Page 85 of The Fate Factor

“Too good. Let’s ditch Em and Cara and go home. I want to see you in only that hat.”

He grabs me around the waist, pretending to drag me in the direction we came, and I laugh. “Stop. You promised to take me out.”

“I promised we’d celebrate. There’s more than one way to do that.” He sets me back on my feet and his expression turns soft. Something tingles in the back of my brain, like déjà vu. This scene. The affection on his face. The people bustling around us. It all feels familiar.

I reach up to touch my head and recognition locks into place. It’s the hat he was wearing in the vision I had at the beach. A navy blue beanie. It’s on my head now, but it’s the same one. And the dark scruff that’s been filling in on his face over the last few weeks, it was there too. I saw it.

The rest of the vision unfurls in front of me like a Choose Your Own Adventure game. It’s cold. We’re on a cobblestone street lit by lamp light. “Ha!”

“What is it?” He laughs.

I don’t wait for him to corner me the way I saw. I press myself up against the wall, and tug him by the front of his jacket, grinning as he slaps a hand against the brick wall above my head. Just like I knew he would.

People turn to look, just like I saw.

And then he’s there, fitting his knee between my legs, kissing me in that way I remember felt like a confession. And now I know what he’s telling me with his mouth on mine and his hand in my hair. Things that have come true between us in the few short weeks since I saw it. I know everything that’s going to happen. I feel it before he even touches me, that bruising grip onmy thigh as he draws it over his waist, and inside, I’m a swirling ball of lust and magic.

twenty-seven

Jamie

I’macoastalcityguy down to my bones, but there’s something about mountain air that’s as good as a drug. October hovers around ten degrees colder in Carrabassett Valley than it does in Portland, and the fall leaves are far more brilliant for it. Our tent is an eight-by-eight easy-up with three taps—the blonde, the orange, and the IPA—and huge coolers of cans for the fall ale. A vinyl banner with my logo is strung up behind us. I take a quick glance down the row of beverage vendors and do a mental fist pump. Ours is the longest by far. I’ve been talking hops and swiping mobile pay for four hours straight, and I’ve missed thisexhausted from work instead of painfeeling.

Noel’s off with Cara, enjoying the festival, and Em elbows me in my barely-healed ribs. “Hey. This is good,” she says, a rare serious smile on her face.

I lift my hat and wipe my forehead. “It’s better than good,” I say. “We’re killing it.”

She laughs. “Damn, I missed this Jamie.”

I raise an eyebrow. “Which Jamie is that?”

“Confident Jamie. Different from Cocky Jamie, by the way. Cocky Jamie gets on my nerves.”

I make a face. “Weird. You never said anything.”

She laughs at my joke and greets a gray-haired couple. Collecting their green paper drink tickets, she pours them two pints before turning back to me. “It feels like the old days. When you first started and you were just happy to be doing your thing. And it’s pretty clear you’re disgustingly happy now,” she says.

“Happinessisreally gross.”

Em snorts. “She’s very sweet to you. I’m glad you finally figured out you deserve that.” Em tips her head to the bustle in front of us. “And this. Because you do.”

Sometimes, I think all of the women I know are a little psychic, otherwise I’m not sure how Em knew that’s exactly what I’ve been tossing over since that argument with Wes, and my conversation with Noel after it.

The fact is, Noel and I are very new. New enough that if she’d started to question her choices after Wes’s not-so-subtle reminder of my liability, I wouldn’t have had reason to be surprised. But she didn’t. She’d given me the benefit of the doubt. Easily. She’d assumed that my biggest insecurities are unfounded. That I’m capable of something I’ve always assumed everyone knew I wasn’t.

“I’ve been thinking more about NEBev,” I tell Em when there’s a small lull in the line.

She looks over at me with a cocked eyebrow. I’ve been candid with her about this offer and the issues it’s causing between Wes and me. It’s wildly unprofessional since she works for both of us, but she has a vested interest. She deserves to know that the brand that she’s given the last two years to could evolve into something different than what she signed up for when I poached her from Java Jolt.

“Is Wes wrong about you asking Noel for help? I’m not judging, I’m just asking.”

“He wasn’t at first.” I’m interrupted by a customer and have to pour a couple of pints before turning back to Em. “Would you work for me, if it was just me?”

I brace myself to be let down easy, but her laugh surprises me the same way Noel’s reaction did. “Jamie, I’ve never been Wes’s biggest fan.”

“I mean, I get why you wouldn’t invite him to a party, but he knows what he’s doing. He’s good at it.”

She shrugs. “So are you. A hundred people can do what Wes does, J. As far as I’m concerned, you’re the talent. Where you go, the rest works out.”

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