Page 62 of Jett in Jeopardy

Simon chuckled. “Let’s take a trip.”

“No thanks.”

Simon’s humor vanished, a scowl twisting his features. “It’s not arequest. You can come with me, or I’ll shoot you where you stand right now, then wait for the creep who’s been fucking you and kill him, too.”

My stomach lurched. “Don’t.”

“Then let’s go.” He turned and offered a sweeping gesture at the door with the hand holding the gun.

He was going to kill me. I was as certain of it as I was my own name, but there was no way I was going to risk him hurting Brody too.

“Fine,” I said. “I’ll go.” What other choice did I have?

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Brody

“AreyouandJettback together?”

The question caught me off guard like a sucker punch, and something low in my gut squeezed tight. Frowning, I looked up from the beer I was pulling for Damien, who had just walked in from outside and was winding his way between the tables toward me.

I set the beer on the tray so the server could take it and the rest of the drinks I’d made to a table near the front entrance. This close to the holidays, my lunchtime crowd was busier than normal. A lot of local businesses were taking their staff out for a holiday lunch before closing for Christmas. It wasn’t a bad thing, since my nighttime crowds had thinned considerably now that the bulk of the university students had gone home for the holidays. I knew after New Year’s, when the next term started, things would be back to normal, but it was always disconcerting to see my numbers drop off so abruptly.

I turned my attention to Damien. “Why are you asking?”

He shrugged. “I just thought he might be here.”

I wished. I was almost as desperate to see Jett again as I wasafraidto see Jett again. I knew I wanted us to be together, for real, this time, but I still hadn’t worked out what I was going to say. And I was terrified he’d tell me to get lost, which was probably what I deserved after not reaching out over the past few days.

“You saw him?” I asked, ignoring the thin flicker of hope igniting in my chest.

“Not him,” Damien said. “But his Jeep’s out front.”

My heart rate kicked up, thudding against my chest. “You’re sure it’s his?”

Damien shot me a wry smirk. “How many people do you know with bright yellow Jeeps in The Square?”

Good point. But Jett hadn’t been in the bar. Maybe he’d gone upstairs to collect the things he left behind.

My chest squeezed at the thought. Over the last few days, coming home and seeing Jett’s things where he left them was strangely comforting. I could almost convince myself that he’d be coming back eventually. That maybe I could fix all this, after all.

If he was here now though, to collect his belongings, this could be my last chance to speak to him. My last chance to tell him how I felt. My last chance to grovel and hopefully make things right.

“Can you watch the bar for me?” I asked Damien.

“Yeah, yeah, go ahead. I’ve got things under control here.”

I thanked him, then hurried out back and upstairs to my apartment. The door was unlocked when I pushed inside, and I frowned. Despite the open door, there was no sign of Jett. Though that wasn’t entirely true. There were signs of Jett, just not the man himself. His duffle bag that had been left on the chair in my bedroom was now on the floor in the living room. His textbooks were no longer neatly piled in the middle of the coffee table. Instead, the laptop had been shoved aside and one of the notebooks left open to a blank page. My frown deepened.Where the hell was he?

“Jett,” I called out. “Are you here?”

Only silence greeted me. I walked through my apartment, quickly checking all the rooms—which really only consisted of my bedroom and bathroom—before having to accept that Jett wasn’t there.

Had he gone out to his car for something? Or maybe he’d left, and I’d just missed him. Why then would he have left all his things here? None of it made sense. I left my apartment, hurried back downstairs and down the narrow alleyway that led out to the street, but stopped abruptly when I spotted Jett with another man making their way across the road to a silver sedan parked just behind Jett’s Jeep.

Even with just this brief glimpse of Jett, warmth welled in my chest. It really hadn’t been that long since I last saw him, just a few days. Now seeing him again even after a short time, I realized how much I missed him every day, missed the sound of his voice, those cocky grins, teasing innuendos. I’d missed everything about him.

Even from this distance, I could tell Jett still wasn’t one hundred percent after the beating he’d endured. The bruising on his face had turned from dark purple, almost black, to an ugly mix of brown, green, and yellow. He was limping, and the man next to him gripped Jett’s upper arm, forcing him to move faster than he was capable of.

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