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 a**hole.” 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 to 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.”