Page 58 of Tangled Like Us

She searches my eyes and puts a few fingers to her cheek. “So…” She clears her throat and shakes her head, more to herself. “What do you think?”

This feels like that one time where I told Jane I’d help her find another guy to provide her “oral assistance”—when I was right there and she would’ve been willing. That was like running a 99-yard touchdown for the wrong team. Knowing I had to score for someone else.

Wanting to turn around every inch gained on the field.

Pretty much hell.

I swallow a jagged rock and drop my eyes to the photo. “I’ll need to vet him,” I remind her.

She nods. “I know.” Her voice is tighter than usual.

I’ve never had to vet a guy that she could potentially date or fuck or both. For the majority of my time on her detail, she’s been shut off to every intimate thing with men.

Fuck Nate, that fucking bastard.

Imagining Jane falling in love with other men punctures something hot in me and I need to think of brighter things before I pop a blood vessel.

Puppies.

Rainbows.

Pussy.

God, Jane is right in front of me.Maybe not pussy.

I scrutinize the photo. “Are you pursuing him?” I ask outright.

She tilts her head. “What do you mean bypursuing?”

“Dating,” I clarify.Having sex.

“No dating.” She’s practically whispering. “Nothing else. It’s purely platonic.”

My expression closes up. What she intends as beingplatoniccould become something more.

And then what?

And then nothing.My feelings don’t matter. I can’t just break rank and say,fuck it.

But something in my mind is saying,unfuck this.

Get rid of the fullback and the Wall of Suitors. “What about just calling your grandmother?” I ask Jane.

Farrow chimes in, “That’s what I said before these two started tacking dipshits up on the wall.”

Maximoff blinks slowly. “Thank you for illustrating how great of a friend I am.”

“The best,” Jane says in a warm smile.

Maximoff smiles back.

Jane turns to me. “And I have called our grandmother. Twenty times. She has to be screening the calls because I’m sent to voicemail every time. Watch.” She picks up her phone from the coffee table and dials a number. Hoisting it in the air, we wait.

It rings once before the line clicks.

Her eyes expand to saucers, and she brings the speaker to her lips. “Grandmother?”

“Jane, dear.” Grandmother Calloway sounds like she’s sucked on helium for half her fucking life. Uppity blue-blooded aristocrats were foreign territory to me until I became a bodyguard.