Page 68 of Tempting Fate

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Emerson

I lie in wait for Jamie that evening. Perhaps I shouldn’t. Perhaps it’s cruel to ambush him like that—and it feels like an ambush, what with the way his expression twists in surprise when he walks in to see me sitting in the living room—but I don’t want him to run off to his room again.

I think I’m angry. I mean, I understand that last night was a lot. For all of us. I still need to text Patch back and let him know I’ll meet him, but I want to talk to Jamie first.

“Em,” Jamie says. He pauses, and for a second, I’m sure he’ll turn tail and run up the stairs. He doesn’t, though. He meets my eyes and squares his shoulders. “I… Have you eaten?”

“Not yet. Thought we could all eat together.” I mean Nick. He texted me earlier, too, to let me know he’d be back tonight. Jamie pales, though, like he thinks I mean Patch.

“I—”

“Nick’s on his way back from work, I think,” I say. “But I wanted to talk to you before he got here.”

“Em…”

“What happened?” I can’t help the faint thread of desperation in my voice. I don’t want it to be there, but it is, and Jamie takes a short step forward because of course he hears it. “I don’t… I don’t understand why you left.”

“I just wanted to get some sleep. I wasn’t hungry. It’s not a big deal.”

He’s lying. I swallow down an unfair flash of rage. He can lie to me all he wants. He’s his own person.

“Did I do something?” I ask instead. “I know… I didn’t handle the responsibility well. I should have looked after you afterwards. Both of you. And I just fell asleep, I…” I trail off, waving my hands around uselessly.

Jamie shakes his head, then he breaks all at once, crossing the room and falling to his knees in front of me. He doesn’t touch me, not at all, but we’re of a height like this, and he can look me properly in the face.

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” Jamie says, then just as firmly adds, “Neither did Patch. I mean it. I woke up and needed space. I couldn’t… You two are perfect together, you know? I don’t think I can do it again.”

My head spins. “I’m not… We…”

“It’s okay, Em,” Jamie says. He does touch me then, grasping my hands and squeezing once. “It was a fun night. I’m happy you both shared it with me. But I can’t do it again. I can’t.”

I don’t understand. I don’t understand what happened between him and Patch—because they’ve all talked about his stalker, but even Dax and Drew today didn’t mention anything that raised my suspicions when it came to Jamie and Patch—that is making them both pull away like this. They haven’t dated. They haven’t fucked, save for last night.

Judging by that kiss, the desperation behind it, I don’t think they’d done that before, either.

Jamie leans in and presses his lips to my cheek. “Let me get changed. I’ll come help you with dinner. Okay?”

“Okay.” My voice sounds distant even to my ears. Jamie nods and squeezes my hands again before he gets up and heads out into the hall. His footsteps sound out on the stairs. I lean back on the sofa and stare ahead at nothing.

I just don’t understand.

That night, I sneak out. I need to walk anyway, and maybe I need to get my head back on straight and focus on the true reason I’m here. It’s not to romance two hot guys. It’s to find this werewolf.

I ring Cate once I’m ten minutes or so from the house, out by a main road. I’ll head to the park in a minute, but I want to investigate where I saw that wolf last time.

“Em?” She sounds alert, which is about right for one in the morning. Jamie went to bed early, though I heard him moving around until midnight. Nick might have heard me leave, but I’m pretty sure he knows something is up—he was shooting me and Jamie suspicious looks all through dinner.

“Hey. What’s up?”

“Not much. About to go to bed. Are you out?”

“I have to find my wolf again.”

She huffs. “This is so dangerous. I told you, I bet that was someone’s exotic pet. Or one of those wolf-dog-hybrid things. People have those, you know.”

“I know.” I do. I researched it afterwards and spent a couple of hours fantasising about having a wolf-dog of my own. Yeah, they’re dangerous, but at least I could have it lying on me like a living blanket through the winter.