Page 16 of Until Ace

“I assure you, we’re not,” Asher tells me. “It’s all true.”

“It can’t be,” I protest. The tale they’re trying to sell me has to be some kind of sick joke.

“I know it sounds crazy. But all of us can confirm it,” Nico takes over. “And believe me, we all thought it was a story our pop used to tell for entertainment. But the moment we laid eyes on our women, we all felt it. We all knew. It is what it is.” Nico sighs and leans back in his chair. He shrugs before he finishes, “The rest is history.”

It all sounds whack, but even I can’t deny it. Everything they told me describes the feelings I’ve had since I saw Mandy for the first time last night to a T. Even the feeling of the explosion that happened in my nervous system.

I thought I was whole, but now I know I wasn’t. Not until she walked into my life.

Not until Mandy.

Fuck, I sound like a lovesick teenager.

I scrub my face with my hands. “But I’m not a Mayson. We don’t have any blood ties. And from what you’ve been telling me, that phenomenon only applies to y’all.”

“That’s the part we don’t understand,” Cobi confesses.

“We also thought it only applied to men in our family,” Nico grumbles, and a dark, uncomfortable look passes over all of them. “But as history has taught us, we were wrong.”

The momentary grim mood dissipates, and Asher smiles. “Now, cousins, friends, and even people we just met have started feeling it one by one. After talking with them, we figured out it was the same thing that happened to all of us. They all got to experience the wonder of it.”

It all sounds complicated yet, at the same time, so simple.

Basically, people meet the person they're destined to be with, and that's it. They fall in love. True love. Not lust. The feeling of it is explained in one simple word.

Boom.

The only thing is, that's supposed to be super rare. I mean, come on, how often do you hear people say, “I met my soulmate, and I instantly knew it was them”?

Sure, people tend to throw that phrase around like it's nothing more than a punch line, but how often is that really the case?

But this… this feeling I have whenever I'm near Mandy, this insane need to keep her safe, this all-consuming urge to claim her and let everyone know she's mine? That—that, I can't deny.

“So, you're telling me you're modern-day Cupids? That anyone who’s somehow connected to you, be it family or friends, gets to find that someone they’ll fall in real love with at first sight?”

The men stare at me for a few seconds before all three roar with laughter, scaring the few patrons sitting at the tables close to us.

Cobi tilts his head Cece's way, silently asking her for another round, then he looks at me. “Yeah, you could say that.”

Chapter 4

Mandy

“Mandy, girl, what’s going on with you tonight?” Beverly asks. The sound of her voice pierces through the image of Ace looking at me over his shoulder with a stubborn look in his eyes before he turned around and walked out of the dealership. That image has been playing in my mind on a constant loop all day.

I look up, and five pairs of eyes beam at me, laughter evident in them.

“Oh, sorry.” I jump in my seat and grab the dice from the table, then start jiggling them in my hand. “Sorry, I got lost in my mind there for a sec.” I shake my head, but it does nothing to dispel the image of Ace from my mind.

Why am I so hung up on him?

“Oooh, I think someone’s in looove,” Ida singsongs, and when I look at her, she wiggles her eyebrows at me. If I weren’t such a ball of nerves, I would laugh. But I can’t think straight, and I don’t have a clue why.

Sure, the man is drop-dead gorgeous. He’s the most beautiful man I have ever seen, and even though it’s strange to say a man is beautiful, that’s the only word that comes even close to describing the essence of Ace. And not just his looks. Even from the brief encounters I’ve had with him, I know he’s beautiful right down to his core.

I throw the dice and watch them roll over the Monopoly board like it’s the whole reason for my existence.

“Mandy, stop.” Beverly halts the dice by putting her hand over them. “What’s going on with you?” she repeats.