Page 101 of Sinful Like Us

I love them.

Farrow pops a bubblegum bubble in his mouth. “You’re asking the wrong bodyguard. You need to talk to the one in charge.”

Sulli whips around. “Kits, can you come here for a sec?”

Akara stands off the sofa and pushes back his black hair as he nears his client.

Moffy takes his arm off Farrow and dances with his sister. Luna and Maximoff do the running man move together, and then he twirls her in a circle.

I sway to the beat, and I notice how Farrow looks absolutely and without a shadow of a doubt inlovewith his future husband. I’ve been a spectator to their love for so long, and now that mine is in reach, I’m scared to embrace every little part until it consumes me.

Being a voyeur to love is easier than being in love, I think.

We all look up as multi-colored Christmas lights switch on, brightening the pub in an array of colors. My head keeps whirling, and whiskey scalds my esophagus, a good sting.

“I can try to shift Tony to Moffy’s detail, but I can’t promise he’ll respond, Sul,” Akara tells her. “Jane is his client. He’s allowed to protect her first.”

“Fuck,” Sulli curses in a sigh. “Thanks anyway.” She slugs his shoulder.

He just nods.

Strange.I squint at their interaction and taste more whiskey. Usually Akara would fling a strand of hair in her face or slug her back just as playfully.

Sullivan puts two fingers to her lips. “What’s wrong?”

Farrow, Moffy, and Luna watch too.

“I’m just doing my job.” Akara fixes his earpiece. “Is that it?”

Her squared jaw tenses. “Yeah…”

Akara nods, then he returns to the couch beside Quinn.

“What the fuck was that?” Sulli whispers to me, but she’s already distracted. Will is waving her over to the bar, and a smile spreads across her face.

“Go get him, tiger.” I cheer her on.

Sulli strides over to her boyfriend, and I cement to this very spot. Hardly budging.Smart, Jane. You know if you go great and terrible distances, you will face-plant.

Different people approach me at different intervals.

“Do you have dirt on Will?” I ask outright to Charlie and Beckett, Moffy and Farrow also in our new fireside chat. Luna dances by herself in the corner of the pub.

“No.” Charlie tugs at his hair, possibly irritated that I’m even asking the important questions that he believes are obvious.

Feel-Good Drunk Jane doesn’t care if they’reobviousor not.

Beckett lights a cigarette between his lips. “Are we just going to forget his younger brother is a dick?”

“Really?” I say. “Wesley wasn’tthatawful.” I tuck my hair behind my ear—no, never mind, I catch air. My hair is in a low pony. I smile at myself.

Charlie taps his finger against a glass of Scotch. “You think he wasn’t awful because you didn’t hear the shit he said about you.”

Maximoff glares at the wall. This must have been in high school, and I don’t ask what rumors Wesley spread or what terrible things he said because I don’t want to award him any space in my brain.

I try to send my brothers a pointed look, but I’m sure the alcohol has dulled its effect. “Will Rochester isn’tWesley.The sins of his brother aren’t his own.”

Charlie takes a hot sip of Scotch. “We all bear the sins of our parents every day we breathe, and so why aren’t the sins of a brother or sister or cousin the same?”