Page 46 of Jump

“Your date can suck my cock,” I sneer. “Hannah thinks all quiet people are boring. And being rude can be fun, when you don’t care about the people you offend.” I set both books on the couch, between her legs and mine. “How far into the story did you get before you figured out it was the president?”

Her eyes light up brighter than I’ve ever seen. “Oh my gosh! I think I was about halfway.”

“Halfway?! No chance. They didn’t even start dropping clues until after that.”

“Not true.” Her cheeks warm, but with energy. Passion. Excitement, instead of shyness. “He has that shady guy on his security team, who got my spidey-senses tingling the moment he stepped on scene. Which was, like…”

“The third page?”

“The third page!” she laughs. “Yes. So from the moment he was introduced, I thought it might be him. I was watching him the whole time, waiting for the damning evidence to drop. But during the Evans murder, he was alibied up tight. It was then that I realized the only person unaccounted for in all the drama was the president himself.”

“Most fans have been reading these books since the start of the series. The bodyguard has been around since the beginning, and his innocence was proven long ago, so going into this book, I sure as shit wasn’t looking sideways at him.”

“I guess my lack of insight to the backstory made it easier to see all the players without the tinted glasses of familiarity.” She brings her wine up and takes another sip, but I see the smile behind the lip of the glass. I see her dancing eyes. “I picked it early, so as the author started dropping those hints later on, I was able to apply each thing to that slimy bastard.”

Lifting both her legs to the couch and sitting crisscross, she lowers her hands and wine to rest in the gap. “Now talk to me about my book.”

“Straight-up fuckin’ porn!” I laugh when her cheeks burn a fiery red. “I was there for the story beneath, but damn, when things heated up for them, I was a little bothered.”

“You pervert,” she giggles. Giggles! Much the same way she did the night we met; when we were Ana and Jump, and the entire world was put on hold so we could have our moment. “I like all sorts of whodunnit books, but I prefer if they come with a love story too. And with most love stories, there is usually sex. It’s just the way it is.”

“Yeah, reading the porn was a total hardship for me,” I tease. “Seriously, though, I stopped worrying about the arson around three-quarters of the way through, because the main characters broke up.”

“You were invested in their relationship!”

“I was,” I faux grumble. “And I felt so stupid about it. They’re not even real, but damn if my stomach didn’t tighten when they had that fight and she walked away.”

“It’s okay to care about them.” Reaching across and setting her wineglass on the coffee table, she straightens up again and picks up her book. Flicking through the pages, but probably only reading a single word from each, she sighs happily, so the sound makes my stomach clench.

“Were we put on this planet to work and stress and eventually die?” she poses thoughtfully. Glancing up, she meets my eyes with her arctic blue stare. “Or were we put here to love one another? To create a community of people who watch out for each other and have a common goal of doing good?”

Jesus. “That’s optimistic of you.” Reaching up, I run a hand through my hair and take a gulp of my beer. “In my line of work, I tend to see that community burning each other, Ana. When my crew is running into a burning building, everyone else is running out. There’s no common goodness, there’s just ants scurrying—and often, a rat somewhere in the center who lit the fire.”

“Pessimistic of you,” she drawls in retort. “I work with abandoned and abused dogs, Matt. I spend every spare dollar I have to keep them fed and well. Their kennels are warmer right now than our own home, because you and I can put more clothes and a blanket on. They can’t. I beg and barter for more food. I make Hannah plead with her boss to bake free desserts for the local vet, in exchange for cheap or free services for the animals that come through our door. I do all that, because I want to be the goodness in their short lives. I want to be a safe haven for the sweet dogs who’ve yet to see kindness. Nine times out of ten, I get mongrel half-breeds with no real pedigree. They don’t always look nice. They’re rarely puppies, which is what most people want. And still, there are couples who, like the Davieses tonight, will drop hundreds of dollars in my bank account in exchange for an ugly dog with trust issues and poor training.”

She allows a sweet smile to roll across her lips. “I see society’s worst and best, all in the same place, and often on the same day. A fox terrier is brought to my facility with open wounds because he’s been attacked. A rottweiler who should weigh eighty pounds is barely pulling forty. Human beings hurt these innocent animals, which could make me entirely bitter and sad. But human beings also adopt them—better humans. They pay to take these undesirable dogs home, and then they give them a happy life.”

“You’re too forgiving,” I rumble. “How can you not be pissed at the assholes who hurt them in the first place?”

“I am pissed.” She sets her book down on the cushions between us and, finally relaxing, unzips her jacket and peels it away so I catch sight of her collarbones. Her loose-fitting shirt, a size or two too big, so the sleeve hangs a little off one shoulder.

“I get really sad sometimes,” she admits. “I lie in bed at night and think about how lonely the newer dogs are in that moment. Hurt, afraid, and alone in a cage they have no clue how they got into. I have a comfortable mattress inside a good home. A good neighborhood. And really, no one has ever truly hurt me. I’m more blessed than a lot of others. And here I am, living my comfortable life, while the dogs are locked in a cage.”

“You can’t sleep there,” I insert. “And you can’t bring them all home. What you do for them is already more than enough.”

She wrinkles her nose and considers for a beat. “I don’t entirely agree. I think I could do more, though I’m not sure what that more could be. But in the meantime, I’ll do my best and play my part in this community of doing good. And for those nights I’m here, comfortable and warm in my bed, I’ll probably continue to wander the hall and try my damnedest to shut off my brain before it officially sends me mad. It’s all we can hope for in life, right?”

To not go mad? I scoff in the back of my throat and shake my head. Because I’m not entirely sure I’m not already there. “That was a big tangent, considering we started on porn.”

She rolls her eyes, but she doesn’t laugh like I guess I was aiming for. She doesn’t find humor in what I hoped would be a distraction from the giant elephant in the room.

Instead, she murmurs, “I heard they suspect the Oriane fire was arson.”

My stomach drops and my throat burns dry, so I turn on the couch, lower my feet to the floor, and tip my beer back to drink.

“They believed it to be an electrical fault,” she continues. Smack. Smack. Smack. “That’s what the official reports say. But now they’re saying it might’ve been the delivery driver. Raul Montenegro.”

“They won’t rule it any other way but how it’s already written up,” I grit out. “No one’s gonna open that investigation again after all this time.”

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