Page 43 of Gather the Storm

Thankfully, Wolf seemed on board.

“Want a bagel?” he asked.

“Um, sure,” I said. “I can get it though.”

“I’ve already got everything out,” he said, reaching for another plate. “How do you take it?”

“Lots of cream cheese,” I said. “Like… lots.”

“Hear that?” Wolf said to Jace. “Our girl likes her cream.”

I rolled my eyes. Clearly Wolf was on a mission to piss Jace off.

Jace flipped him off without looking up from his phone. I might have enjoyed the exchange if I hadn’t been the subject of it. I was reminded of Blake — the good times with Blake — and how fun it had been to be around him and his friends when I’d been little.

Back then, there hadn’t been anything weird between us: no secret lusting on my part, no weird glances on theirs.

I’d just been Blake’s kid sister, and I’d loved watching them play video games or basketball, loved hearing their banter even when I didn’t always understand it.

Wolf handed me the plate with my bagel, and he’d definitely understood the assignment: it was loaded with cream cheese.

Yum.

I took it to the table and sat across from Jace because that was preferable to sitting next to him.

Only now I was in his direct line of sight. I hoped he’d just ignore me.

I took a drink of my coffee — first things first — then bit into my bagel with an involuntary sigh. Was there anything better than a thick doughy bagel slathered with cream cheese?

I closed my eyes and chewed, savoring the cool creaminess on my tongue.

When I opened them, Wolf and Jace were both staring. Or more accurately, they were looking at me like I was a mouse and they were anacondas looking to swallow me whole.

“Can I help you?” I asked around the bagel in my mouth.

“Depends,” Wolf said. “Can you give me a hand with this hard-on?”

I rolled my eyes but Jace stood up from the table fast, the old wood dining chair shrieking against the faded linoleum floor.

“Why don’t you just fuck and get it over with?” he asked, disgust dripping from his voice.

“Relax,” Wolf said. “Just having a little fun with our ray of sunshine here.”

I put down my bagel and took another drink of coffee. I was going to need an IV drip of caffeine to deal with whatever was going on with these two. “As much as I love being the target of your fun, we need to get to work.”

The house was the safe space in this fucked-up situation. We could talk about the house, could work on the house without…. whatever this weird shit was that was happening in the kitchen.

Between me and the Beasts and between them.

I hoped.

It was Tuesday and that meant I had two free days until I had to be back at my internship on Thursday. I needed to make the most of it.

“We’re at your service.” Wolf looked at Jace, now standing near the coffee pot across the big kitchen, like he couldn’t get far enough away from me. “Isn’t that right, Jace?”

Jace made a sound halfway between a grunt and a sigh of exasperation.

“I’ll take that as a yes.” Wolf looked at me. “So what’s first on the agenda today?”

---