In a split-second, she somehow just smothered a raging fire in my body.
I don’t lay into him.
He hates that.
Tony rubs the corner of his lip. “Let me give you some advice, Moretti. You should never let girls speak for you and definitely not fight your battles for you. Man the fuck up.”
Anger. I’m burning alive in pure fury. “Women are better than men. Better fighters, better lovers—and the fact that you come from where I do and can say and believe shit that demeans women makes me sick.” I know his grandma.
I know his aunts.
I think of my mom, my mom’s wife, my aunts, my grandma, and I wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for a twelve-year-old girl who left Italy with no one and came to America with nothing.
Brave. Bold. Strong women rule my world, and I love them.
Tony cringes, hurt flaring. “Don’t turn this into some sexist shit. You know that’s not what I meant.” His voice is softer.
“Hey.” Maximoff strides over with knotted brows. “Is there a problem?”
Tony repeats the same shit about needing to “take care” of his client, and I realize the best route for Jane is her best friend.
Family outranks bodyguards, and if Maximoff wants to carry her, protocol says, don’t get in his fucking way. After a short conversation, Tony follows protocol and lets her cousin help.
I hate passing my drunk girlfriend over to anyone, but she won’t be afraid in his arms.
Maximoff cradles Jane while he climbs into the van, and she hangs onto his shoulders and murmurs, “Thatcher?”
“It’s me, Janie,” he whispers.
Tony tries to shove in front of me to claim the last open seat, and I block him from entering, about to take that one.
“Banks.” O’Malley wipes dirt off his forearms. “One of the cars won’t start up. We need your help.”
Fuck.
My brother is a mechanic.
While he tinkered under cars, I was a thirteen-year-old busboy and line cook. I lied about my age to land a job, and making chicken parm isn’t a skill my brother will need in Philly.
I know basics for car repairs, and I can feel my way through this. But I hate that I have to ease out of the van and drop my boot to the ground.
Leaving Jane.
Two words I hate thinking. Two words I never want to hear.
21
THATCHER MORETTI
Jane clings to the toilet bowl, and I press a cold washcloth to her clammy forehead. She hasn’t puked yet, but she’s been toying with the idea for fifteen minutes. Quiet in a mental battle.
Everyone else must be asleep after the pub clusterfuck, chatter nonexistent, but I hear the loud wind skating across the Scottish Highlands and slapping against the stone house. Floorboards and walls creak around me, and my ears pick up the tiniest of noises in vigilance that I don’t need tonight.
Zero threats.
Zero targets.
I’m just her boyfriend. She’s just my girlfriend. It makes me feel seventeen again. Before the Marine Corps, before I went to war—back when I’d hang out at the Quickie-Mart with Banks. Smoking cheap cigarettes and drinking slushies.
“I owe you one,” I tell my brother, my phone resting on the floral tile. Near a brass claw-foot tub. I was on a video call, but with bad reception, the screen went black.
“I’ve owed you way more and you never collected.” His voice crackles with static. “We’re always even, you know that.” He curses in Italian.
“What?” I stare hard at the phone, wishing the picture would return.
“I can’t find the fucking car keys.” I imagine him running around the townhouse. It’s late in Philly, and he should be leaving for the Hale’s mansion soon. He’s on night-duty for Xander.
“Check your pockets.” I gently comb Jane’s hair back, and she blows out a controlled breath.
“Nothing there.”
If I cemented shoes to his feet, Banks would still find a way to lose them. “I have a spare set in Jane’s nightstand.”
“Thanks, Cinderella.”
I almost roll my eyes. “You still have my cornic’?” I gave him my gold necklace before I left.
The line deadens.
“Banks?”
“Yeah. It’s around my neck.”
Jane sits up a bit in slight alarm. “Is your brother…?”
“He’s okay.” I take off the washcloth and study her glazed eyes.
“Hey, Jane,” Banks says. “You feelin’ any better?”
“I suppose…a little.” She presses her fingers to her lips. “I think I’m going to…?”
I guide Jane back to the toilet, running my hand up and down her back while she dry heaves.
Banks tells me, “I talked to ma on the phone. She called your number.” Static breaks apart my brother’s voice. “She could tell I wasn’t you within the first three seconds.”
My lip rises. “What’d she say?” I’m assuming he explained the twin switch.
“She said, you’re a buncha dumbasses, but I love you both the most.”
I laugh, and the sound pulls Jane’s attention onto me. She smiles through the queasy-drunk-feeling. And very definitively, she says, “I love your mom.” The words almost slur together.
“Yeah?”
“Mmhmm.” She nods.
I don’t say much else to Banks before we lose service completely, but I warned him it’d probably happen.
After a few minutes, Jane stops dry heaving and breathes easier, and while she leans into my chest, I unlace her heeled fuzzy boots.
She attempts to undress. “I’m…stuck,” she mumbles, her elbows jammed into the fabric of her blouse.
I tug the thing off her head, my mouth curved up in a permanent smile. “How’s that?”
“Mmmmhmm.” She smooths her lips, staring up at me like I’m a midnight snack. “You were twenty-two…when I met you.”
I hold her gaze and pull off her right boot. “I was.”
“I’m seventeen.”
My mouth hikes in a larger smile. Clearly, she means she was seventeen back then, but she’s too drunk to catch the slip. “You were,” I nod and remove her left boot, setting both aside.
“What did you think?” Jane whispers.
My brows draw together. “What do you mean?”
She shivers, the house chilly but I run hot. And she’s only in a blue bra and a skirt that she slowly tries to crawl out of. I help her pull the tutu down her hips and legs, and then I hoist my girlfriend up in my arms.
Cradling Jane, I walk back into the cold bedroom.
She hangs onto my neck and cuddles up against my body. “I mean,” she says slowly, “what was your first impression of me? Whatwereyouthinking?” The last part slurs together, but I pick apart her question: what were you thinking?
I stare at her in my arms with her freckled cheeks and curious eyes, and I can almost see her six years ago.
Just seventeen.
How she’d been at the Hale house on my first day meeting Xander, and she ran hurriedly into the living room, frizzed hair stuck to her lips, out of breath, and mind racing faster than her feet would move. Confidence boosted this girl a million feet high.