“Why? You jealous, bro?” Austin’s walls were back up, I could tell by the sarcastic tilt to his voice, and I heaved another sigh. It was doubtful I’d get anything out of him when he was like this.
“No, Aus. Not jealous, or I mean yeah, I am, but that’s not the point. You didn’t tell me. Why?” Might as well give it a try, even if it did just turn into an argument. We had a decent drive ahead and nothing better to do.
For a tense moment, he said nothing in response, then deflected. “I’m surprised you admit you’re jealous, Cal. After all, she is already sleeping with both River and Cole, and you don’t seem too jealous of them.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” I coughed a laugh. “I’m so insanely jealous of them I literally want to punch them both in the dick. I’d do it, too, if I didn’t know Cole would get me back way worse.”
“Okay, so I don’t get it. Why are you still interested when she’s clearly not that into you all?” He genuinely seemed interested in my answer.
“Why do you say that?” I frowned.
“What, that she’s not into you?” he clarified, flicking a confused look at me, and I nodded. “Ah, isn’t that kind of obvious? She’s sleeping with two of our best friends, then kissed you in front of them… If she cared about any of you, I doubt that’s the best way to show it.”
For once, my twin didn’t seem to be picking a fight with me. He was actually confused and asking the question because he wanted to hear the answer, so I paused before responding, to get the words right.
“Aus, just because it’s not normal doesn’t mean it’s not possible to care for several people at once. She already knows that Cole and River are okay with each other being involved; I mean fuck, they make it pretty clear. I kissed her in front of everyone so she would understand that I was into it as well.” He didn’t respond, but I could see the tension in his jaw mounting and knew he wasn’t getting my point. “Okay, so consider how a parent can have more than one kid. They love them all equally, right?”
“I hardly think this is the same thing,” Austin scoffed.
“Why not?” I challenged. “Why can’t it be? Why can’t Kit hold the capacity to love, or at least care for, more than one guy at the same time?” This conversation was actually giving a lot of clarity to my own jumbled thoughts while I spoke them aloud. If I was totally honest, Austin was simply voicing my own fears. But in defending Kit, I was finding my own peace with the situation.
“So, you’re what,” Aus snorted, “in love with her now? How the fuck is that going to work?”
“Maybe? I don’t know. This whole situation doesn’t exactly lend itself to ‘dating’ or anything. If anything, it brings to light how fickle life is. So shouldn’t we do whatever makes us happy with the time we have?” Jesus, I sounded like some sort of fucking hippie with my flowers and rainbows bullshit, but I couldn’t help it. That’s truly how I felt about it.
For a long time, neither of us said anything, but eventually Austin cracked and gave me a pitying look.
“I’d find it easier to believe this whole ‘group love’ crap is a byproduct of her magic,” he muttered, half under his breath, but I heard him and shrugged.
“Maybe it is. I don’t really care. I just know that for whatever reason, I’m so insanely into her that I would walk through fire. Sharing her time with two of my best friends really isn’t such a tough ask, and the way things have been going, it’s kind of nice to know she has them looking after her too.” Yep, I was a certifiable hippie. Time to start tie-dying my t-shirts and smoking pot.
“And if she doesn’t feel the same? If she’s just using you three for sex, and you all end up getting your hearts broken, or worse, breaking up this team?” he challenged with a very valid concern, and he was not going to like my answer.
“Sometimes, bro, you just gotta trust your gut.” I grinned broadly at him as he gave a pained groan and pretended to smack his head on the steering wheel.
“Now, if you’re done with your questions, are you going to fess up about this paintball makeout, or can I channel flip again?” Smug as shit, I cocked an eyebrow at him when he glanced over.
“Have at it,” he grunted, smacking the power button on his radio and filling the small space with loud music once more.
28
The twins had beaten us to the safe house and were already waiting when we arrived, leaning against Austin's car like the cover of a magazine or something. As we exited River's car, with me stumbling and almost falling while clambering off Wesley's lap, Caleb gave us a surprised look.
“Kitty Kat, you could have come with us you know. It looks like that was an awfully cramped ride…” He looked curiously at the other men piling out of the car.
“You have no idea,” Cole muttered, stalking past us and into the house.
The safe house was a lovely countryside home, set in perfectly manicured gardens and looking like the sort of place you expect to see a nice old lady baking pies. Not at all what I would have expected from a spy safe house, but I guessed that was kind of the point.
“Hey, Austin.” I grabbed his arm as he moved to walk past me, and he paused, raising his eyebrows. “Do you have the number for Lucy’s rehab? I want to call and let her know what’s going on. Actually, maybe we should get her out of there…”
“I’ve already called and spoken to her,” he told me with a slight frown. “She said she’s not going anywhere, that the whole point of moving her there was that no one knew where she was, so it’s the safest place. Also, she said not to stress about Finn and that she’s handling it.”
Lucy’s message did the complete opposite of instilling confidence in me because now I was stressing about her getting herself in trouble if she tried to question Finn herself. As I had already seen, he was no stranger to casual murder.
“So I am going to ask you again, princess,” Austin continued with narrowed eyes. “Who the fuck is Finn, and why does Luce need to handle it?”
“Kitty Kat!” Caleb called out, and I saw that everyone else had already gone inside. “The Director is on the phone wanting to speak to you.”
Austin held my gaze for a moment longer, silently demanding answers, but I took the distraction Caleb had provided and ducked inside to take the call.
“Kit, what the hell happened outside the townhouse?” Jonathan's irate voice echoed down the phone, and I cringed. We should have called him sooner.
“Car bomb,” I told him succinctly. There was a long pause on his end and then a heavy sigh.
“Never mind; I will get the details from Alpha later. There is a huge mess of paperwork that I will need to action in order to get this cleaned up. Are you okay though? Was anyone hurt?” Instead of sounding worried, like I might have expected, he sounded sort of… curious? Has he been body-snatched or something?