Page 56 of Take What You Want

Jane starts to walk out of the kitchen and upstairs, but I call out to her, “Thank you.”

She looks over her shoulder at me, green eyes sparkling from all the way across the room. She’s always beautiful, but she’s an absolute dream in the mornings when she’s barefaced and at ease.

“For what?”

I lean my hip against the counter, crossing my arms over my bare chest. “For coming tonight. I’m grateful for your support.”

“You don’t have to thank me. I’m excited to see you onstage again. It’s where you belong.” Her eyes scan my chest. I flex my pecs, and she quickly meets my gaze, rolling her eyes at my smirk. “Always been a show off.”

“You love it.”

She purses her lips before she turns and walks upstairs, leaving the unspoken words behind that I know sat on the tip of her tongue.

I do.

14

NIKOLAI

“White or blue?”

Reid looks up from his phone and glances between the two shirts I’m holding with pure boredom. “Seriously?”

“Yes,” I say, turning to look in the floor-length mirror in the corner of my bedroom and hold up each option.

“It doesn’t really matter. They’re both fine.”

“C’mon.”

In the reflection, I see him roll his eyes. “The white.”

Tossing the white one aside, I pull the blue one on and button the bottom few buttons. When he notices me, he gives me an incredulous look that eases my nerves a bit.

“Why’d you even bother asking if you were just going to choose the opposite?” he snarks.

I shrug, turning to face him. “It’s fun.”

He shakes his head, typing something quickly on his phone before tossing it on the bed beside him.

“Do you have somewhere else you need to be?”

“What?”

I nod toward his phone, and he sighs, leaning back on his elbows. His long legs sprawl out in front of him and he cracks his neck side to side. His hair has grown out in the last few months. The dark brown strands now curl around his ears and tickle the collar of his black T-shirt. His cut jaw is hidden beneath a thick layer of stubble and dark bags have taken residence under his crystal eyes.

“Nah,” he says, brushing me off. “It’s nothing.”

I kick his foot as I walk over to my dresser. “You can talk to me.”

“There’s nothing to say.”

“Sure about that?” I spritz a few sprays of my favorite cologne before recapping the glass bottle and setting it back in a row with others that I never use.

Reid’s quiet, and when I glance at him, he’s glaring at me. “Don’t push it.”

I hold my hands up in surrender. “Got it.”

He’s my best friend, but I know when to dig deeper, and when to relent when it comes to him. And right now, he’s not going to crack no matter how much I can sense there’s something lurking beneath his surface, disrupting his peace.

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