Page 22 of Possession

Soon we’d be fucking to prove we enjoyed dinner.

Any excuse was good enough.

After showering, I dug into a few more hours of work. My happy place. By the time I looked up again, it was nearing dark.

Still no Grace, either. She must’ve run long on her lunch date.

I dressed quickly in the tux I’d picked out for the event. Funeral black seemed appropriate, since that was the only reason I could imagine for having a party in my house. But I wanted to watch some of the people in my sphere without them knowing they were being watched, and what better way than to offer them fancy finger food and enough libations to sink an entire football team?

I just didn’t expect Jack to show up first. Well, Jack, Violet, and her brother Daniel and sister-in-law Marina. Marina, who was model-beautiful and clung to her husband’s arm as if they couldn’t bear to be apart for even a second.

Grace would never treat me like that. She was far too independent. Too used to making her own way, in whatever crazy manner she dreamed up from one day to the next.

We made small talk for a few minutes. I’d met Daniel and Marina before, a few times actually, but it had been a while. And Daniel seemed to be in especially good spirits, digging into the alcohol before we’d finished discussing the latest sports scores.

“Hennessey, Carson?” Daniel called, rolling up his sleeves to root around beneath the makeshift bar that had been set up by the catering staff. “Since your bartender hasn’t arrived yet…”

“Bartender? What bartender?” Fuck, I’d forgotten to request one of those.

“I can play bartender for a night,” Jack said, always helpful. Maybetoohelpful.

“I know we have Hennessey,” I said, sidestepping my best friend—or possibly ex-best friend, depending on tonight’s outcome—to join Daniel at the bar. Together, we bent to study the selection. I was reaching for a bottle in back when my arm bumped his and he grimaced and pulled away. “Sorry, man.” Jesus, did he think I wanted to put the moves on him or something? He’d yanked his arm back as if I’d burned him.

Then I saw the bandage and I reared up fast enough that I slammed my head on the lip of the bar.

That whole seeing stars thing from violent cranial trauma? Turns out it really happens. The things you discover.

I swore and backed up, squinting through the constellations in my vision at Daniel’s arm. But he was already tugging down his sleeves and moving away, saying something about sticking to whiskey for the night.

Christ, was I imagining threats lurked everywhere, or was I really surrounded by Benedict Arnolds in Giorgio Armani?

I headed to the bathroom to root through the medicine cabinet to look for painkillers. Just what I needed tonight—a killer headache before the damn thing even officially started.

Jack appeared in the doorway before I’d even dry-swallowed the pills. “We need to talk.”

“No shit, Sherlock.” Pain was making me even testier than usual.

“Why have you been shutting me out all week? Is it because you’re shacking up with Grace?”

“What the hell does that have to do with anything?” I slammed the pill bottle down and realized belatedly that I’d picked an odd part of the argument to leap on.

Where was my indignation that he thought I was living with Grace?

Strangely, there wasn’t any. Because wewereliving together. It wasn’t permanent by any stretch, but for this moment…

“What is your game with her?”

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me. I want to know what your end game is regarding Grace. And don’t try to bullshit me or I’ll knock you in that dome of yours again.”

“I don’t have a game, and I don’t like what you’re insinuating. Besides, what business is it of yours?” I turned and a week’s worth of anger and questions and frustration poured out in a tangled rush. “Disappointed you didn’t get there first?”

His cocky smile was absolutely the last thing I wanted to see. “Who’s to say I didn’t?”

I hadn’t taken a swing at a man in close to a decade. I’d once made my way with my fists, but that was a long time ago and I was rusty. But apparently, I wasn’t too rusty to lay out my best friend with one hard uppercut to the jaw.

He stumbled into the wall, cupping his chin with something akin to shock filling his gaze. “Holy shit, you just nailed me.”

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