“Hey. Alex. Lower it a notch or fifty,” I said, waving a spatula at her. I was back to breakfast since getting hot and heavy with my boyfriend wasn’t happening since Alex had arrived. “The landlord said if he gets another complaint from our neighbors about the noise coming from our apartment, we’re getting an eviction notice.”
Alex made an unimpressed sound as she wrestled off her other boot. “Puh-lease. He said that twelve warnings ago. Besides, if he evicted us, the sick perv couldn’t get his daily jollies peeking on you when you pass by his window.”
Jesse’s forehead lined. He wasn’t a jealous boyfriend, which was relieving in the way only a girl who’d been with a jealous, possessive asshole of a boyfriend could appreciate. However, he was a concerned boyfriend. To answer his silent concerns, I shook my head and rolled my eyes. Alex sold drama like it was running out.
After tossing her boots aside, she spun around and saw that I wasn’t alone. Of course her gaze lingered over Jesse like mine had earlier. When I’d counted to five and she only looked about halfway done, I grabbed one of my pancakes and flung it her way. “Speaking of getting daily jollies . . .”
Alex dodged the flying pancake while managing to keep her eyes planted on Jesse. “Hot damn, I knew it!” A lesser man than Jesse would have squirmed from the way she was eye humping him.
“Knew what, sick perv?”
She rolled her eyes, still managing to keep them on Jesse. “There really is a God.” She finally shifted her gaze to me. With a wink, she gave me a broad grin and sauntered toward the coffee pot. As she passed Jesse, she smacked his backside so hard it made both Jesse and me flinch. “And there’s a devil, too.” She waggled her eyebrows at me as she grabbed a coffee cup and filled it.
“Hey. Crazy. Keep your hands to yourself, or I’m getting a restraining order.”
“What? You were keeping yours to yourself. Really, Rowen, when a half-naked man like this delicious boy-toy of yours is standing half-naked in the kitchen, someone’s got to not keep their hands to themselves. Men like him weren’t put on this planet so that women could keep their hands to themselves.”
“Men like me can hear, you know,” Jesse piped in good-naturedly. “We can even talk. You know, in case anyone wants to issue a good morning or a hey, how are you? before smacking my backside and making me feel like a piece of meat.”
Alex rolled her eyes. “Good morning, Jesse. Hey, how are you?” Even she couldn’t keep from smiling around Jesse. It was a bloody epidemic.
“I’m doing great, Alex. So nice of you to ask,” Jesse replied.
“So what were you two freaks about to do with your morning before I burst in and objectified, sexually harassed, and assaulted your boyfriend?”
I sighed in exasperation as I carried Jesse’s and my plates to the table. Living with Alex was like living with a one-woman circus. It was always loud, always intense, and always fun. “Something freaky.”
She giggled into her coffee cup. “Please—please—don’t let me stop you. I’m perfectly happy to watch whatever freakiness you were about to partake in. Just pretend I’m not here.” She hopped up onto the counter and got comfortable.
“Go medicate yourself or something.” I was tempted to throw another pancake at her, but I was hungry. I’d already wasted one pancake, and it hadn’t even shut her up for a second.
“Come on! I wouldn’t even say anything.”
“Alex!” I shot a pathetic glare at Jesse, who was silently chuckling.
“What, Cranky Pants?”
“Medication. Now.” I lifted my eyebrows and waited. Alex wasn’t really on medication—contrary to popular belief—but we’d learned to build healthy boundaries so we didn’t annoy the shit out of each other. She was about five seconds of stare-lusting over Jesse past annoying the shit out of me.
“Fine. Be selfish like that and keep him all to yourself.” She slid off the counter, blew each of us a kiss, and headed for her room. “Damn. I hope I put Julio on the charger. I need my Julio action after walking in on that fine piece of cowboy ass.”
I shook my head and dove into my pancakes.
“Julio?” Jesse asked, sounding like he was afraid to ask. He was right to be.
“Don’t ask,” I said, lifting my hand. The first week we’d lived in the apartment, I rushed into Alex’s room after hearing her high-pitched screams. Let’s just say there wasn’t enough brain bleach to wipe that image from my mind. Ready to move on from the Julio, giant-hot-pink-vibrator conversation, I changed the topic. “How’s the gang back home?”
Jesse’s face ironed out, and his eyes went soft. “Home?” He dropped his forkful of pancake back on his plate.
I shrugged and gave him a look. Not that I was complaining, but I didn’t understand what I’d said or done to generate that warm expression.
“Do you think of Willow Springs like that? As your home?”
Ah. I got it. He’d gone all soft in the knees, eyes, and head because I’d called his home my home. Honestly, wherever he was or wherever he went was my home. I might have been too big of a chicken to admit that to him, but I suppose that without realizing it, I kind of just had. Damn my subconscious and its agenda.
“Mi casa es tu casa. Tu casa es mi casa. Right? In terms of Webster’s definition of a home, I suppose Willow Springs is as close to one as I’ve ever had,” I said with another shrug. I knew my answer was the reason his hopeful expression dropped ever so slightly. I also knew I’d just upgraded—or would it be downgraded?—my chicken status to coward status, but the overwhelming, at times stifling, feelings I had for Jesse were difficult to admit to myself, let alone to him.
I’d gone from living an anesthetized life in a black-and-white world to suddenly being thrust into an over-stimulating, overwhelming world in vivid Technicolor. It was a one-eighty that had taken place in barely six months. I hadn’t adjusted yet, although each day I adapted a bit more.
Jesse’s hand settled over mine. He squeezed gently. “You’re right, Rowen. Your home is my home. And my home is yours.”
I rotated my hand to tangle my fingers through his. “It sounds better in English.”
“Nah. It sounded better when you said it.” His eyes got all intentional again which, of course, made my stomach coil into a hundred little knots. Finally, he picked his fork back up and got after his breakfast. “Everyone’s doing good,” he said around a mouthful of pancake. “Mom and the girls all obviously miss you, and Dad misses you but tries not to be as obvious about it. Which, of course, makes it that much more obvious.”
I laughed. Neil was a lot like Jesse. On the surface, he appeared to be a tough cowboy who’d never even considered crying, but deep down, they were both a couple of big softies. Hippies at heart, as Jesse had once described himself. “The feeling’s mutual. Give your dad a hug for me when you get back. Just don’t make it obvious.”
Jesse waved his hand. “Obviously.”
“Garth? Josie? Sunny? Cows?” Talking about Willow Springs always made me homesick. I liked Seattle and I loved studying art, but no place was like Willow Springs. I knew, deep down, no place ever would be either. I’d grown up in Portland, but it felt as much like home as a hotel. There was nothing in Portland I yearned for, nothing I missed. I hadn’t heard from my mom since she drove away with the man who’d been the catalyst for my five years of self-destructive behavior. I’d cut off the dead branch in my life, and even though it wasn’t an easy decision, it was the right one. The healthy one.
“Garth is . . . well, Garth,” Jesse said with a shrug, “and I haven’t seen a whole lot of Josie lately. I think she’s been seeing one of the Mason brothers which, back to Garth, pisses him the hell off.”
My eyebrows came together. “Why would Garth care who Josie is seeing or not seeing?”
“He wouldn’t care if it wasn’t a Mason.”
“And these Masons must be . . . making and selling meth out of a rundown trailer? Contract murderers? Raving lunatics?”
“They’re a nice, down-to-earth family with a bit more money than the rest of us. A family who Garth is convinced not a single one of them knows the front of a horse from the back of one.”
“So Garth hates them why?” My eyebrows were still pinched together.
“In case you haven’t picked up on it yet . . . Garth’s a bit of an asshole.” Jesse winked as he took a sip of coffee.
“Now that you mention it, I believe I did pick up on that somewhere along the way.” I tapped my chin, not masking my sarcasm.
“He’s a subtle one.”
“Just the word I’d use to describe Garth Black.”
Jesse shook his head as he chuckled, making that sexy-as-all-hell hair of his fall across his forehead. It reminded me of the way I’d wove my fingers through it last night and tugged on it when—
“And Sunny boy misses you, too. Of course.”
I cleared my throat and mind, and I reached for the glass of water in front of me. “Of course.”
“The cows even miss you.”
“The cows? Okay, now I know you’re lying.”
“What? They do.” He stuffed a piece of bacon into his mouth and smiled at me as he chewed and swallowed. “They miss you because they can sense how much I do.”
I rolled my eyes. “And they have this sixth sense to know you miss me?” I’d spent a lot of time around cows the past year. They didn’t strike me as the “missing” kind of species.
“Cows are much smarter than people give them credit for.” Jesse tried to feign insult, but all he really managed was amused.
“Says the cowboy,” I mumbled.
“Fine, fine. If you’re going to insult my secretly intelligent cows, let’s move on to something else.” Jesse’s voice, as it pretty much always stayed, was good-natured. On a rare handful of times, I’d heard him raise it. Whenever he did, I stopped and paid attention.
“What topic would you like to move onto?” I asked.
Jesse glanced at my half-empty coffee cup, and he was out of his seat and pulling the coffee pot out of its holder a moment later. “How about what you have on the docket for the day,” he said as he topped off my cup. “Pike’s Place? Alki Beach? Downtown?”
“Bed?” I suggested, although it was more of a request than a suggestion. When Jesse froze for a split second before his eyes went wide, I could tell he was all too eager to meet that request.
“Is this, like, an all-day event you have in mind? Should I pack some food and water to keep our energy levels high?” He was already grabbing a couple of sodas from the fridge before moving on to one of the cupboards. He pulled out an unopened box of granola bars.
“You’d better pack more than that, Cowboy, for what I’ve got planned.”
Jesse swallowed, snagged the first food items his hands fell on, and raced behind me as I lunged toward the bedroom.
Of course, that’s when my phone would ring.
“Oh, come on!” Jesse practically shouted as I checked my phone.
I frowned when I saw who was calling. Not because I didn’t like the person on the other end, but because I knew I had to take it. I really didn’t want to have to take it.
“Ignore it.” Jesse dropped his armful of snacks and drinks on my desk.
“I can’t.” I picked up the phone when it buzzed again.
He made a sad puppy face. “Please?”
“You don’t play fair.” That look really shouldn’t have been allowed. I came so close to caving, hitting ignore, and carpe diem’ing.
“When a guy is literally two seconds from leaping into bed with his girlfriend, he doesn’t have to play fair.” Jesse settled into my desk chair, gave me a small smile, and nodded at my phone. “You better answer that.”
“This isn’t a cancellation of previously scheduled activities. It’s just a momentary delay,” I whispered right before answering the phone.
“What’s a momentary delay?” said the voice on the phone.
Okay, so I guess I didn’t get that last little bit in before answering the phone. “Errr, nothing. I was talking to someone else.” I plopped down on the end of the bed and grinned at Jesse, who was spinning slow circles in my chair and tapping his wrist.
“Who? That crazy roommate of yours?”
“No. Not Alex. Jesse’s in town. I was talking to him.”
There was silence on the other end. “Who’s Jesse?”
I sighed. Surely I’d been over it only a few dozen times that school year. “My boyfriend.”
Another silence and then a small sound of recognition. “Oh, yeah. The hick from Montana, right?” I was starting to regret answering the call for other reasons than just delayed gratification. “Isn’t Jesse a girl’s name?”
I blew out a long breath before replying. Jesse keyed in on my irritated responses, and his brows knitted together as he studied me. “Is there a reason you’re calling me a little after seven on a Saturday morning, Jax?” I asked.
Jesse’s forehead lined suddenly, but it flattened back out almost as suddenly.
“Someone’s not a morning person . . .” Jax muttered.
“Someone’s about to get hung up on.” My reply wasn’t a mutter.
Jax’s low laugh sounded. Jax Jones was a T.A. for some of the first-year art classes. He was an exceptionally talented artist who could have been studying alongside the best artists in the country. Why he’d chosen a community college in Seattle to attend, I didn’t know, but the students fortunate enough to wind up with him as a T.A. learned more from Jax than they did from the professor.
Lucky for me—or not so lucky at the moment—Jax had been the T.A. for one of my classes each quarter. I had learned more from him than any other person, so I turned a blind eye to his faults and hoped some of his art genius would rub off. Everyone on campus knew Jax Jones’s faults—he drank too much, screwed too many women, and probably did a little too much coke between classes—but he’d never crossed any of those lines with me, so I let the man have his faults. I wasn’t going to be one of those who pointed a judgey finger his way. Lord knew I was a long-shot from sainthood.
Jax Jones was on the other end of spectrum from Jesse Walker. It might have taken me eighteen years, but I’d figured out I liked the Jesse Walkers of the world.
“What plans have you got for today?” Jax asked, sounding almost excited. That got my attention. Jax did excited about as often as I did exuberant.
“Um—”
“Whatever it is, cancel it. Cancel it all,” Jax interrupted. “I was able to line up an opportunity that a first-year student would slit throats for.”
“What kind of an opportunity?” I asked slowly, keeping my eyes on Jesse. His eyes were on me, but his expression gave nothing away. He was so damn good at keeping his emotions locked away when he needed to. The only times he chose to do so were when one of those darker emotions was trying to push through.
“One of my old friends just bought the Underground. You’ve heard of the place, right?”
“Every college-aged student in the state has heard of it,” I answered. It was a true “underground” kind of place. Guests got in by invitation only. Back alleys and an old elevator was the only way to get into the place, and it served up a party to end all parties every Friday and Saturday night. I’d never been, but I’d heard my fair share and then some about it.
“Well guess what college-aged student is going to have their art on display in the V.I.P. section for an entire month starting tonight?”
“Whoa. You are? That’s huge, Jax. Congratulations.” The Underground wasn’t just a glorified meat market. It had been a springboard for dozens of artists’ careers over the past couple of decades. Given the Underground saw more millionaires in their V.I.P. section than any Vegas casino did, a lot of starving artists with talent sold their entire collection and were put on the artsy upper-crust’s radar.
“Not me, Rowen.” He chuckled while I waited. “You. You’re the budding artist whose dreams of fame and glory are about t
o come true.”
I was too shocked to reply right away. I ran through Jax’s words again. Had he really said my art would be on display at the Underground? Had he really said . . . “I don’t have dreams of fame and glory.” Yeah. That was the response I went with.
Jesse’s forehead went back to creased.
“Sure, you do. You might not think you do, but somewhere deep inside of you, dreams of fame and glory are just waiting to burst free. We all have those kinds of dreams.”
“I’m an artist,” I replied.
“Then you really have dreams of fame and glory trying to bust out.”
Okay, I wasn’t going to argue. Besides, had he just said my art was going to be at the Underground . . . tonight? “I think I might have misunderstood you. It sounded like you said my art would be going up tonight? Did you mean next weekend? Or next month?” Usually, artists were commissioned for something like that months in advance to give them time to put together a balanced, cohesive display.
“I meant tonight.”
Nope, I hadn’t heard him wrong. “How in the world did that happen? Don’t people normally wait years to get their stuff into the Underground? How in the hell am I going to put together a collection in, oh . . .” I checked the time on my phone. My eyes widened. “Just about twelve hours.”
After my last outburst, Jesse came over and settled beside me on the bed, dropping his arm around my waist. I took a breath, a full one. He always managed to calm the crazy a few crazy levels.
Jax chuckled again. “The guy who was supposed to have his art on display starting tonight O.D’d last night. When the guy who owns the club called me asking for a rising star to fill in the dead tweaker’s spot, guess whose name was on the tip of my tongue?”
There was so much wrong in that sentence, I didn’t know where to begin. So I kept my reply simple. “Eh, me?”
“Yep. Rowen Sterling. Rising star. Repressed feelings of fame and glory. Worst phone conversationalist ever. You.”