Caveman (Wild Men 1)

“Fuck.” He turns around to face me, and I lift my eyes. “I said I’d meet you? Man, I totally forgot.”

“Shocker,” I mutter. Jet is often distracted. But still I worry every time he doesn’t show up when he says he will. I have valid reasons to worry, trust me. “I was picking up a book for you. About bananas.”

“Bananas.” He gapes at me. “Are you fucking high?”

“You like bananas, man. Banana cake, banana ice cream. I thought you might wanna…” I wave my hand around, then realize I left the book in my backpack. “Read about them.”

He lifts a hand to scratch his spiky hair. His towel slips lower on his hips. “I’m not the reading type.”

“Yeah, but I thought—”

“Or the cooking type.”

“Shut up, okay? It’s a gift, motherfucker. Just have a look at the damn book and tell me if there’s something you like.”

“Never look a gift horse in the nuts.” Jet turns around, drops the towel to the floor and grabs his jeans from the bed. Black of course. Jethro likes black, and that’s an understatement.

“I’m pretty damn sure it’s in the teeth.”

“Same thing.”

Right.

As he slams the closet door shut and looks up, I give him a quick once-over. He looks… stressed out. Tired. Tense. Distant.

“Today’s your day off?” I sink down on his bed and land on something hard. “Ow, dammit.”

I remove a weird object, plastic, black—the last goes without saying. But what the hell is this thing?

“Gimme that.” Something flashes through Jethro’s eyes, something like panic. He snatches it from my hand and throws it into his closet, kicks the door closed. He leans on the closet, crosses his arms.

“What was that?”

“Nothing.”

I’m so doing a search of that fucking closet first chance I get. Need to know what got Jet so flustered. He does have his dark moods, which I have learned not to disturb, and has so many skeletons in his closet it’s like Halloween in there, but still. He rarely loses his cool.

“J?”

And why am I staring at his mouth? The fuck’s wrong with me today? “You sure you’re okay?”

“Yeah. One hundred percent.”

But I don

’t think he is. Something’s going on. “Rough week?”

He waves a hand back and forth, but not before I catch a tiny flinch. “So… about that nerdy chick. Tell me about her.”

“She’s pretty, I guess.” Her eyes were bright, her mouth lush, her body small and tight and hot in her crazy short dress and fuchsia leggings that matched her nail polish.

And she had glasses on. Did I mention the glasses?

“You guess.”

“Yeah. If you like the nerdy, pigtailed type.”

“You do like that kind, mate.”