Page 20 of Born for Starlight

"It's been a couple of days you brought on yourself." He said it evenly, no heat behind it yet, which from Jase was its own kind of warning sign. Usually, the volume came first and logic caught up later. If he was this reasonable now, that meant he’d been cogitating, and I was in for it. Later, when the kids weren’t around.

"Jase." Bonnie appeared in the doorway with a dish towel over one shoulder and flour on her cheek that matched the twins'. "Let the woman get through the door before you start in."

"I'm not starting anything."

“Sure, you’re not.” She winked at me, then came down the steps and wrapped me in a hug of her own, softer than Jase's, but no less warm. "Welcome home, honey. Ignore your big brother. He's been rehearsing a lecture since the podcast."

I winced.

"I have not been rehearsing,” he grumbled. I knew he was lying.

"Come on,” Bonnie said. “There's a cake situation you need to see to believe, and coffee. Then I want to hear absolutely everything, then your brother can have his five minutes of yelling time. If he doesn’t have it before dinner he'll get indigestion, and then he’s insufferable."

The kitchen looked like a flour bomb had gone off in it, which, given the twins' report, wasn't far from the truth. At first, I couldn’t understand why flour was still floating around the kitchen until I realized the two little terrors must have gotten some on the ceiling fan. I looked up, and sure enough, with every twirl it was raining flour.

I laughed for the first time in what felt like a week. "How does flour get on the ceiling?"

"Lachlan discovered the mixer has a setting beyond what I thought existed." Bonnie poured me coffee without asking. "We're calling it a learning experience. Jase is saying he will never be allowed to work with ordnance."

“That’s demolitions, right?”

Bonnie nodded. “I had to ask, too. Scarily enough, my nine-year-old twins knew what it meant.”

"It's a tragedy," Jase said, coming in behind us, turning off the fan and reaching up to wipe flour off the props. “This fan is never going to work the same again.”

Bonnie handed him a mug of coffee. "Sit down and drink your coffee like a person."

He sat. He drank his coffee. He lasted almost four full minutes before he couldn't hold it anymore. It was kind of fun to watch him try to hold it in.

"You can't go to Brazil." He said it quietly, which was somehow worse than the shouting I had been expecting. There was no bluster this time, just something flat and scared underneath the words. "I need you to actually hear me on this. Not deflect, not make a joke, just hear me."

"Jase."

"I'm serious, Angel." My old nickname, the one he used when he was really feeling emotional. "There are things about that part of the world, about what happens to people who make themselves visible the way you just did, that you don't understand yet. I need you to trust me. I'm not just being an overprotective ass about this."

I’d never heard that tone of voice from him before. I felt myself go still, waiting for whatever came next.

Bonnie rested her hand on his shoulder, and he sighed. He visibly reined something back in. "What I mean is. It's dangerous. Generally. The way it's dangerous for anybody."

Now I was frustrated. "That's not what you were about to say."

"That's exactly what I was about to say."

"Jase Drakos, you are the world's worst liar, and I love you, but I've known you my whole life."

"I'm not lying. I'm summarizing." He shot Bonnie a look she met without a flicker of guilt. "Anyway. You shouldn't go. That's the whole point I'm making."

"I'm still going."

He slumped down in his chair and pushed his coffee aside. I hated to see him defeated, but he wasn’t understanding how important this was to me, and I still couldn’t find the words to explain it to him. Hell, I wasn’t sure I had the words to explain it to myself.

"So,” Bonnie started, “While you were off deciding to save the world and terrifying your entire family, did you know your admirer never left town?"

"My what?"

"Your admirer. That dreamy friend of Jase's, from the party." Bonnie's smile was pure mischief. She'd been saving this for exactly the right moment. "You know, Matthew. Tall, quiet, looks at you like you're the only person in a room, especially when you're pretending not to notice. He's still here."

My stomach clenched, but I managed not to suck in a breath. I was an actress after all.