Page 11 of Powerless
“Jas. Get me the fuck out of here. I wanna go to the ranch.”
I stare at her for a beat, hands shoved in my pockets, thinking I’d do anything she asked in this moment.
And then I reach my hand out to her with a firm nod. “Let’s go, Sunny.”
4
Sloane
Jasper:Is there a way out at the other end of the hallway?
Cade:There’s an emergency exit.
Rhett:Fuuuuucckk. Are you breaking our cousin out of her shitty, stuffy wedding?
Jasper:Yes. Come up with a distraction and text me when it’s safe for us to run.
Rhett:Can I pull the fire alarm?
Cade:I will come up with something.
Rhett:I’ve always wanted to pull the fire alarm.
Cade:You did. I had to wait for your dumb ass after school while you finished detention for weeks.
Jasper:Guys?
Cade:Willa has a plan. That might actually be worse. But when I say go . . . go. You need to run.
Sunny.
I wonder if he knows what that nickname does to me. How it makes my stomach flip.
If he knows, he shows no sign of it. Because, right now, I barely recognize the man before me. Jasper has been in my life for almost two decades and I’ve never seen him look so . . . deadly.
Not even on the ice.
He leads me across the room but stops short at the sound of voices. Sterling. My parents.
God. How many people heard the words exchanged in here today?
With a deep rumble from his chest, he fishes his phone from the inside of his suit jacket. His lean fingers are flying across the screen.
“What are you doing?” I ask to his back because I haven’t gained the courage to get that close to the door yet.
I want to leave, but I don’t want to look everyone in the eye. They’ll try to convince me to stay, and I just want to go back to where I always felt safest as a little girl. I long for that place and the simplicity of life that came with it. It’s a deep pull in my chest I can’t ignore.
“Texting my brothers.”
“For what?” I step forward and peek over the crest of his bicep, glancing down at the screen. Reading the messages that pop up between him and my cousins raptly.
“Help,” is his gruff reply. He turns to me a moment later, a hint of steel peeking out from beneath his handsome features. “You should lose the shoes.”
My face turns down as I lift my skirt. “The shoes?”
“Yeah. Hard to run in.”
My toes wiggle, the pink polish glinting under cheap fluorescent lights. I want to tell Jasper that I could easily run in these. I love a good pair of heels, and I’ll suffer in them all day. But my almost-future-mother-in-law chose these, and they aren’tmeat all.
