It’ll cost me a couple of them in return, but I’ll do a dozen if I’m asked.
My quiet goodbye comes a minute later, and it echoes long enough for my chest to tighten around my next several breaths. While I turn off the bar’s decorative lights and the music I barely hear anymore, I let logic war with whatever happened between Jake and me in V’s office, mostly because I don’t want to say goodbye tohim, and I don’t think I should. Busying myself with my register and the night’s sales reports distracts me for a bit, but then I’ve got a stack of cash and receipts in my hands and my phone in my back pocket. I move away from the bar and leave anyunsteady pleas behind, knowing I need to go back to Jake with something more certain than the soft suggestion my heart has made.
When I return to the office, my sigh is all relief, the sight of Jake enough to make up my mind, as though that wasn’t done in the shadow of my denial a while ago. He’s wearing his battered leather jacket again, and the physical damage to it does nothing to make him appear less vulnerable where he’s fallen asleep in one of V’s chairs, his head tipped backward to rest against the wall behind it. My eyes fall to his throat again, then down to his bloody lap, and I turn away to give him one more minute of peace while I put the money into the safe and leave a note for V.
He doesn’t stir until my hand is on his shoulder, and the look he gives me is both what I want, and what I don’t want at all.
“Hey,” I murmur. “I’m all done here, and we can go, but listen—I don’t think you should be alone tonight. Not with a possible concussion.”
“Told you I’m fine,” Jake grumbles.
“And I’d rather know that for sure, so you can come back to my place, or I’ll stay at yours.”
Jake pushes himself up from the chair and gets as close to me as either of us would dare—or his injuries will allow—licking his lips and glaring at me in a way that does nothing to scare me. I’m ready for the challenge, rising to it with a smile when he shakes his head.
“I admitted I liked the way you touched me, and you think that’s enough reason for us to spend the night together?”
“Wiping out on your motorcycle is enough reason for us to spend the night together,” I argue. “The touching was nice, but I don’t actually have plans for more of that.”
“And if I say no?”
“Then you can sit back down, and I’ll get the entire group chat over here to poke at you until morning.”
Even as I threaten to summon everyone to Trailhead, I try not to think too hard about the afternoon all of us—V, Noah, Beau, Adrian, Riley, Jake, and I—had spent in WeHo together this past March. We’d been handing out promo for the bar, but when everyone else had headed home, I’d kept Jake with me before and after I fucked a hot lawyer in a nightclub bathroom. The whole point was for the two of us to go out and get laid, but I feel a little stupid now, and more selfish than usual. I wonder how Jake had felt that night, surrounded by eager hands and hot tongues and filthy promises he wouldn’t have fulfilled.
There are so many things I want to ask him now, but he needs to sleep, and I need to get out of my head.
And I’m not sure anything is made better when Jake takes a half step back and scrubs a scraped hand over his face.
“My bike is just lying there, and I didn’t even—I need to call a tow truck or—can I use your phone to—”
“No, hey, it’s okay,” I interrupt, closing the distance between us again, my hand flat against his chest because the touchingwasnice, and maybe I’m a liar. “It’s done. It’s taken care of. I called Beau, and he and Adrian are on their way to get it. They’ll bring it here, and we’ll figure out the rest tomorrow.”
“Theywhat? They can’t—”
“They can. Beau has a ramp for the truck, and it’s not like there’s a bunch of traffic out there right now.”
“It’s the middle of the damn night. Please tell me you didn’t wake them up.”
“Of course I did,” I say. “But it’s one less thing for you to worry about, and I’ll keep their apartment stocked with good whiskey and wine ‘til we’re even.”
“You know Adrian doesn’t like me.”
I drop my hand but don’t step back, my voice low. “And you know the only reason he doesn’t likeyouis because you don’t likehim.”
Jake takes a deep breath I can feel a second later, and then he looks over my shoulder, his jaw working to fight off the feelings that have caught up to him, in part because I pushed them in that direction. I watch the battle closely, and I don’t give him space, but I wait him out because it’s the least I can do when he stops thinking about Adrian and remembers to be frustrated with me.
“I haven’t had anyone over to my house in a long time,” he says after another careful breath. “And nobody has spent the night.”
There’s plenty left unsaid, but neither of us needs to hear it. “Then come home with me.”
“M’not spending the night at your place.”
“Jake—”
“You can stay with me,” he sighs. “You can be the first.”