Page 60 of Brazen Mistakes

“Sometimes Tao’s baby sister gives me a ride. Sometimes I order a ride share. Sometimes, if it’s closer to the city, I take transit and then walk the rest of the way.”

“You’re saying that you’ve needed me?”

His lips are soft against mine. “I always need you. For this and for many, many other things.”

Stepping closer, he pulls me flush against him, layer upon layer of nylon and stuffing between us, but still somehow warm. Yanking off his mitten with his teeth, he spits it onto the curb and slides his hand under my scarf, warm fingers seeking my skin, my already amped-up system lighting with his touch.

Leaning into the kiss, my fear fades into the background.

This. This is what I want. I want Jansen, I want to understand how he does what he does, why this brings him joy. I want to see if we match up in ways I didn’t expect, just like we do every time we fall into bed together.

After too short of a time, he pulls back, pressing our foreheads together. “You make me forget what I’m supposed to be doing.”

“And that’s a bad thing?”

“With this, yeah.” He presses a kiss to my lips once again before scooping his mitten back off the ground, his warm palm vanishing from my neck.

“Back to business?”

“For now, beautiful.”

“Later?”

“Later. Epically, but later.”

I laugh as he leads me to the shadow of an old maple, hoisting me up to the lowest branch. I barely pull myself up in my mittens and boots, but when I climb higher, Jansen takes a run at the trunk, bounding off of it and swinging into the tree like it’s a circus trick, quickly passing me and shimmying out on a thicker branch that reaches over the back wall of our target. More slowly, I follow, the rustling of my coat a roar in my ears.

Jansen drops past the wall, catching me when I fall with not an ounce of grace from the tree, slamming my elbow into his shoulder on the way down.

“Sorry!” I whisper as he grimaces and shakes his head.

“I’m okay. It happens. Stay in my footsteps exactly. Only one trail in, no trail out, got it?”

“Got it.”

Focusing on where I put my feet as we stick to the shadows has my thundering heart physically attempting to leave my chest. It’s so loud in my ears that by the timewe reach the carriage house, I’m surprised Jansen hasn’t needed to shush it.

After a few flicks with bare hands and his lock picks, he tucks them into his coat, pulls on his mittens, and opens the door.

For some reason, breaking into someplace wearing mittens catches on my nervous energy, and I choke on a laugh, coughing into my coat to muffle the sound.

Jansen’s face asks what made me laugh, and I motion at his mittens, but the humor of it must not translate to hand gestures, because he twists awkwardly to kiss me before stepping into the carriage house. With three quick taps on my thigh to settle myself, I follow, staying in his footprints until we enter the cavernous space, moonlight weakly streaming through mullioned windows.

Inside, cars two deep greet me, just like Jansen guessed we’d find. Sleek sports cars, convertibles, looming SUVs, the whole of car-hood waits hunched in the darkness for us.

Jansen takes my hand, leading me through the monstrous lumps, stopping beside a blocky SUV. He tries the door, and I hold my breath, waiting for an alarm to sound, but it opens without incident. Climbing into the vehicle, he digs through the cup holders and console, and pulls down the visor, but no key appears.

Leaving the car open, he leads me to the door at the front of the garage, closest to the house.

The moon strikes his face as he searches the wall, cheekbones shadowed, face set in concentration, the giddy goofball I know so well morphing into a sculptureof a Viking warrior, his expression a mixture of motion and fierce strategy, an image I wish Walker were here to record.

I swallow back the discomfort, the surge of unfamiliarity coupled with the urge to kiss him to make sure he hasn’t turned into a stranger in the darkness, causing me to shift my weight from foot to foot. The squeak of my rubber soles on the finished concrete cuts the silence, making my body still.

He glances at me, and his familiar grin causes my breath to huff out, the strange anxiety lingering under my skin.

Two breaths later, he’s opened a lockbox on the wall, riffling through keys on hooks until he finds what he’s looking for, then closes the box, like we were never here at all.

Back at the blocky SUV, Jansen rushes to open the passenger door for me, shutting me in before crawling under the vehicle. Sooner than I thought, he hops in on the driver’s side, taking time to adjust his seat and mirrors. I try to catch his eye with my curiosity over his choice to not just get out of here, and he whispers a reply. “If we run into trouble, I’m going to need perfect control to get out of it.”

---