Blood of Zeus (Blood of Zeus #1) - Meredith Wild Page 0,20
I have a shred of control around him. But after tonight, I’m not sure I can pretend any longer, regardless of his protests.
“Not yet. But I don’t think I can stay away until I figure it out.”
Chapter Eight
Maximus
Jesse’s off-key humming echoes off the walls. I wince across my dining room table, the main piece of furniture in the dining nook of my downtown LA apartment.
When I only have to take a step to grab my next slice of pizza off the kitchen counter, the setup is primo. However, when I have to debate grabbing headphones to drown out Jesse’s musical contributions during our weekend paper-grading marathon, it has me wishing I’d signed a lease on a place in the building with more square footage.
But being on the top floor means I get vaulted ceilings and a balcony with no roof, for which every inch of my looming frame thanks me daily. But right now, as the guy continues to prove nothing music-related will ever be on his résumé, this place feels entirely too small.
“Dude,” I interject, finally unable to take any more. “If this is payback for our session in the pen at Venice this afternoon…”
“Of course not,” Jesse says while tapping on his laptop. “I don’t waste my time on payback. You know that. The second that word gets tossed around, you start to suspect shit.”
“Should’ve known better than to ask.” Some things in this world, like death, taxes, the Santa Ana winds, and my best friend’s snark, will never change. While I can do without pondering the first three, especially as the winds whip a strong gust across my balcony, life wouldn’t be complete without the latter.
He waggles his brows. “But you are going to ask how things went last night with Stacey, right?”
“Stacey?” I rock my head back. “Who’s that?”
“Come on, geezer. Keep up. Stacey? From Sacramento? Comes down here once a month for business and her favorite hottie on wheels? You’ve met her before.”
His description jars some memory fragments from a few months ago, but I stick to my original thought. “What happened to your strawberry girl from less than a week ago? Misty, right?”
“Well, I didn’t kill her, if that’s what you’re asking. Though at her place after the Recto Verso party, I did wonder a few times. Damn. When that girl gets off, it’s like the Metro’s barreling through. Her nipples turn hard as—”
“Okay, okay. Got it.” And holy shit, do I—because as soon as the guy evokes the imagery, all my brain can do is overlay it all onto an image of Kara Valari.
Kara…
The enchantress with the firestorm gaze that I can’t banish from my mind. The searing touches I can’t wash off my skin. The energy, connective and captivating, that I can’t erase from my senses. Even after I think back to the glaring Absent next to her name in my ledger from yesterday’s class. Which, of course, makes my current state of mind even more pathetic.
Jesse takes another chomp of pizza—another staple of weekend paper-grading marathons. “So what about you and Kristy?” His gray eyes twinkle with dastardly glee.
“Ah, here comes the payback.”
He chuckles. “I could be a legit douche right now and decide how deep to really twist the knife…”
“Or not,” I counter.
“Or maybe I could just change the subject.” His cheeky head tilt doesn’t have me relaxing. At all. “But maybe that’s two birds with the same custom stone…if the new subject is a certain member of the Valari dynasty?”
I give in to a new grimace, baring my teeth this time. An overreaction, to be sure, but I’m incapable of controlling myself. “The hell are you getting at, North?”
“Whoa there, cowboy. If you don’t want to talk about Kara Valari and how you and she were eye-fucking the crap out of each other at the Recto Verso party, fine by me. I just hope you’re being honest with yourself about the nuclear reactor you became around that girl.”
“Goddammit.” Even with my gaze averted and my posture slumped, it feels like the bastard has hurled a comet through the middle of my chest. I fist the front of my T-shirt, not wanting to acknowledge the truth—truth that peppers every syllable of my best friend’s next statement.
“Well, damn. Maximus Kane, I do declare! Are you actually keen on the lovely Miss Valari?”
I glance up and wince. “I don’t know what the hell I am, man.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning that ‘keen’ isn’t the first word that comes to mind in this situation.”