Page 22 of Is It Casual Now?

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The phone call from Jessie had given her no clue as to the shit show she would be stepping into. But the tone of the call was enough to have Jamie rushing out of the office and heading down to the school.

The drive had all different scenarios playing out in her head, but not one of them came anything close to what she stepped into.

Her eyes met Siena’s, and her blood froze in her veins, while heat rushed to her cheeks.

And between her thighs.

What the hell was Siena doing here?

Was it revenge and payback for the blog? Wasn’t trying to get her fired enough? Trying? Hell, she had gone beyond trying. But this was next-level crazy person.

She had known the phone call was going to be rough, but she honestly believed that she’d made a truce with Siena. A tentative one, but still. They’d both waved the white flag in a sense.

Hope of interviewing Siena and the more wistful future hope of then one day finally getting a real interview withBunny and Piper flew out the window—the window that was covered in art pieces she herself had helped her sister stick up only last week.

The memory of the panic that had filled Jessie’s voice came back to Jamie, and she pushed away her own ambitions for the sister-protection mode she’d had to engage very rarely so far in her life.

She would if she needed to.

But first she had to find out what the hell was going on. And the only way to do that would be to force her feet to finally move forward.

Taking a deep breath and giving herself a single solid nod, her feet obeyed, and she walked toward Siena and Jessie.

“Jessie.” She stared at her sister first, wide eyes that promised a beat down on whoever needed it. Jamie just wasn’t sure who that would be. “You didn’t tell me exactly why I had to rush down here in the middle of my workday. So, what’s happening?”

“Jamie, this is Siena Frazee. I believe you two have met. Maybe not, though. Did you know she had a daughter who just started school this year? In my class?” The wince for Jessie was enough to tell Jamie far more about what was going on than any other words she could manage to get out.

“What?” Jamie’s fears of keeping her job just kept plummeting even farther as she registered the rage that vibrated beneath Siena’s very skin.

“Wait. You have a kid? And she attends here?” Jamie’s luck really couldn’t get any worse, could it?

“She won’t be a student here for much longer.” Siena’s face was a hard-edged mask of barely contained fury.

“What?” Jamie couldn’t have heard that correctly. “Why won’t she be here much longer? Has something happened?”

Siena scoffed and rolled her eyes, pointing to Jessie withone long finger—and Jamie knew exactly what she could do with it.

Jamie turned to Jessie for an explanation, but her sister gave her a familiarI’m as flabbergasted as youlook.

“I don’t understand.” Jamie didn’t like admitting that.Ever.But her brain hadn’t quite caught up, all the pieces refusing to fit together to make any sense.

“Did you know who I really was before you hit on me?” Siena leaned in, hissing the words quietly into the space between her and Jamie.

“What? No. Of course not. This is insane. You can’t have a kid.”

“Just like you can’t possibly have a twin sister teaching my daughter.” Siena’s voice was low, a warning or a threat?

But was Siena threatening Jessie’s job as well? Jamie would never be able to forgive herself for that, or to live it down with any of her family. The rest of her life would be punctuated by conversations around “that time Jamie got Jessie fired because she couldn’t keep it in her pants or stay out of other people’s business.” God, she could hear the conversations over Sunday night dinners already.

“Mommy!” A small girl’s excited squeal made Jamie step back and blink, happy enough to be pulled out of her thoughts. “There’s two Ms. K’s. Are you sisters? I have a sister named Rebel, but she’s not really my sister. She’s my cousin, or my niece. Maybe? I’m not sure on that.”

“Cousin,” Siena mumbled.

“That’s right! Sister-cousin!” The girl giggled loudly.

“Harley, this is Ms. K’s sister, Jamie.” Her eyes still held the fury Jamie had seen in her face, though her features softened, and the woman, Van, Jamie had slept with peeked out as she spoke to her daughter.

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