, on the other side of the wall.
But obviously, she wasn’t talking about that.
“Jacob Wayne,” she said as she finally stepped into the room, “you are the sweetest man alive.”
He flinched. “No.”
She sprawled in the chair opposite his desk. “Yes.” She raised her legs and put her feet on said desk. Her toes were painted glittery pink. Her lip gloss was glittery pink, too. Bright and brilliant and obnoxious as fuck. He wanted to see it all over his dick.
“Did you organize tonight because you were sick of me and wanted me out of your hair?”
“No,” he repeated, louder and faster than before.
Eve flashed him a smug smile. “Thought not.”
Shit. It was slowly dawning on Jacob that Eve knew him well enough to possibly guess at his motives for tonight. His motives being that he was pathetically in love with her and he would refracture his own wrist, or in this case, ask Theresa and Alexandra Montrose for a favor, to make her happy. “I just wanted you to make some more friends so you could stop talking my ear off.”
“You love when I talk your ear off.”
“You’re a very social being. I was worried you might die in captivity.”
“Now, that, I believe,” she said, and he experienced a moment of relief before she went on. “You were looking after me, weren’t you? You do that rather a lot.”
Shit, shit, shit. “No,” he said flatly. “You don’t need looking after. You’re a grown woman.”
“You do that a lot, too.” Her glossy lips tipped up into a smile. “The whole ‘respecting me’ bit.”
“It’s not a . . . bit.”
“I know. That’s what makes it a panty-dropper.” And then she spread her legs.
Dear fucking Christ.
He saw it all happen in slow motion. Her feet on his desk, slowly parting. His direct view up the length of her legs, and the way those lush thighs separated until he could see straight up her fucking skirt. She wasn’t wearing any underwear. Her pussy was bare and beautifully exposed, as pouting and glossy as her wicked mouth, and at the sight his cock became a fucking crowbar.
He wrapped his good hand around the arm of his desk chair, felt the leather creak and stretch under his white-knuckled grip. “Eve.”
She batted her eyelashes. “Yes, Jacob?”
“You’re drunk.”
“I most certainly am not,” she replied with a sweet smile. “You see, I have been trying really super hard not to jump your bones for a while now, and I have been succeeding. Barely. Even though you’re so sweet and so—” She made this tiny little growl that shot right through him, that brought heat to his throat and yet more blood to his thick cock, and Jacob thought he might die. “You’re so you,” she said. “You’re so firm and funny and ridiculous and precise. You are so fucking you, and I love it.”
His heart almost jumped out of his throat. If he hadn’t slammed his mouth shut, it might have flown out and landed in her lap.
“I’ve been trying,” she repeated. “But tonight, as soon as I realized that you’d taken it upon yourself to organize friends and fun for me, it became clear that I couldn’t hold out anymore. I don’t just want to fuck you, Jacob. I want—I want you to be mine.” She stumbled over the words, but she didn’t stop. She kept going, fast and determined and perfect, so fucking perfect. “I didn’t drink a drop of alcohol all night, and you may call Montrose if you don’t believe me. I drank nothing but lemonade because I knew I was coming right back here to sit on your dick. So. What do you think about that?”
He thought he was on fucking fire, that’s what. He thought he’d been hit by lightning, and the electricity was destroying him even as it lit him up, and he would beg for it again and again if given half the chance. He thought the idea of Eve, out all night with him on her mind, making choices with the intention of ending up here, might actually rip him in two. That’s what he thought.
But what he said, through the steel vise of his jaw, was, “You told me you didn’t want to do this.”
“I changed my mind. It’s a lady’s prerogative. I was hoping you might change yours, too, but that’s up to you.”
“You don’t think—I’m—” God, Jacob, don’t ask this question. But he had no bloody control when it came to her. “You don’t think I’m bad for your, er, personal growth, and so on?”
She licked her lips, shifted slightly, and his gaze was dragged back to the treasure between her thighs before he pulled himself away. Eyes up. If he was going to make good choices here, the kind of choices that didn’t ruin everything, he had to concentrate.
Unfortunately, Eve chose that moment to say, “I don’t think you could be bad for me if you tried.”
It was quite difficult, after that, not to throw common sense out the window and lunge at her over the table. Thankfully, Jacob had a lifetime of control to fall back on during this, his hour of greatest need. “Let me make it clear that I don’t—” He swallowed for a moment before pushing past his discomfort, laying the raw truth between them. “I don’t just want to slee
p with you. I want everything. I need this to be real. So we can’t start something if it’s going to end with you getting bored and disappearing on me.” Don’t. Please don’t ever disappear.
“Good,” she said softly. “Stop expecting me to vanish, Jacob. I’m not going anywhere.”
He couldn’t take her words literally—people said things like that all the time and didn’t mean it as an unbreakable vow. But he understood what she was trying to say, understood that she was serious about this. And the knowledge pulsed through his body like something more vital than blood.
She leaned forward and continued, “You asked me, a while ago, what I wanted out of life. I’ve been thinking about that a lot, and the answers are getting clearer. I want to be happy. I want to feel like myself. Well, Jacob, you make me happy, and I’m always myself around you, and that—that means a lot. That means more than you know. So I’m asking you to touch me tonight, and if you do, it won’t be a mistake. It’ll be a choice. And it will mean that things are different from now on. That we’re different together.”
Fuck, he loved her. He loved her, he loved her, he loved her.
And if she was brave enough to choose him, he would bloody well choose her back.
* * *
Tonight had been perfect, but through it all, a quiet, steady urgency had hummed just behind Eve’s breastbone. She’d caught herself, a few times, rubbing the place where her heart was because it physically ached. Now she was with Jacob, and the ache was replaced by a melting warmth that flooded the air between them.
She was making the right decision, for once. Of this, she was absolutely sure. Eve was meant to be here with him, and her confidence in that fact was a liberation all its own.
Then he stood and walked around the desk toward her, and conscious thoughts faded away in favor of more basic impulses. Little electric flashes spread from low in her belly, and they felt like want, hunger, need.
Act Your Age, Eve Brown Page 23
