Page 77 of Edge of Stars

He shows me both his palms like I’ve ordered him to hand over his wallet. “I know, man. Say no more. The verbal rabbit’s foot is officially stashed, along with the horseshoe, the dreamcatcher, and the seven ladybugs.”

“Thanks.” I don’t hide my furrowed brow. “I…think.”

He dips an affable nod while resettling his elbows to his wheelchair arms. It’s an effort to wait now, anxious needles goading my brain, but I let him have one more moment before shoring my stance.

“So, as long as we’ve added a little weight to the prologue here…”

“Oh, man.” He rocks his head back. “I really should’ve known you weren’t going to let me get on with the ballad for the Funyuns loss.”

“North. Come on. Focus up.” Accepting the stiffer set of his shoulders as the best I’m going to get, I lower onto an ottoman with my hands on my knees. “You remember everything we discussed at lunch, right? You’re clear about what do…if all this shit goes south tonight?”

“Maybe just a haiku?” he persists. “Little rings, so pure. Flamin’ hot, the taste I fave…”

I slump my head between my own shoulders. “I worry about your brain sometimes.”

“Better that than the plan we’ve reviewed twelve times, and that you need to park at the back end of your cranium, Professor.” He’s glaringly sober about it now, and I don’t want to be so overly relieved. “One, because you personally hovered while I put that memory stick into my room safe—”

“Because my advanced directive, updated will, and final letters to everyone are on it?”

“And two, because the entrance to Olympus itself is on this same island and is being scarily reinforced by your dad—the king of that whole damn kingdom, just in case you need a refresher.”

He pulls out one of his sticky rubber ropes, appearing to aim the small hand at the end toward the middle of my face, but he turns at the last minute and snares one of the sample ouzo bottles from the room’s hospitality basket.

“In short, your hand wringing is null and void right now,” he adds. “Do something more useful, like chugging this.”

My glance is broody as I wave off the aperitif. “Go ahead,” I encourage, jogging my chin. “Said the hand-wringer hurtbag to his matching nimrod of a best friend.”

“Unhhh?” Jesse protests before downing the clear-colored shot. “Nim what?”

“You’re right. Forget nimrod. Let’s go for shyster, instead. Because nobody’s buying that you’re twitching harder about Funyuns than the possibility of Hecate’s crosshairs tangling around the woman you love.”

Within seconds, he’s shoved all his sarcasm off a very high cliff. “Leave Kell out of—” And then his indignation too. “Shit.”

I’m almost whipping back with a double take. I lobbed my comment only as an informational fishing trip, not expecting him to smack back so fast and so clearly.

Now, in the pause I greedily grab to form a new reaction to the revelation, fate rubs in the discomfort tenfold. A new sound breaks into the air. The central vent system broadcasts some musical magic from the bedroom directly over our heads. The combined giggles of the Valari sisters.

Jesse drops his head—but not fast enough to hide his heavy gulp from my sparked attention.

I drop my own head, succumbing to its heavy shake.

“Jesse.” I don’t sugarcoat a note of it. “Damn it.”

“Don’t,” he spits back. “Okay? I know what you’re going to—”

“Do you? I beg, not so deferentially, to differ, Professor North. Because I actually did say it, straight to your face, at least six weeks ago. Do you remember, dumbass? The part where I said she’s promised to someone else?”

“And you knew, more than eight weeks ago, that Kara was promised to the same incubus asshole,” he bites back.

I fume for half a second. “Prieto’s done some growing.”

“That’s supposed to make everything okay?”

I snap away from him, already ripping a hand through my hair. It doesn’t help the thousand knots in it, but the choice is already made for me. Half an hour with the detangler, or tell my best friend what I know now. What I’ve seen. The tentative but meaningful steps that Arden and Kell have been taking toward each other. With each other. No actual connections yet—not the kind I’d call essential for a lifetime together—but better than the animosity of a few short weeks ago.

But better than what I’ve observed between her and Jesse? Their humor and ease and mutual respect?

“Fuck,” I rasp, really meaning it. “Maybe I shouldn’t have designated the signed Tom Clancy collection to you, after all.”