Page 58 of Badd Ass
Fuck. Ketchikan had Zane. Ketchikan had the mountains and the hiking trails, and the cute bars and seafood places Zane and I had frequented. It also had Brock and Bax, the twins, Lucian, and Xavier. And Zane.
Did I mention Ketchikan had Zane?
But…who just upends their entire life for a guy they met a week ago?
And if Zane didn’t ask me to stay, it’s not like I could bust out with, “So hey, um, I was thinking I could just stay here with you in Ketchikan…forever.” Yeah, that’d work.
We’d agreed on a week. We’d agreed this was practice, that we’d spend this week together, and then I’d go home and find another man to have a real relationship with, and he’d find a woman to have a real relationship with, and we’d never see each other again.
But…god, the thought of Zane with another woman in that bed, another woman with her hands on him? Gah, no. I couldn’t even think about it, or I’d go crazy. Just thinking about it right now made me want to throw the salt and pepper shakers at Zane for cheating on me in my own head, or start crying, or run out of here so fast I’d leave a Mara-shaped hole in the wall, Looney Toons style.
And the thought of being with another man? That wasn’t any more appealing. I tried to picture someone else kissing me, someone else stripping my clothes off, someone else sinking into me…and my stomach revolted and my brain insisted on replacing the mental image of the mystery man with one of Zane, as he’d kissed me, as he’d stripped me naked, as he’d sunk into me.
I was desperately trying to create some semblance of mental and emotional stability inside myself, when a body slumped into the booth opposite me. Lucian, smelling of restaurant kitchen, his hair braided, folded in half, and tied off into a thick club between his shoulder blades, wearing a black T-shirt stained and spotted and smeared with kitchen yuck. He had a bowl of stew in one hand and a pint of beer in the other.
I sniffled. “Hi, Luce.”
He eyed me warily, hearing the sniffle. “Hey.” He spooned some stew into his mouth and chewed, still eying me thoughtfully. “Leaving tomorrow?”
I nodded. “Yep.”
“Well, speaking for at least five of us, we’ll miss you. It’s been nice having you around.”
“It’s been great meeting you all.” I swirled my beer at the bottom of the glass, watched bubbles form a scrim on the surface. “But why only five of you?”
“Well, Bast isn’t here, and I can’t speak for Zane.”
“Why wouldn’t Zane miss me?”
Lucian ate a few bites before responding. “Not what I meant.”
“Then what did you mean?”
He chewed, swallowed, and washed it down with beer. “Maybe he doesn’t want to have to miss you.”
“Oh.” I finished my beer. “Think he’ll…say something?”
Lucian shrugged. “Dunno. Might, might not.” He poked at the stew with his spoon. “You’re better off talking to him about this than me, though.”
“It’s not that simple,” I said.
Lucian shrugged. “Usually things are exactly that simple.” He finally met my eyes, his own dark and intense and unreadable. “Simple and easy aren’t the same thing, though.”
At that moment, Zane slid into the booth beside me, reached out and snagged Lucian’s bowl of stew and devoured half of it in three bites, then washed it down with a long pull on Lucian’s beer. “You boring her with your mystic nonsense, Luce?”
Lucian just lifted a wry eyebrow. “By all means, help yourself.” He took his bowl and beer back and continued eating as if nothing had happened, then eyed his brother. “What mystic nonsense?”
“Your sparsely-worded nuggets of wisdom.”
“That’s hardly mystic nonsense.”
Zane laughed. “Sure it is.”
Lucian just shook his head, and went back to eating in silence.
I found Zane’s hand under the table and threaded my fingers through his. “No mysticism, just…”
“Lucian being Lucian?” Zane supplied. “Knocking apart whatever you think you know about life in a dozen words or less?”