To make matters more fucked, all the cars in the garage are gone. Which means I have to take one of the security SUVs on the curb.
When I step out onto the sidewalk, I’m met with a succession of flashes. Glaring in the night.
Paparazzi—their voices topple on top of each other, fighting to be heard. I raise a hand to my eyes, trying not to be completely fucking blinded on the way to my car.
“Thatcher! Thatcher!” a stocky guy with a Canon yells, short enough that his head stops well beneath my shoulders.
“Move.” I’m one second from shoving. Don’t touch him. I don’t want to risk getting arrested on my way to this dinner, and if he falls on his ass and claims assault, I’m going to be met with a lawsuit.
Follow protocol.
Security rules still exist—they don’t suddenly disappear because I’m off-duty or engaged to a client.
He doesn’t listen and just as I come up to the black Escalade, he stops moving right in front of the door. Blocking me.
I glower.
He holds up his camera. “How many years have you been with Jane Cobalt?!”
His question is like a cannon blast in my ears, opening up my focus to the others that have been yelled around me for the past minute.
“When is the wedding?!”
“How did you ask her?!”
“Is she pregnant?!”
I scowl harder at that one and focus on the shitbag blocking me. “I’m not going to ask you a second time. Move.”
The stout guy clicks five more times and sears my corneas. White light stabs my vision and before I can grab him, he darts out of the way.
I’m quick. Inside the Escalade and shutting the door. It takes me a good twenty minutes to lose the trail of paparazzi. I glance at the clock. On time. I planned for traffic, but I wish I were earlier. I don’t have much wiggle room in case something—
You’ve got to be fucking with me.
My eyes are narrowed on the fuel gauge. This can’t be happening. Someone on SFO left this SUV with a nearly empty tank. I slam a hand against the steering wheel and reroute to the nearest gas station. “Buncha fucking idiots.”
We have rules.
One being to always leave the cars fueled up in case of an emergency.
Right now, I’m in a motherfucking dump truck level of a crisis. I’m about to show up late to my first Wednesday Night Dinner, and there’s one thing I know about Connor Cobalt—he hates how I remind him of Ryke Meadows.
Who is perpetually fucking late to events. I can’t even count the number of times I’ve heard Ryke’s bodyguard on comms say something like, “We’re coming in an hour past.”
Being late might just obliterate the ground that I made with her parents.
I growl out my frustration and curse out loud for all three miles to the gas station. By the time I put the SUV in park, I’m barely accepting my fate.
Jane will vouch for me, and that’s the last thing I want. Defending me shouldn’t be what tonight is about. “I’m going to kill someone on Omega,” I mutter under my breath. “Except my brother. If this was on him, he’ll survive. Maybe.”
I’m talking to myself.
My jaw clenches, and I swear in my head. Fuck.
Fuck.
Fuck.
I think I’m nervous.
Fuck.
I hop out of the car and slam the door closed with a loud thump. The noise stirs something in the space between the pump and the trashcan, the movement caught in my peripheral.
I don’t have time for this.
But out of instinct, I check the shifting shadow, wanting clearer visual. Squatting down, I expect to locate a rat.
I rest my forearms on my knees and tilt my head. All I see is brown fur, a little thing curled in a ball next to the trash.
And then its head pops up, and my whole stomach drops.
What…?
Breath cages my lungs.
I’m staring at round, blue orbs for eyes. A tiny brown nose. Two perked ears. Long whiskers and dark-striped fur. I’ve been to enough cat shelters to know what I’ve found.
I’m staring at a tabby kitten. How could this happen? Out of all times and all days and all gas stations…
I look up at the star-blanketed sky.
I’m not as religious as others in my family, but I have faith. And call me nuts, but I feel like this kitten is Jane. Sent by someone who knew I’d need her. Come here to tell me that it’s going to be okay. Calm down. Breathe.
Maybe I’m just losing my fucking mind.
But I can’t walk away from this stray. She wouldn’t.
I hold out my palm, waiting for the kitten to approach me. “Hey, girl.”
She crouches on her tiny paws and tentatively creeps towards me. She barely hesitates before nudging her cheek into my knuckles. And I’m just gone. Right here. Right now. “Jane?” I ask like a fucking idiot.
Banks would be laughing his ass off if he saw me.
She keeps nuzzling my hand.
I draw in a deeper, stronger breath. It’s her. No one can tell me otherwise. “Fuck it.” I gently pick up the kitten. “Let’s go to dinner, Little Jane.”
To prepare me, Jane told me three things about Wednesday Night Dinner.
The dress code is anything and everything and nothing. Costumes are acceptable. Being buck-naked is also acceptable. There are no rules.
Conversation is not a requirement. Talk as much as you want or don’t talk at all. There are no rules.
But there are rules. Only one. Come as you are. Be true to you. And all will fall into place.
I took everything Jane said to heart, so I’m not wearing a suit. I’m not wearing my black slacks and a black button-down like I’m on-duty.
I’m on time. Made every green light. Surprisingly, I’m here before either Connor or Rose. And I sit at her family’s dining room table as me.
Dark denim jeans and a red flannel shirt, a kitten currently alert but tentative in the breast pocket—yeah, that’s a new development.
“She’s absolutely, positively the loveliest thing I’ve ever seen.” Audrey Cobalt swoons, her gaze fixated on the tabby kitten. Jane’s sister turned fourteen in January, and right now, she looks transported from one of those PBS historical shows my grandma is always watching. A bonnet with fresh roses in a ribbon plopped on her carrot-orange hair, which spills over a ruffled white dress.
I’m hawk-eyed. Attentive.
Perceptive of everyone, everything, but there is too much to absorb. My eyes are feasting on the lavish elaborate scene. This is made for the movies.
For theater.
For history.
For The Phantom of the Opera and ancient sword-wielding times.
Not exactly for a man like me, but I’m not turning around. I’m not back-tracking. And I’m not made to cower. Nerves retreat.
I’m steel in a room of guys and girls ironclad from birth.
Seven sets of eyes are pinned on me.
I’ve sat down for one minute. Just as ready for hell as the minute before, and I’ll be ready a thousand minutes after.
Roasted goose and gold candlesticks line the table. I’ve always seen the remnants of this dinner in leftover containers. Strange, seeing the food before it’s torn to pieces.
A unique aroma clings to the air: a mixture of gamey meat, rosemary, garlic, vanilla and tobacco. I do another quick sweep around the dining room. Only Jane and her siblings are here, the heads of the table empty, but I think the absence of their parents might be purposeful.