“How’s everything back home?” I hope I sound 0% fretful. Thatcher edges nearer, nodding in encouragement. His towering build is like a stone wall, shielding the raucous wind from me.
“We’re all doing well here.” His voice is smooth and untroubled. “I’m just wondering why your boyfriend is screening my calls.”
Thatcher fixates on the phone like I’m clutching a weapon, and if he blinks, it’ll detonate in my palm.
I lift the speakers closer to my lips. “Do you have the right number?”
I picture my dad arching a single brow. “Phone numbers aren’t that difficult to memorize, especially ones that matter.”
I touch my smile with my fingertips. Thatcher matters to him. I take a breath and turn the tables. “Why are you trying to reach him?”
“I wanted to invite him to lunch tomorrow.”
My eyes bug. Oh my God. This is very, very bad. He can’t have a face-to-face with Banks.
Thatcher’s biceps look like they’re going to explode in his cross-armed state. He nods to me and mouths, deflect.
Right.
Deflection. “Are you rescinding the invitation?”
“No. But the more he avoids my calls, the more he reminds me of the only person who consistently hangs up on me—and I never imagined my firstborn daughter would date a man like Ryke Meadows.” He sounds a little bothered by this fact, though I know he cares deeply for Uncle Ryke.
“Date is a weak word,” I correct. “What we are to each other is very serious, him and I.” I’m less nervous to admit this to my dad, strangely. I’m more nervous when I meet Thatcher’s strong eyes.
My stomach backflips.
“Have you two talked about marriage?”
“No,” I squeak out. “No, no.” My face is red-hot. “Dad, that’s far too soon.” I step around Thatcher to welcome the aggressive breeze, hitting me in a cold wave.
Thatcher uncrosses his arms, his gaze tracking my movement. The lack of holster on his waistband reminds me that security has no firearms on this trip, due to gun laws. All are armed with legal tactical knives.
Facts.
Facts are easy. Simple. Emotionless at times. And distracting.
“And you’ll be happy to know,” I tell him, “that the probability of someone marrying their first boyfriend or girlfriend is statistically low.” My pulse skips. “Maximoff is an outlier.” Stop talking. “So there’s that piece of helpful data.”
Thatcher is staring at my back.
I hang my head, my heart in my throat with a looming sadness that I push aside. I’m not sad. I’m not sad. I can live without him.
“Where are you pulling your data from?” my dad asks, voice calm.
“Places,” I say, being as cagey as him. I’m the first of his children in a serious relationship. Guessing his motives concerning my boyfriend will be as accurate as shaking a Magic 8 Ball. I have no idea what my dad is truly thinking. “Are you inviting Thatcher to lunch out of kindness or to interrogate him?”
“That depends if we agree on the definition of interrogate,” he says smoothly like he, himself, is the arbiter of definitions. I once believed he wrote the dictionary under the pseudonym Merriam-Webster. I was five. And clearly deluded.
“Dad,” I say in warning.
“It’ll be a civil conversation, I promise.” I can feel his billion-dollar grin.
“I think you should wait for me to be there. I’ll be back in three days. Please.”
“If that’s what you want.” He pauses. “But sooner or later, I’m going to get to know him on my own. You’re not just seriously dating him, Jane. You’re bringing him into our world, and there’s only so much a background check covers.”
All bodyguards go through background checks, but my dad makes it seem like he pried right after Thatcher and I became a couple.
I’m frozen, but somehow I thaw, just to glance over my shoulder. At him.
Thatcher looks anything but surprised.
He knew that my family would take a bulldozer to his history and excavate any dead, decaying skeletons he buried away.
Of course he did. He’s a bodyguard. He’s probably helped do the digging in the past.
I raise my phone again, my eyes locked on Thatcher. “I understand,” I tell my dad.
My world—it’s barricaded and protected by a thousand force fields. Us, Cobalts—we have traditions that my cousins don’t even share. Letting an outsider into our well-guarded fortress is frightening and new, and I wouldn’t want or trust anyone to enter except for Thatcher.
I emphasize, “Just, please wait until I come home.”
“Pour toi n’importe quoi.” For you, anything.
After a quick goodbye, we hang up, but relief doesn’t exactly strike. Not after the awkward “marriage” moment and me mentioning statistics and our low probability of lasting.
Maybe it’s not even on Thatcher’s mind.
Maybe he’s forgotten my word vomit already.
He scans our surroundings, then me. “I’m not trying to kill your dreams, Jane, but your probabilities seem off.”
“How so?” I hug my arms around my body.
“You said it’s statistically low that someone marries their first boyfriend or girlfriend. How does that work between you and me?”
I’m confused until he adds, “You’re not my first girlfriend.”
“Oh.” I flush.
He nears. “I’m not as good at math as you, but in my head, it doesn’t make sense that our odds are different when we’d be marrying each other.” He blinks back something raw. “Hypothetically.”
“Hypothetically.” I nod in agreement. Emotion bubbles to the surface, and I’ve never experienced this strong swell surging and surging and breathing life and sentiments so unwieldy inside of me. I tuck my hair behind my ear. “I’ll have…have to recalculate.” I sound breathless.
Our hands toy with touching again, and then the sky cracks.
We look up. Dark clouds gather and rumble violently.
Maximoff and Farrow sprint over to us as rain suddenly descends in heavy sheets. Thatcher draws me to his chest to keep me semi-dry, and I spin to face him.
Rain soaks our hair and shoulders, and he fits my binder beneath his jacket. Protecting the pages and ink.
I love him.
Moffy shouts over the storm, “We need to leave before the weather gets worse!”
It’s already freezing, and we have a slippery, dangerous descent.
“Hold onto me,” Thatcher says with severity.
I ache and desire and want to say, always. But the word is stuck. And all I manage to get out is, “Okay.”
23
THATCHER MORETTI
It all happens in a fucking blink. As we descend the hill, Jane slips on the slick grass.
Her hand slips out of mine, and she slides and slides. Too rapidly to catch, and Maximoff loses his footing. He falls next.
Farrow and I rush after them, but both land in the knee-deep, bone-chilling rocky stream. I’ve never moved this fast. I’ve never picked Jane up this quickly, and I’ve never felt her arms wrap around me this tight.