bucket chairs. I walk over and drop against the U-shaped cushion. “Yeah. I think so.”
“Well, color me impressed.”
Though he’s still fixing his stupefied look Kara’s way, I shake my head. “Color me the idiot boyfriend who made it impossible for her to sleep last night.”
My buddy swings his head around, eyes narrowed. “And that’s a bad thing…why?”
“Because I was passed out.” I have the grace to grimace. “And, I think, snoring because of it.”
Jesse chokes on thin air. “Passed out? As in blotto? Trashed? Hammered?”
“All of the above.” I grimace. “And probably a few more.”
“And I thought the girl with the forest-fire eyes would be my freakiest takeaway from the night.”
I pull at the tie holding my hair in its tidy queue. If I’ve still got ten more minutes of a break, comfort is feeling damn important. “I’m thanking you ahead of time for keeping that little freaky fun fact tucked into the confidential file, man.”
“Of course.” He’s got a smirk at the ready but saves whatever tease is hiding behind his lips. “You’re really in it with this woman, aren’t you?” He’s as locked in to this truth as any scientific statement.
I raise my head. Clench my jaw. “In it? What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You know damn well what.”
He’s got me and he knows it. We both do.
I grit out a soft curse and rake back my hair again. Jesse loosens his steepled fingers.
“It’s…complicated,” I admit after a pause that stretches far too long.
He tosses back his head and groans. “You did not just go there.”
“Did it. Meant it. And believe me, you don’t want to know how complicated.”
“How about you try me?”
“How about we pretend you didn’t ask?”
“It’s a simple question, Kane,” he rebuts. “Are you in love with her or not?”
“Tea is for savoring, not spilling,” I mutter.
“I’m not asking for all the dirty details, though you know I won’t turn them down. But right now, I’m asking one simple question. How do you actually feel about her?”
I crisscross my own fingers. A better option than letting him see my full stew. “Simple question,” I concede. “But not such a simple answer.”
An admission I had no trouble giving Reg and Mom this afternoon. But would I have spewed it so easily, knowing Mom would nearly faint and Reg would be dialing up her version of the National Guard?
Not that Jesse will resort to either. The man knows my entire romantic dossier. Now he has confirmation of just how different Kara is, in more ways than the obvious. With more intimate intel on top of that, he’ll insist on helping in every way he can—including, but not limited to, facing any of my divine relatives or diving into hell itself by my side. Because he’s Jesse. My ride or die.
The man has one of the most brilliant minds I know. He’s undoubtedly ascertained that I’m protecting his intrepid ass. Doesn’t mean he’s happy about it. Not by a far stretch. He makes that clear as blood on glass with his defeated snarl.
“So that’s how it’s going to be now? Out with simple Max. In with fabulous, famous, ‘complicated’ Maximus?”
“Jesse.” It’s far from the apology I intend or the one he deserves. But my system’s a hive of stress and fear, giving birth to more anxiety by the second. It’s my only constant right now.
“It’s fine.” From somewhere in his trendy jacket pockets, he pulls out the long, sticky plastic rope that’s his version of a stress ball.
“It’s not fine,” I argue. “But it’s just the way things have to be for a while.”
“I get it.” He whips the wide end of the rope, landing it to the back of another bucket chair with a soft thwack. “Optics. Branding. You have to stay red carpet ready, after all.”
“Damn it. None of that is relevant to this.”
“Says the guy who’s been holding court in McCarthy’s living room in a pretty custom suit?”
“Yeah,” I counter. “Exactly that guy—who knows it’s often easier to hide in the light than the shadows.”
“Hiding!” Jesse’s so baffled, he nearly pitches it into a question. “What the hell from?” He’s unnervingly quick about reading the new strain in my posture. “Or who the hell from?”
I push out rough air from my nose. “I met my father.”
For possibly the first time ever, the guy goes totally speechless. Doesn’t stop him from trying for words, though—and eventually they come out in a croak I’ve never heard from him before.
“You’re absolutely serious.”
“I absolutely am.” It’s not a revelation I’d