Mayhem & Mistletoe, стр. 49
“What do you think you’re doing?” he hissed, grabbing me by the arm and jerking me inside. He took a moment to study the area to make sure nobody was hanging around before letting the heavy door fall shut. “Are you trying to kill me?”
“I’m trying to get an audience with the most important man in the world,” I countered, forcing a sweet smile.
“Oh, don’t do that.” He wrinkled his nose. “When you try to act sweet and demure you remind me of that doll in those horror movies.”
“Annabel?”
“Chucky.”
Okay, that made me laugh. “You know I can’t always control myself. If you want me to shut up, you’ll have to play the game my way.”
He kept a firm grip on my arm as he led me into his office, not releasing me until we were both inside and he could slam the door. “Not everything in the world happens on your timetable, Avery,” he snapped. “Not everybody comes to heel when you snap your fingers.”
For a moment, a split-second really, something else flashed in his eyes. Then he smoothed his face until his expression became neutral. “What is it you think you know?”
“I know that one of the dead guys, Beau Burton, was living in a halfway house in Detroit. The locals — it’s picturesque, by the way — suggest he was involved in manufacturing and delivering a new drug called Hypno.”
Jake’s scowl was pronounced. “You just couldn’t leave it alone, could you?” He dragged a hand through his hair, leaving it even messier, and threw himself in his chair. His eyes were on the ceiling rather than me. “Sometimes I ask myself what I ever did to deserve you.”
“You were a very good boy.”
His smiled. “Yeah, I’m pretty certain that’s not the case. Only the Devil would put you on the payroll.”
“Oh, don’t be a gloomy Gus.” I sat across from him. “You love me and you know it.”
That was probably the wrong thing to say, because his eyes flashed again.
“I didn’t mean it that way,” I offered lamely, feeling the need to fill the charged silence. “I didn’t mean ....”
“I know.” His voice was soft. “I know you’re uncomfortable with all of this, but I don’t want that. Before Eliot said what he did, we were in a good place. All of us were in a good place.”
“He put us in a bad place. You should totally tell him that. Maybe he’ll back off if you say something to him.”
Jake chuckled. “I’m not going to fight your battles for you ... at least not this one. You guys belong together.”
It wasn’t the first time he’d said it, but this time I truly believed he meant it. This wasn’t what I’d come to talk about, but it seemed time to get it off my chest. “I’m not sure how I thought things would go when we were kids, but I never expected us to end up here.” To my surprise, I found my cheeks were wet. I’d started crying without realizing it.
Jake looked pained. “Oh, please don’t do that. I can’t take it.”
I hid my face behind the sharks. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
“Your life is changing.”
“I don’t want it to change. I like it the way things are.”
“They’ll only get better.” His chair rattled as he stood. “When Eliot first mentioned that he was going to propose, I was irrationally angry.”
I couldn’t contain my surprise as I peeked through the mittens. “You were?”
He nodded, amusement replacing the momentary sadness. “Believe it or not, I still love you. It’s not the same way I did when we were kids. Back then, I thought we would end up somewhere else entirely.
“It’s okay, though,” he continued, hunkering down so he was at an even level with me. “There are a lot of different types of love. We just love each other differently now. It’s something we both have to come to terms with.”
“I think it would be better for all of us if Eliot would just let this go and we could go back to the way things were.”
He laughed, rich and warm, and some of the sadness that I’d been fighting suddenly dissipated. “And I think that Eliot gets you in a way I never could.”
I lifted my eyes. “I thought we got along okay.”
“We did. And I loved everything about you. I loved how wacky you were, and how you didn’t care what anyone thought, and how you enjoyed torturing everyone you came into contact with. You were an exotic alien in a world full of humdrum mortals.”
“Do I get to pick what sort of alien?”
He didn’t answer. “We both needed to find who we were at our core. We couldn’t do that together. We would’ve held each other back. When we found each other again as adults, I had hope — for about thirty seconds — that we could figure this out. We both know better now.
“You can’t live this life and I’ll go crazy trying to spend more than a few hours a week in your world,” he continued. “We need people who complement us. I think I’ve found that in Lauren, and I know you’ve found it in Eliot.
“It’s not just that he gets you. He embraces all that weird crap you do.” He gestured toward the mittens. “Like those things. He probably sits and listens to you do puppet shows, doesn’t he?”
I nodded, rueful. “Sometimes I wear nothing but the mittens and do a little dance to the Jaws theme.”
He barked out a laugh. “That sounds ... really weird.” He leaned closer. “I need you to be happy. That’s what I want most for you. He gives you peace of mind, and that’s not something I ever thought you would have.”
My throat tightened again. “I just ... don’t want to lose what I have.”
“What do you think you’re going to lose?”
“I don’t know. What if