Page 38 of Choosing Jenny
I stared at him, then smiled. Genuine this time.
“Good,” I said, meaning it. “I’m glad they have you in their corner. And if I ever hurt either of them, truly hurt them…I deserve whatever torments you have waiting.” I met his gaze squarely, and I could see the surprise in his eyes at my words. “I swear it on my life.”
With that, I turned and left.
CHAPTER 12
Tiger
Agentle knock stirred me from sleep before Sarah’s soft voice followed. “Tiger, are you up?”
I sniffed and stretched on her office sofa, one of the few places I was certain Jenny and Mal wouldn’t look to find me. The sunslight was just starting to crack, so the light was low. I was glad for it. After last night’s…argument, I was not in the mood for anything bright or loud or well, anything at all really.
“Yeah, I’m awake,” I grumbled, rubbing a hand over my face as I sat up.
She walked in, her belly before the rest of her. In the dim light, she looked so much like a pregnant Jenny that my breath caught in my throat. That dream I had for our future—my heart ached at the thought of it, then immediately dimmed when I recalled my duty to my clan.
Sarah held a tray in her hands with a tea set and a crust of bread with rannat. “I thought you might be hungry,” she said with a smile.
I wasn’t. “Thank you.” I took the tray anyway to be polite, but once I forced a bite down, I couldn’t stop eating.
She sat next to where I’d put the tray on the sofa. “How are you?”
“I don’t know,” I said between bites of food. “They hate me—”
“They don’t.”
I sipped the pepper tea. “Jenny called me immature.”
Sarah’s smile was kind and patient. “That doesn’t mean she hates you, Tiger. You were upset to see Mal play the role of the flirty villain. I don’t see anything wrong withnotenjoying that.”
I scowled. “Can you tellthemthat? Because they think I’m an asshole for being upset.”
Sarah paused for a moment, as if weighing her response. “I believe their concern is that you need to come to terms with their past romantic involvements, and that you haven’t accepted those parts of them yet.”
I huffed and finished everything on the tray. “It’s not that I don’t accept them for it. It’s that I don’t need it shoved in my face.”
“Understandable,” she agreed with a nod. “However, the issue with Rex may very well be shoved in your face for a while longer until things settle down—”
“And when will that be, Sarah?” My voice cracked with the frustration I’d been feeling since last night. “It feels like every five minutes, something else goes wrong. When can we justbe? When do we get time to just enjoy each other? Have a quiet life together, all three of us?”
“A quiet life together sounds amazing,” she said, and laughed lightly. “When I find out, I’ll let you know.”
Her comment made me realize how much she had going on in her life. That her life since coming to Halla had been one upheaval after another. “Yeah, I guess things have been crazy for you, too,” I said more sheepishly.
“Chaos is the hallmark of someone with an important life, Tiger,” she said gently. “It’s never easy to be important to other people. To be someone who can change a world. Being queen on Halla, I’ve seen the strain Deacon and Jac are under because of me. That is why I do my best to take their thoughts into consideration when I make decisions that could affect them. Jenny was in that position with Illiapol. Maliceisin that position right now. You have to ask yourself if that is something you can live with.”
“I love him, Sarah,” I said, throat tight. “I can’t change that, and I never would.”
Her expression softened. “Then you have to figure out how to live withwhathe is, not justhowyou want his life to be. You have to accept the fact that he will have to wear a mask for a while, until Rex and Justice and Noc are dealt with.”
Done with my meal, I sat back on the sofa and rested my head along the back cushion, staring at the ceiling. “It’s just…I’m usually very good at talking myself out of trouble, and with them. Well, I keep saying stupid shit when I get flustered. It makes no sense—”
“No, actually, that makes perfect sense,” she said. “The way you feel is so overwhelming that it gets in the way of what comes out of your mouth.”
“Yeah. I think that’s it exactly.” I turned my head to look at her, grateful to have someone impartial to talk to. “And Longshot didn’t help, telling me to just ‘deal with it’ when it came to Rex.”
Amusement glimmered in her eyes. “I essentially told you the same thing.”
