Kiss Across Chaos (Kiss Across Time #10) - Tracy Cooper-Posey Page 0,26
Jesse told Marit. “That’ll save you a trip.”
“I’ll come back to take you home, then,” Marit said and hoisted the pack over her shoulder.
“I’ll take Jesse home,” Aran said from behind her. He’d covered the half mile damned quickly for a man who was supposed to be nursing a massive hangover.
Marit rolled her eyes. “Can you even see straight yet?”
“I’m fine. I’ll get her home.” Aran picked up the water cannister. He wore the shirt and trousers and carried everything else. He dropped the jacket and shoes onto the bed where the cannister had been, unscrewed the top and drank deeply.
“You’re welcome,” Marit said, her tone withering.
Aran shrugged. “I’d have come home by myself, sooner or later.” He drank again. His hair dripped seawater and clung to his head in persistent curls.
“Just thank her,” Jesse said, vexed at him. “Marit finding you on the timescape has stopped your Mom from hitting the button and shooting the entire family up to DefCon One.”
Aran lowered the cannister, and glanced at Jesse, startled.
“And Jesse covered your ass by playing it down with Mom, too,” Marit added. “Otherwise, it would have been Far and Athair hauling you out of New Orleans, and a year of lectures and growling every time they saw you.”
Jesse wanted to laugh, because Veris really did growl when he was irritated, or frustrated, or angry or scared for his kids and trying to hold it in. Which happened a lot, especially when time was involved. But she held her expression to neutral as Aran’s gaze shifted back to her once more.
“Then I guess I need to thank you,” Aran said. He put the lid back on the cannister with a grimace. “Both of you. I’ll catch up with Alannah, later.”
Marit’s mouth parted as she stared at her brother. Then she closed it firmly and nodded. “Right. Well, I have a kettle boiling…” She pushed the sleeves of her shirt up her arms, cleared her throat self-consciously, bent her knees and jumped.
Aran picked up one of the slices of toast and bit into it. “When you’ve finished eating, I’ll take you home,” he told Jesse. “Or we could go now, and you can eat the civilized way, on a chair at the table.”
“I’m not moving anywhere until you eat an entire slice of toast and don’t bring it up again.”
Aran’s eyes narrowed. Silently, he took another bite of the toast.
Jesse tried to ignore the way her middle had ruffled up and her chest had tightened. She got busy packing her gear away and tidying up the few things laying about on the cool sand under the pergola. In between, she took spoonfuls of the cooling oatmeal, which was delicious.
“You can’t keep still, can you?” Aran observed. He sat on the edge of the bed, now, pensively chewing through the other slice of toast.
“That’s just the problem,” Jesse said. “I can stay far too still for far too long, when I’m writing. Don’t you remember?” She had the courage to glance at him, to see if he did.
“So this fidgeting you’re doing right now isn’t natural.”
“This fidgeting you call it…it’s the sort of shit that gets a soldier picked off by a sniper, on the field. So no, it doesn’t come natural to me. I’m working against muscle memory, and more than a decade of military training to do it, but it keeps the metabolism ticking over.”
“You taught yourself to keep moving…” He said it softly. “Most people would find that an impossible change to make.”
“Lots of expats can’t make the change to civilian,” she admitted. “I was braced for that, for the chaos and lack of routine. But I got caught in the jaw by it, anyway, because it came at me from the wrong direction.”
It was on the tip of her tongue to ask the next obvious question. Do you remember me dying? Do you remember saving me? But he couldn’t possibly remember, because he had deliberately changed time to make sure she lived, which meant his memories of that time were different from hers. Do you remember the moment just after, when you said you liked having me around?
Jesse cleared her throat and finished packing. By the time she had everything stowed and secured, Aran had put his shoes back on. He didn’t bother with the jacket, which was a rumpled mess. It felt like it was already seventy degrees, here.
“Washington is going to feel like the Arctic, now,” Jesse said, sliding her arms into her cardigan.