Then he dumps a small bag in front of me and it explodes with ketchup packets. Easily fifty. A sacrificial dowry in Heinz form.
My heart lurches.
This man really saw me and instead of running, he came back with enough ketchup to baptize a sinner. He’s doing the try thing. He’s doing it for me.
I can’t find the voice that usually dances around the scary part. The one that makes a joke or sticks out her tongue or grinds on the problem until it moans.
I’m afraid if I speak too soon, I’ll scream instead.
Because this means something. He brought me food like a wolf brings meat to the den. He’s courting me with french fries and rage. Like some fucked-up fairytale beast who doesn’t know how to speak love without his hands.
I want to cry.
I want to kiss him.
I want to say thank you, I love you, you terrifying, ketchup-bearing, emotionally stunted feral raccoon in manflesh.
But first I have to tell him the thing.
The thing that will ruin it.
“I don’t want to lie to you,” I whisper, fingers stroking the back of his hand like that’ll soften the blade I’m about to twist. “There are others. Two. Maybe three if you count Hank, which I don’t anymore, since he filed a court order explicitly banning me from sharing my love or my body or my proximity within one hundred yards.”
He freezes.
I push through it. Like an idiot. Like I believe in honesty even when it tastes like blood. “Benji already knows. I told him I was stalking you and Rhys, and he said I had taste in men and questionable ethics. Rhys doesn’t know yet but he might get there. I’m not making you share me, Jett. I’m giving myself to each of you. I have the time and energy to aggressively show you how much I care. Separately, fully. Or together if that’s your kink. That could be fun. But I won’t pretend. I won’t lie. I don’t want to lie to you.”
He steps back like I slapped him.
“I didn’t realize I was auditioning,” he says.
I flinch. “It’s not like that.”
“You fucked me,” he growls, voice low and terrifyingly even, “and now you wanna talk about other guys?”
He’s not yelling. He doesn’t need to. Jett’s rage is cold. Weaponized. And right now it’s pointed directly at me.
“Do I look like I’m wired for other men touching what’s mine and fucking brunch dates?” His fist slams into the wall beside him, hard enough to crack the drywall.
I flinch again, instinctive and ugly.
He sees it.
And that might be the thing that undoes him.
His gaze drops to the pile of ketchup he brought for me, and he reaches down, grabs one, and crushes it in his fist. Red splatters across his palm and drips down his wrist like blood. Another packet follows, then another, until he’s throwing them,one after another across the room. They burst against the walls, the dresser, the floor. Smears of red staining everything they touch.
My breath sticks in my chest.
He’s unraveling.
My mouth goes dry. My heart goes feral. “Jett.”
He doesn’t stop. He whips the rest of the ketchup packets across the room. They hit the wall like soft bullets, red smears blooming like bloodstains.
“You think I do casual?” His laugh is low, bitter, hollow. “I let you in.”
His hand gestures vaguely at the room, at the bed, at me, ruined and still open from what we did an hour ago.
