“We’re not staying with either of you,” Zee said before I could answer. “We’re staying at the hunting lodge. Dad said it was ready for use, and I was thinking about taking Jubilee hunting in the morning before her run…if I can talk her into it.”
My brows lifted. “You want to take me what?”Chapter 15Sex in a deer stand isn’t advisable.
-Things Zee never thought he’d have to say
Zee
I poked Jubilee in the side again, knowing that I’d get the attitude when she finally woke up but doing it anyway.
She blinked open her eyes and glared at the lights that were spilling out of the bathroom and into the main room of the one-room cabin we were staying in for the next few days.
“What?” she muttered. “Did someone die?”
I grinned. “No. We’re going hunting, remember?”
She frowned. “No.”
Little liar.
“We’re going hunting. Then once we’re done with that, we’ll go run your little heart out,” I told her. “Come on. Let’s go.”
“Why are we going hunting?” she asked. “Seriously. I’ve never wanted to go hunting.”
“Because I want you to be able to survive if the apocalypse ever comes,” I told her, knowing that she’d get up just for that.
She had this weird sense of doom about her always.
I imagined that she got it due to working in her mother’s funeral parlor. I mean, what five-year-old was around a deceased motorcycle victim while they pumped his body full of chemicals to preserve him, and then went out of their way to fix him up at least semi-good so they could do a viewing?
There was no way not to get jaded and a little bit twisted.
To have a morbid sense of humor and ultimately be an odd duck.
She frowned at my words, thinking about them.
“If it’s an apocalypse, I’m probably going to need to learn how to shoot them with a spear or a bow,” she pointed out.
I grinned.
“Maybe,” I admitted. “But this first time, let’s learn how to do it with a rifle.”
She sighed and closed her eyes again.
A text message came through my phone, and I picked it up and glanced at it, immediately feeling my stomach tightening.
Raine: Heard you were in town. Also heard that you’re fucking your brother’s girl. Congratulations for stooping to a new low.
I threw the phone down on the bed in disgust, not realizing until too late that I threw it in such a way that all Jubilee had to do was glance up and look at it to read what it said.
She sat up so abruptly that I blinked in surprise.
“What?” I asked, my anger receding at the look of pure venom on Jubilee’s face.
“I hate that woman,” she snarled, ripping the covers off of her body. The same ones that I’d been trying to tug off earlier with no luck. “And why the fuck is she texting you so goddamn early in the morning?”
“Because she knows that I’m up,” I muttered, hating that the woman knew me even a little bit.
How had I made such a mistake? Not fucking once, but twice?
First, there was Raine, then there was Zuri.
“Well, I don’t fuckin’ care if she thinks you’re up or not. You could’ve been still asleep—would have if you hadn’t had this ridiculous idea to take me hunting instead of staying in bed with me. She doesn’t know you anymore.” She paused. “You should block her ass.”
“She’d just change her number and keep calling and texting,” I admitted. “She’s petty.”
She scowled. “I’ve literally always hated her.”
My lips twitched. “I know.”
She’d made it no secret that she disliked her, not then, and certainly not now.
I remember the first time that Raine and Jubilee met like it was yesterday.
***
“Hello.” Raine held out her hand to Jubilee.
Jubilee looked at it like it was a snake, and I tensed, waiting for the inevitable words to fall out of Jubilee’s mouth.
It didn’t take long.
“Hi,” Jubilee said, not reaching out to take Raine’s hand. “I’m sorry, but I don’t touch people. I’m a germaphobe.”
Little liar.
I shot Jubilee a look that she ignored.
“Oh.” Raine frowned. “I didn’t realize.”
Jubilee shrugged like it was a normal everyday thing for her when it wasn’t.
“It’s okay,” Jubilee shrugged. “How could you know? Zee never talks about me because he sees my dead sister when he talks to me. I also never talk to him because he reminds me of his dead brother. We used to date before they died.”
Silence.
“I’ve heard about your sister and his brother,” Raine tried to steer her way around the minefield that Jubilee had just set. “I’m sorry.”
“Me, too,” Jubilee said, then turned her glare on me. “I heard that you decided that you were too good for our Christmas celebration.”
I closed my eyes and counted to ten.
It hadn’t been my idea that we not go to Christmas. It’d been Raine’s. She’d wanted to attend her family’s Christmas and have our own at home before we went.