Until I don’t.
A last ray of hope shines upon me a heartbeat later as Not Aran sits on the chair next to me and plucks the glass out of my clammy hands.
“Could I get you a refill, maybe? I’m pretty sure chewing on the straw won’t make juice appear magically in your glass,” he says in his rich voice, chuckling when all I do is gape with an open mouth at him.
“Ah, don’t tell me you forgot about our little date?”
“Date?” I hear Aran grate behind me, feeling every letter stab me in the back.
But this could work. In fact, I think it’s exactly what I need right now to win my man back over. A little jealousy goes a long way when you want to make someone realize what a catch you really are.
“Of course I didn’t forget! Bothmy friendand I were really looking forward to it.” I hook a finger over my shoulder. “That’s Aran. And, oh, I guess I didn’t introduce myself.” I offer my savior my hand. “I’m Hex.”
“It’s a pleasure to officially meet you, Hex. I’m Mong.” He offers his hand to Aran, but I shoot up, grab it with mine and point at the water slide.
“What do you say we go try that? My friend is a little busy, so he can’t come with me.”
“The water slide?” He eyes the structure, smiling as his gaze bounces between it and Aran. “Sure, why not? It’s been ages since I went on one.”
“It’s decided then.” I turn to Aran then, my heart soaring. He’s glaring murder at Mong.
I feel a little bad about the guy—he seems like a nice enough person—but I need to teach Aran a lesson. If he can flirt with others and ignore me, then so can I.
12
Aran
Ittakesmeeveryounce of willpower I have not to rush after Hex, haul him over one shoulder, and take him back to the cabin. I took my eyes off him for five minutes—trying to work the chatty waitress so she spills what she knows about the guests frequenting the pool bar—but it looks like my efforts to increase our intel have flopped.
I have no idea how we even got here or why he looked like I’d eaten all of his cake without letting him even try it.
Rubbing my forehead as I agree to join Tracy for drinks on her day off, I watch the little shit climb the stairs to the top of the water slide. The man who’s with him really looks like my doppelganger. He’s also very touchy-feely and, for some reason, Hex lets him.
My blood boils, urging me to do something. I don’t know who this Mong is, and until I have checked his background, he shouldn’t be anywhere near Hex. To make matters worse, what was this thing about their meeting being a date? Hex didn’t say anything about any dates.
As I watch the two men disappear down the slide’s tunnel, I turn over everything that happened in the last twenty minutes. We came here to meet Mong and everything was going fine. We sat down, Hex was smiling, then the waitress came and started chatting with me…
I let out an ungracious snort. Wait. Did he…No, but this can’t be.He knows me better than anyone else. The woman was very friendly, that’s true, but surely Hex is more than aware that people like her are not my type and that I don’t really do hookups.
Retracing my day back to its start, I mentally make a list of all the things that have happened since the morning. Within a minute, I arrive at the answer of what most likely transpired in Hex’s head to make him flirt so blatantly with another man.
Now, I don’t have anything against that. In fact, I encourage it. Or I should… even if I feel like I want to snap this Mong’s neck. Squeezing the armrest of the sun-chair, I force down that violent urge. I can’t be feeling this, it’s inappropriate. Misplaced. Forbidden. I’m his guardian, a watchdog tasked to protect him. I’m also too old for him. A man who looks like a younger version of me is a way better match for him.
But there are steps to dating Hex, or even for hooking up with him, and the first one is a thorough background check from my end, so I can be sure he won’t end up with someone dangerous or sketchy. It’s for my own peace of mind as much as his, and I allow no exceptions.
Except that he went and rebelled against you right in your face with a guy who looks like he could be your twin.
He’s punishing me, getting back at me. And I hate that it’s working. It shouldn’t be, but it is. I hate seeing him being so flirty with another man. It’s fine when he does it with me—and a part of me even likes how silly some of his attempts are—but witnessing it from the sidelines makes me want to break something.
He’s not allowed to do it with anyone else, misunderstanding or not. Yes, I ignored him and got carried away trying to find out what Tracy knows, but it was all for our mission. The stakes are high and the repercussions if we fail even higher. We must do everything in our power to figure out what they want to do with this drug, so we can stop them.
As for this woman, I’m not into her or whatever other crazy conclusion he must’ve arrived at. I can see how it ended up that way too, how his brain took everything that happened yesterday and today and built up an argument that I might be bored of him. That maybe I have decided to show him he stands no chance.
Last night was a little more intense than usual. I almost gave in. Something shifted between us, small as it might be, because I let things get a bit out of hand. His charm is hard to resist sometimes, and I’ve gotten used to his easy and open interest in me. He’s never expressed that toward someone else, and it really irks me that he’s doing it now.
Still, he’s never taken my rejections seriously. But that’s one thing, and evidently, seeing me flirt with other people in front of him is a whole other ordeal. Does he not trust me? But he knows I don’t have anyone and that I don’t care about meaningless sex. If that changed, I’d be sure to tell him. Despite how big of a brat he can be, I would never intentionally hurt him. I just… can’t.
I direct my attention back to the slide and find Hex and his ‘date’ splashing each other with water at the bottom of it like children. It’s head-spinning how Mong looks so much like me when I was younger.
