Page 103 of Bulletproof

“Tell me someone is still going to renovate your house though.”

“Yes, of course.”

“You say of course, but …”

“Yes, Jory, it should be done by the time I get home in two weeks.”

“Great. You’ll have to let me see it or at least send me pictures.”

“Jory, I would love for you to spend lots of time with⁠—”

“Jory!”

I leaned around Hayes, and Aaron was doing his imperial wave, the one where everyone, including me, needed to get over to him fast. I squinted at him.

“Jory, let me talk to you,” Hayes began.

“Oh, for the love of God, come here!” Aaron yelled at me.

I gave Hayes a quick pat on the arm and scooted by him to get to Aaron. When I was close enough, he grabbed my hand and pulled me down so I had to squat next to his chair.

“Yes, my liege?”

“Oh, fuck you,” he groused at me, hand fisting in the back of my hair. “How do you know Hayes Fisher?”

“I was working at Synergy, and we were hired to find him a woman.”

Jaden’s gasp was loud.

“I’m sorry, what?” the man across from Aaron said right before he started choking on his water.

I laughed and rose up, wrapping my arms around Aaron’s neck and squeezing tight. I kissed his cheek when I leaned back and apologized for the night before.

“Oh, no, that was my fault,” he said, his eyes soft.

“No, it was mine,” I said, easing free now that he was hugging me back, leaning sideways to kiss Jaden’s cheek before I got up and started for the buffet.

“Wait,” he called after me.

I stopped, and he stood, catching up with me as Hayes went to the table and was greeted with a volley of questions from Burke Ellis, who I was pretty sure had invited him along for a weekend to Hawai’i not because they were just friends. He might have wanted Hayes to meet his friends, but he had romance on his brain, or his reaction to my announcement that Hayes was bi would not have been met with a near-death experience. He was still coughing from swallowing water down the wrong hole.

“Jory,” Jaden said softly, “what were you apologizing for?”

“I was a little needy last night, and I put Aaron in a bad situation. I’m sorry.”

“He didn’t say he saw you last night.”

“Because he didn’t want to embarrass me,” I told him, which was sort of the truth because the fact that I had let him touch me, even a little, was bad.

“Oh.”

“I want pancakes,” I told him. “What about you?”

“What bad situation did you put him in?”

“I sort of flirted, and I’m sorry, Jaden. Please forgive me.”

He was studying my face.