Page 17 of The Fate Factor

Oh my God.

“Jamie! I can’t believe you told him no, just like that, because of what I saw. What if I was a lunatic?”

“I knew you weren’t.”

“You had no way of knowing that. You don’t make major life decisions on a freaking candle.” I feel like I’ve just missed getting hit by a bus, despite this having happened two years ago. If I’d been wrong, it would have messed up everything for him. How could he have taken such a huge risk, and how can he be so casual about it now?

He blows out a breath. “Well, there was the other thing.”

I meet his eyes and the whole thing is still raw and right there. His girlfriend. That look he’d given her before I threw a psychic bomb into their relationship. I remember the way the light drained from his face that night, and the indignation coursing through me softens. “It was true, then?”

“Oh, yeah.” He laughs quietly and kneads at the back of his neck like the entire experience has settled in that one spot. “I couldn’t just ignore the other piece of advice you gave me when that one was so spot on.”

“I’m sorry,” I whisper, because what else am I going to say? I broke horrible news about someone who he wanted to be his wife. This was miles away from Nana’s sweet little fortune telling game. The worst thing she ever predicted for me was a disappointing loss in the annual art contest in eighth grade. I never even entered, and I always thought her readings werepretend anyway, so no harm done. But that night on the roof, I played what I thought was a game and ended up messing with someone’s whole life.

Jamie tips his head to his shoulder in a half-hearted shrug. “It was supposed to happen, right? Everything you told me came true, Noel. The good and the bad. It’s incredible.”

“Mr. Bishop?” The tie-dye nurse returns pushing an empty wheelchair. “Time to get fitted for some crutches.”

Jamie drops his head into his hands and groans.

Being in a car with Jamie Bishop is one of the more awkward experiences of my life. After another hour, he’s finally discharged with a list of instructions and, based on his glassy eyes, a high dose of painkillers.

On the way in, he was in too much pain to do much more than slump in his seat and whimper whenever I hit a bump, but this time, we’re entirely more aware of each other. My Jetta is so small, our arms keep brushing, sending me cowering into my door panel, and his new crutches had to be propped on the console between us to fit.

He’s wearing his hoodie with nothing underneath but that nasty bruise wrapped around his side, and it’s impossible not to think of him in the dream, his bare chest beneath soft white sheets. His hair mussed, cheeks pink from sleep or sex. The ink on his bicep flexing as his hand moved beneath the—

I jab at the AC, suddenly boiling from the inside out.

Luckily, it’s only a few blocks before Jamie motions for me to pull into a gravel parking lot. I put the car in park and peer at the dark windows of what looks to be a bar.

“Thanks for the ride,” he mumbles, reaching for the door handle without a glance.

“Jamie, wait.” Even if I don’t care to see him again, it doesn’t sit right, this tension. I press my fingers to my temples, then drop them when I realize I look like I’m trying to summon something.Jeez.

“Look, ah, that night, on the roof? It’s just that nothing like that has ever happened to me before. It was a fluke. A glitch in the Matrix. I don’t know what it was, but you have to understand it wasterrifying.” Goosebumps pop up on my arms just thinking of it.

“So was you passing out on my porch in the middle of the night, by the way.” I smile playfully in an attempt to thaw this ice. His quiet chuckle is a win.

“I guess I can see that.”

“Anyway, I freaked out, okay? It was a normal human reaction to something so… not normal. That’s why I lied about not knowing you and I’m sorry. Really.”

He leans back against the headrest, finally sparing me a glance. “I just assumed you were used to it. The psychic visions or whatever. I thought maybe you were a witch.”

He smirks and I shoot him a look, but I deserve that soft jab. “Definitely not.”

Jamie’s quiet for a beat, those moody brown eyes I remember from the party swimming with contemplation. And narcotics. “So you’re saying… I mean if that was the only time, then… It’s only ever happened with me?”

I nod once in response, and his eyes widen before he schools his expression and nods back. “Wow.”

“Yeah. Wow.” I wrap my arms around myself. “We were totally screwing around that night, joking. For the last two years, I’ve convinced myself it was a dream.”

“Or that I spiked your drink.”

I wince. “Yeaah, I guess since I’m apologizing...”

“Hey, you brought me to the hospital instead of letting me bleed out on your porch. Let’s call it even.”

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