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Xander, my self-appointed BHFF—Best Hawthorne Friend Forever—considered it his sacred duty to keep my spirits high in his brothers’ absence. “One,” I answered. “And ten.”
“Then I bid you adieu.”
“And I,” Jameson replied, “would very much enjoy being ended.” My traitorous lips threatened a smile.
“Remind me again,” Nash told me, bending to capture my gaze with his. “What’s our rule about fightin’ dirty?” He wasn’t nearly as subtle as he thought he was when it came to Alisa Ortega, but I still answered the question. “There’s no such thing as fighting dirty,” I told Nash, “if you win.”
Ferris Wheel Leapfrog Death Match.” “Ferris Wheel Leapfrog Death Match?” I repeated. That had Xander written all over it.
“I come in peace,” he announced gravely. “I come with pie.”
“My mind is more like a roller coaster inside a labyrinth buried in an M. C. Escher painting that is riding on another roller coaster.” Xander shrugged. “But my mouth is a steel trap. Just ask me about all the secrets I’m keeping.”
“I definitely, one hundred percent, entirely… would have told Rebecca,” Xander admitted. “In retrospect, good on you for not telling me. Excellent call, shows solid judgment.”
“I believe that our best option for assessing the truth of the mysterious Eve’s character is… Chutes and Ladders.”
“Probably somewhere he’s not supposed to be,” I answered honestly, “making very bad decisions and throwing caution to the wind.”
“The one that Toby accidentally-but-kind-of-on-purpose set. It’s a long, tragic story involving daddy issues, inebriated teenagers, premeditated arson, and a freak lightning strike.”
“When I have a baby,” came the deep, heart-shattering reply, “she’ll be my whole world.” “She?” I repeated. Nash settled back into his seat. “I can picture Lib with a little girl.”
Even in the darkest of times, Xander was Xander.
“What if we can get you someone dark and mysterious with a tragic backstory and a soft spot for puppies?”
“Because, Avery, I am, as ever, your BHFF, and you know the penalty for brooding!”
“But sometimes a person’s brain starts cycling. No matter what you do, the same thoughts just keep repeating, over and over. You get stuck in a loop, and when you’re inside that loop, you can’t see past it. You’ll keep coming up with the same possibilities, to no end, because the answers you need—they’re outside the loop. Distractions aren’t just distractions. Sometimes they can break you out of the loop, and once you’re out, once your brain stops cycling—” “You see the things you missed before.”
Distractions aren’t just distractions, I reminded myself. Sometimes, you need them to break the loop.
“On the contrary, Heiress, bleeding is a devastatingly good look for me.”
“Because I’m terrible at hurting, Heiress. And if what we have now—if everything we have now—starts to feel like another competition between Grayson and me, like a game? I don’t trust myself not to play.”
“Cream cheese frosting and black velvet corsets!” Libby replied. “We are just saying random combinations of things now, right?”
“Before things even got romantic? He sent me a book bouquet.” “What’s a book bouquet?” Libby replied. “Exactly!” Max said. “Mother-faxing exactly.”
“Let’s just say I am definitely reconsidering my favorite tropes.”
“Finding Nan,” Xander explained to Eve, in what appeared to be an attempt to cheer her up, “is a bit like a game of Where’s Waldo, except Waldo likes to jab people with her cane.”
“But mostly, I can’t hate him, Avery Kylie Grambs, because he brought me you.”
“You need this. We all need this. Nash, I’ve cued up the Taylor Swift for you. Jameson, get ready to break out those dance moves because this stage is calling your name, and we all know that your hips are utterly incapable of falsehood.
“On a scale of one to pi,” Xander murmured, “how bad is it?”
“The only person I trust with all that I am and all that could be, Heiress, is you.”
“I love you. I would die to protect you. I would make you hate me to keep you safe because damn it, Avery—some things are too precious to gamble.”
What is the human condition, if not Why me?”
What did you just do?” Jameson looked at me the way he had the night he’d told me that I was their grandfather’s last puzzle, like after all this time, there were still things about me, about what I was capable of, that could surprise him. Like he wanted to know them all.
Jameson lifted a hand to the side of my neck. “Is it risky?” I didn’t look away. “Extremely.” “Good.”
“And once you’ve bested him,” Jameson continued, “because you will…” There was no feeling in the world like being seen by Jameson Hawthorne. “I’m going to need an anagram for the word everything.”
“Your boss asked you to run my security. Taking care of me…” My voice hitched. “That was all you.” Oren gave me the briefest of smiles, then he allowed himself to fall back into bodyguard mode. “What’s the plan, boss?”
“Flying leopard?” Jameson murmured. “Hidden mongoose!” Xander replied, and an instant later, they were crashing into Nash in a truly impressive synchronized flying tackle.
“Kid?” he called. “You sure as hell better play dirty.”
This was his very risky gamble—and mine.
The knight returns with the damsel in distress,” Jameson declared as I made my way toward him. He glanced toward Grayson. “You’re the damsel.” “I figured,” Grayson deadpanned.
“I guess that’s what happens,” Jameson said, his eyes never leaving mine as his lips curled upward, “when you take a very risky gamble.”
“You’ve gone everywhere, done everything…” The interviewer smiled knowingly. “With Jameson Hawthorne.” Jameson Winchester Hawthorne. “You’re smiling,” she told me. “You would, too,” I told her, “if you knew Jameson.” He was exactly what he’d always been—a thrill chaser, a sensation seeker, a risk taker—and he was so much more.
“Big changes require big actions,”
Those games hadn’t made us extraordinary. They’d showed us that we already were.
