Jada poured me yet another one from the new pitcher of cosmos the bartender delivered to our table with a smirk and a, “Welcome back, Jada.”
“You definitely aren’t having sex with the right men then,” she responded, winking at the man as he sauntered away from our table.
I leaned in. “Have you slept with him?”
“Yes,” she said. “And he’s decent. Like banging-up-against-walls kind of good, but he wasn’t my earth-shattering, life-changing guy.”
I slammed my shot and leaned back. “Just tell me. It was Dawson, right? All that broody, muscled goodness exploding all over you.”
She cackled at my unintended innuendo. “No. You’ve got to stop with the Dawson-and-me thing. It literally makes me want to puke. It’s wrong on so many levels I can’t even begin to start with.”
I frowned. “I don’t get that at all.”
“Of course you don’t, because you’ve had the hots for him since you were capable of masturbating.”
I grimaced at her word choice.
“He’s Jersey’s brother-in-law. It would practically be incest.”
She laughed. “Not hardly. Do you know how many sets of twins marry other sets of twins? Do you know how many arranged marriages tie families together that closely?”
“Arranged marriages, really? We don’t live in the feudal ages.”
Jada’s smile slipped away, and I sat up.
“Wait. You’re not? Your parents aren’t setting you up, are they?” I asked.
She frowned. “Otosanhas handed down an ultimatum.”
I was floored. Jada was not particularly close with her parents. They’d barely been in the U.S. when she’d lived with her maternal grandmother in New York. Once she’d gotten kicked out of every private high school in the city, she’d been sent to their house in New London to detox and finish classes online. Instead of being watched over by her parents, she’d been watched over by a housekeeper and a bodyguard who she’d ditched whenever possible. Even knowing all that, I’d never thought her parents would do something as barbaric as force her into a loveless marriage.
“Do you know who it is? Do you even like him?” I asked.
“I know him, and I hate him,” she said quietly with such force and vehemence that it completely dropped my heart into the pit of my stomach.
“What does your mom say about it?” I asked.
Jada flipped her phone over and over on the table, the turning of it slightly mesmerizing. “You knowHaha. She has nothing to say. She defers everything toOtosanas a good little wife should.”
“Is there anyone else? Or maybe someone you could marry with a contract like how Truck and Jersey first got married? You know, just to deter your dad?” I asked. I knew I was really feeling the alcohol if I was talking about Truck and Jersey’s fake marriage that had turned into real love and real rings.
But the topic at least brought Jada out of her momentary glower. She sent me a secretive smile. “The guy I truly want is more out of reach to me than Dawson ever was to you.”
“You act like he still isn’t out of reach,” I slurred. And then I corrected myself. “You act like I want him.”
She snorted. “I give you a week before you’ve at least kissed.”
I tried not to let hope bloom at her words. I reached for my braid to toss it behind me but found only the long strands that I’d left down for once.
“We need to change the subject,” I told her.
She huffed. “Fine, tell me more about what you’re cooking up in your lab.”
That caused a completely different bubble of excitement to go through me, and I repeated some of the talk I’d had with Dawson just that morning. “I’m working on a natural antimicrobial. Eventually, I want to get it down to the nanoparticle level to make it taste and smell neutral so it can be used in more than just beauty products. Right now, it has quite a scent with the cinnamon, cardamom, clove, and seaweed combination. I’m three days into the testing, and it’s been effective every day againstE. coli, Bacillus anthracis, S. aureus, Candida albicans…”
I trailed off as the glazed look in her eyes told me I’d gone too far even though her smile widened.
“Sorry,” I said.
