Page 35 of The Fate Factor

I save that one too, obviously. I’m about to type a goodnight message and justify putting my pajamas on before dinner, but my blood is buzzing with an unfamiliar excitement that seems to have expanded ten-fold the moment I got his company back.

I’m not ready to give it up again—this feeling I haven’t named yet.

And it does seem sort of a waste, him caged up by his injury, me practically climbing the walls with my need to escape this place.

Isn’t this what we agreed on? Friendship?

Hanging out when we’re both bored is a friend thing to do. If it were Kate, I’d already be headed to her apartment.

I shove my thumbnail between my teeth and type with one hand.

Noel: Can I come over?

He replies immediately.

Jamie: I can’t imagine the guy who says no to that.

I park in the same gravel lot where I dropped Jamie off days ago after the hospital, and check my phone.

Jamie: My apartment’s through the side door. Top of the stairs.

For some reason my mind hears this in his lower-octave voice from the hospital, and a stray flutter that has no business in this careful exploration flushes heat over my skin. Grabbing my things, I scan the side of the building. To the left of the main entrance, cut out of a corner, is a private door. The stairs I find when I open it feels like they were built well before modern building codes, narrow and mountainside-steep.

Jamie must hear me climbing them, because as soon as I lift my fist to knock on the door at the top, it swings open and he’s there.

“Hi, friend.” He’s leaning casually on the door frame, wearing a grin that I feel like warm water poured all the way down to my toes. My God, he’s a lot to handle. Exploring the possibility of fate is nerve wracking enough. Exploring it with a man who looks and charms like Jamie Bishop is on a whole other level. This new part of me who’s considering the idea of magic wonders if the cosmos knows this about me, and that’s why the vision was of Jamie and me in the safety of the afterglow. Like when you recommend a romance novel to your grandmother but make sure it’s the fade-to-black kind.

Tonight, he has on a pair of gray joggers and a black zip-up hoodie, low socks that show his ankles. It’s a far cry from his crazy, sexy, cool vibe at the bar that first night, and somehow even more intimidating.

The hat is missing too, and a lock of hair (the one I knew about before I knew about it) somersaults onto his forehead as he steps aside to let me in.

He looks down at the grease-stained paper bag I’m holding and arches his bruised eyebrow. “You brought food?”

“Thai food. Do you like?”

He smiles. “I like.”

I’m pleased to my core at my choice, but I try to be casual. “I assumed you hadn’t eaten yet, and you bought my breakfast. It was my turn.”

“Thank you.”

Setting the bag on the counter, I spin around, taking in his space. I’m not sure what I expected but I’m instantly impressed. If Nana’s cottage is shabby chic, Jamie’s place is urban swank. Cavernous lofted ceilings, an open floor plan—I feel cooler just being here. A leather couch anchors and divides the space, set across from a huge TV hung over a gas fireplace.

To the right, three steps lead to a raised level that serves as a bedroom. The far wall sports a row of windows that must have a killer view of the city, but my gaze homes in on a king-size, platform bed, unmade and fitted with wrinkled gray sheets that look softer than a newborn kitten. My mind goes exactly where it’s led: Picturing him there. Me there. Us there.

It’s not the bed from the vision, though. No headboard. No fireplace at the foot. I didn’t think about possibly walking in and seeing that bedroom until right now, and the discovery that it’s not here both shocks and disappoints me. Not that I’m here with the intention of sleeping with him, of course.Of course.But any clue about where or when that vision was from would be something.

“I’ll get some plates,” he says, tapping my hip as he passes on my right. I try not to jump at the contact. I want that comfortable company from before. I came here chasing it.

Jamie reaches for the upper cabinet, one hand over his ribs, anda flash of pain ripples through his expression. His cheeks are flushed, dark purple swept under his eyes.

“You’re hurting.”

“Pretty much everywhere, yeah.” He says this like not being in pain is something he should have been better at and it presses somewhere soft inside my chest.

“I’ll get this,” I say, taking the plates from him and waving toward the living room. “You sit.”

I’m slightly surprised when he takes that order with no more than a raised eyebrow, but when I see the way he eases himself onto the couch, I suspect he’s been waiting for an excuse to lie down.

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