Page 37 of Take What You Want

“Yes what?”

“I remember.”

It would take more than just a bottle of Mom’s favorite vodka to forget that conversation last week. And the way that Jane has tiptoed around me since.

“You do,” she says, almost to herself. Then she clears her throat. “Well, does the offer still stand? You seemed content to ignore it all week.”

“I thought maybe you were embarrassed that I heard you, and I didn’t want to make it worse by bringing it up again.”

She looks at her feet, brushing an invisible speck of dirt around on the carpet.

“Jane,” I whisper, needing her to look at me. Not at the floor with her shoulders stooped low. That’s not the Jane I know.

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“I—Look, I don’t?—”

She pins me with a fiery gaze that freezes me in place and electrifies me all at once.

“If you don’t want to, then just say it. Don’t be a coward.”

I push off the bed and close the gap between us. “I’m not a coward.”

“No?”

“No. But that night, I wasn’t totally considering the circumstances.”Thank you, vodka.

“And they are?”

“Your brother.”

That one person has kept me from texting Jane all week and asking if she thought about my proposition. Because once the idea got in my head last weekend, it hasn’t left.

Now, I’ve found myself noticing things about Jane all week that I never used to before. Like the way she twirls her silky hair around her fingers when she’s working a problem over in her head. And the way she slides into each and every chair like it’s a throne. Or the way her lips downturn just slightly at the corners, creating that effortless pout that I want to claim with my own.

Even her scent has been driving me wild. The faint scent of vanilla and roses seems to be following me everywhere, like forbidden fruit and the ultimate temptation.

But the fact remains that there is someone between us. Someone we both love and care about.

“He never has to know,” Jane says.

“You’re okay to lie to your brother?”

She bites her lip, but nods slowly. “It doesn’t have to be anyone else's business but our own. And we wouldn’t be lying. We just wouldn’t tell him.”

“Jane…your brother is one of my best friends. My bandmate. I don’t know if I can. I know the two of you have a pact to not date each other's friends.”

“We’re not dating, though.”

“Always looking for loopholes, aren’t you?”

“It’s what will make me a great lawyer one day,” she says proudly.

That it will.

“I don’t know.” I hang my head, my hair falling forward and hiding her from view.

I feel an icy wind brush against my skin as she clears her throat. “Fine,” she says. “I’ll go find someone else. Maybe I’ll see if Reid is done with Cass?—”

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