Page 28 of Crowe
“I can understand that,” Julius said.
Mika nodded. “Me, too. I’m not saying the situation didn’t matter. Of course it does, but the way he was looking at you a few minutes ago.” He shook his head slightly. “That’s not the situation, Noah. That’s him.”
I used to be so optimistic, but not so much nowadays. Instead, I wanted to argue that it couldn’t be that easy, because now there was a cautious part of me that had learned to be skeptical of good things. And even though I’d spent six months rebuilding myself, I wasn’t sure I could trust my own judgment anymore. “It was just a kiss,” I said, even though it hadn’t felt like just a kiss at all; it had felt like the beginning of something. “I don’t want to read too much into it. I don’t want to make something in my head out of whatever this is only to find out I was wrong. I already feel foolish enough about the whole kidnapping thing.”
Julius pointed his finger at me. “Okay, you just stop that right there. It was not your fault you got kidnapped. I was there, remember, I saw you, and those assholes drugged you.”
“I know, but I still feel stupid. I drove two hours to meet up with some guy on a hookup app… and I came alone. I never do that. I let myself get fooled because it was Daddy Night, and that waswhen he wanted to meet. Like that was supposed to somehow make him safe.” I rolled my eyes.
“Well, he should’ve been.” Julius huffed.
“Can I say something?” Mika asked.
“Please.”
He set his wine down. “The Daddies here at Three Bears, they’re not casual people.” He wore a small smile like he knew something special the rest of us didn’t. “But when something matters to them? Whensomeonematters?” He shook his head. “They don’t do halfway. It’s genuinely not in them.”
Julius scoffed. “That’s an understatement. Not that I’m complaining. I love being the sole focus of Harlan’s attention. It’s intense.”
“That sounds terrifying,” I said.
“A little bit,” Mika agreed, with the serene cheerfulness of a man who’d been terrified and come out the other side. “But in the very best way.”
“And Jackson is one of these Daddies?” I asked cautiously.
“He’s never said, but then again, we’ve never seen him with anyone.” Mika looked to Julius to confirm, and he just shrugged.
I looked down at the almost empty glass in my hands and said the thing I’d been circling since we got in the SUV to come to Vesper.
“He said he drove me back because I felt safe with him. Because when he was there, I slept.” I paused. “He said he wasn’t going to hand that off to someone else.”
We all just sat there with that for a minute.
“Yeah,” Julius said finally. Quiet, and entirely unlike him, and that was exactly why it landed. “That sounds right.”
I looked out the window and thought about Jackson in bed with me this morning. The way he was so careful with me, but not in a way that made me feel damaged.You should probably move if you don’t want me to kiss you.
I shrugged. “I don’t know what it is.”
“You don’t have to call it anything yet,” Julius said. “You just got here.”
“Give it some air,” Mika said. “Let it be what it is before you decide what its name is.”
“Okay,” I said. “I guess I’ll just see where it goes.”
A few minutes later, the door opened, and Jackson walked in. Julius and Mika both hopped up off the couch and took theirglasses to the kitchen. Julius walked over to me and wrapped me in a hug. Then he whispered, “See what I mean, just look at the way he looks at you. You go get him, tiger.”
I cracked up because, seriously, tiger?
Julius planted a big kiss on my cheek and said, “We’ll see you tomorrow.”
Then they were gone, and it was just me and Jackson.
He stood near the door with his hands in his jacket pockets, looking around the apartment in that quiet way he looked at everything.
“Julius and Mika did good,” he said.
“They really did,” I said, and I meant it. “Are you staying in the building tonight, or are you headed out to the camp?”
