Page 96 of The Fate Factor

I shrug, pretending that answer doesn’t shake me a little.

“We’re not on opposite sides here, Noel.” He seems to get frustrated at this, huffing a breath. “Look, something you need to understand about Jamie is that he thinks he has something to prove to the world, and when he’s being smart, it’s a good motivator. But when he’s not being smart, it makes himbullheaded. You’re not doing him any favors by coddling this part of him.”

“Coddling?”

“Jamie thinks you’re the reason he has all of this.” He vaguely gestures to the main bar. “That’s why he’s clinging so hard to it. It’s bullshit.”

I flinch at the venom in that last word, and he shakes his head. By the slight curl of his lip, I can tell he senses he’s getting to me.

“You’re his out from the pressure of making a tough call. Don’t you see that? I mean, for Christ’s sake, I have an MBA, Noel. Jamie has a BA in communications that took him five years to get and, oh, a magic girlfriend. He’s in over his head, and he brought me on to explain these things to him.”

What started as a tiny flicker of anger in my chest roars up. What an absolutely shitty thing to say. “He has his own ideas, Wes. This whole thing was his idea.” My shoulders are pushed back, chin tipped, but I can hear the shake in my voice. “Maybe if you didn’t always expect him to fail, you might be able to see how much he’s succeeding.”

“Maybe, Noel, if you didn’t think he was destined to have this, you’d see how unlikely it is.”

I feel a little bit like I’ve been knocked in the head when I make my way back to the table where Jamie and his friends sit, talking and laughing. My ankle wobbles as I take a seat on his knee, and he catches me around the waist, pulling me snug. His lips find the spot beneath my ear, a warm smile pressed against my skin that would normally have me curling into him for more, but I’m distracted, battling a buzz of discontent.I’m his out. The visions are his out.

I haven’t had to analyze this magic in a long while. Not since the hotel. I’ve just been enjoying the benefits of it, the me and Jamie part, but that conversation was a reminder of what’s still left unsettled.

Ever since that night Jamie confessed why he partnered with Wes in the first place, I’ve been worried that maybe he’s giving the magic more credit than he’s giving himself. Maybe that’s the same thing as what Wes said.Coddling that stubborn part of him.

But Jamie doesn’t justthinkthis is fate. He knows it is. We know it is. The things I saw came true—Fortune, me and him—and he has every right to bet on this even if I never have another one.

Except the little pieces that are different. The ones he doesn’t know about.

“Noe?”

“Hmm?” Jamie’s said something to me that I missed because I’m staring at his hand wrapped around the pint glass. The scar on the back of it seems to stare back at me.

“Do you like it?” He nods at the beer in my hand, his winter ale. He’s launching it tomorrow.

I shake away my train of thought and smile at him. “I love it.”

Jamie’s friend Greg smiles at us over his pint with a look I recognize. There’s no denying the meaning behind it. It’s the look I gave Kate the first summer I met Colin. It’s the “my friend is happy, so I am too”smile.

My stomach cinches again. I wonder what Greg would think about Wes’s way of looking at this. If my part caused more harm than good.

Jamie’s relaxed, his palm flat on my stomach, head tipped back in the booth. If he has any inkling his brother is on the warpath tonight, he’s hiding it well. Maybe Wes has turned his sights completely on me.

After the last customers cash out, leaving just our little group, Em turns off the sign and joins us. She takes the seat next to Greg, across from me, and as if she’s tapped into some Girl Code instinct, she lifts an eyebrow in a silentEverything okay? gesture.

I nod back with a forced smile because what’s bothering me isn’t exactly something I can have a quick chat in the bathroom about. Maybe I shouldn’t be talking about it at all.

I lean my head back and whisper in Jamie’s ear. “I think I’m going to go to bed.” I’m suddenly exhausted to my core, the beer pulling my eyelids down like a dumbwaiter.

“Okay.” Jamie looks at his full beer, then up at me. “I’ll just finish this.”

“No, stay,” I tell him, cupping his face.

He glances at the back door that leads to his loft. “You’ll sleep here, though?”

I nod. I’d already planned on sleeping here tonight.

“Are you sure?”

“Mmhmm.”

“Okay, I’ll only be a little while.”

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