Page 1 of Love JD

Chapter one

Zev

Weddings made me itchy.

Clearly, I was allergic to them. It was the only explanation for why my throat had closed up and my skin felt raw under the three-piece suit that constrained my enormous frame. I ran a hand under my collar, tugging at the gray silk tie while my other steered smoothly through Salt Lake City traffic. I glanced at my left hand on the wheel. Were those hives?

“Stop fussing,” Azura said dispassionately.

I grimaced, pulling harder at the collar. “I feel like I did when I ate a plate of scallops in Cabos.”

“You look fine. One wedding isn’t going to kill you.” My sister sat in the passenger seat to my right, and her eyes were on her phone. Her thumb scrolled through news articles idly.

“They’re not even my friends,” I grumbled, flicking on the turn signal. “It’s Amos’ research partner marrying a random single mom. Remind me why we care.”

Azura rotated a half-lidded glare my way, abandoning her phone screen. “Amos is our brother. He’s in said wedding. Dr. Cade and Laurel are family friends, and we have the misfortune of being family with you. Therefore, you’re going.” Azura went back to scrolling, her long, robin’s egg blue dress draped around her curled up legs. “Tristan doesn’t know them either, but he’s showing up, too. Actually, I think he’s already there,” she added, apparently texting him back. “He’s meeting us in the parking lot.”

Lacing my voice with a heavy dose of sarcasm, I responded with a “Goody,” and a sneer for good measure. Every time I saw Tristan, I wanted to pop his nose up through his skull and then break a few fingers. I mean, the guy had actually ziptied Azura to a chair, and not by her consent. I liked a little bondage as much as the next guy, but it was mental for her to have fallen for the man who had literally abducted her a few months ago. I’d gone to rescue her from her helmet-wearing vigilante captor only to find her in love with him. Absolute lunatics, the both of them.

The only thing that had ever so slightly—microscopic-level slight, mind you—soothed my rage over the situation had been Tristan’s general demeanor around Azura. He did care about her, and he’d been nothing but gentle with her when I’d seen them together. In fact, the first few months they’d been together, I thought I’d need to get the jaws of life to pry them apart. Maybe there was something to the kidnapping strategy I was missing, I didn’t know. Either way, she was happy, so I had let it go.

Azura clicked her tongue and rolled her eyes. “Tristan isn’t going anywhere. Stop throwing tantrums about it.”

“Oh, you haven’t seen tantrums yet,” I muttered under my breath.

But Azura didn’t hear me, and she gasped loudly instead. She’d been scrolling through something on her phone, and then she put her free hand to her mouth. “Oh my God.”

“What?” I asked, half-distracted by a group of people strolling slowly across a pedestrian crossing like it was a beach boardwalk instead of a busy intersection.

“Oh my God. Oh. My. God.”

“Azura,” I said in exasperation. “What?”

“It’s Chance,” she replied, holding up her phone to show me a picture of her dick ex-boyfriend. Only, it was a mugshot of him, and he looked beat to hell.

“Whoa, what happened to that guy?”

“He got extradited,” she said in wonder. “For… environmental fraud?” she asked, her voice tipping up.

I stopped at another red light, and we exchanged loaded looks. “Tristan,” we said in unison.

Azura put a hand to her forehead. “My boyfriend had my ex-boyfriend extradited on a bogus charge. For revenge.”

“Tristan is a criminal,” I pointed out derisively. “What did you think he’d do when he found out your ex stole all your money?”

“He’s not a criminal,” she frowned up at me, her huge brown eyes offended. “He’s a CEO for a multi-million-dollar company, and he’s doing very well considering that he got thrown into it less than a year ago.”

“Azura, he kidnapped you,” I said, my voice deadpan.

“Semantics,” she replied, waving me away like a gnat. Her eyes fell back down to her phone screen. “Holy shit. He really did it. He actually got him arrested.”

“So, what relationship level is that?” I asked, my tone mocking. “He lets you out of the basement on Tuesdays, now? You get to sleep without handcuffs?”

She gave me the middle finger. “Stuff it, meatbag. You wouldn’t know a relationship if it waved its ass in front of your face anyway.”

“I can think of a lot of asses that have waved in my face,” I mused, my brain sifting through memories like a winning poker hand.

She pulled a face. “Don’t talk to me anymore. I’m ignoring you.”

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