I exhale. “I’d love to come, but you’re not really sending the jet for me, you’re sending it for Jesse.”
“It is for you,” Riley growls. “Jesse is taking his own. We don’t fly important people together for legal reasons.” If the plane goes down, one of them lives. My stomach knots and twists. There’s a myriad of things I’ve been able to experience since Jesse found me but flying in an airplane might be the most exciting one yet.
“Oh. That makes sense,” I finally say, trying to discern conversation in the background without luck. Riley says something in Spanish and what do you know, I am capable of being wetter than I was a moment before.
“You’ll be ready tomorrow morning?”
“I will. What should I bring? How long will I be in Mexico?”
Riley moves somewhere with less noise. “I’d love to say bring nothing so I can have you whenever I want you, but there are a ton of people in the mansion doing work and making things the way I want them. You can stay as long as you want. You know that lamb.” Another soaking sentence knocks against my clenching core.
Riley’s open-ended answer makes me feel like me wants me to choose to stay with him. “How long are you staying there, Mr. Astor?” I counter. “I have that project with Amy and my lessons which I can do anywhere, so there’s nothing really holding me here.” The second I say it, I regret it. I admitted to Riley I want to be with him instead of Jesse. “I mean, as long as Jesse will be there, too.”
Riley sighs. “How is he acting lately?”
I swallow hard. This isn’t normal conversation. Riley is good about keeping him and me, just him and me. Jesse never comes up in this capacity. “He’s been himself. Broody, busy, a little mean. It’s hard to figure out his good days and bad days, so I tiptoe around his moods.” It sounds like I’m complaining. “Which is fine. I don’t mind it.”Give Jesse what he wants.“I don’t mind at all; it just makes living with him challenging.”
“Has he been painting?”
Oh, we’re definitely in uncharted waters. “Yeah,” I whisper. Before I can reel it in, I’m telling Riley about the portrait of his son he’s been working on during any free time he has.
“I see. He told you it was his son?”
Shit. I shouldn’t have said anything. “I had to pester him a little, but he told me.” It’s too late to fix it, so I put all my eggs in one basket and tell Riley exactly what Jesse told me and how he acted toward me at the club after.
“Jesse is complicated. You know this. The fact he told you anything at all about his past is monumental.” I can’t tell if that’s a terrible thing or a good thing, and it sounds like Riley isn’t sure either. “Give him what he wants, Drew. When you get here, you’re mine.”
I stay silent, just inhaling and exhaling. “Hey, Riley,” I say quietly.
“Yes,” he says.
“Sometimes it feels like he wants something from me I can’t give, or I don’t know how to give him. Something that I can’t even comprehend. I’m sorry for that, I’m really trying.” My eyes glass over as we pull into the parking garage. “Please know I’m trying, but if I’m not good enough, or give him exactly what he wants, please forgive me.”
Riley exhales noisily. “Are you upset?”
I sniffle. “No. Yes. I’m confused.”
“Drew, listen to me, it’s not your fault, it’s who Jesse is, and you’re right. You can’t give him what he wants, because even I don’t know exactly what it is. I’ll find out. Do not punish yourself, though. That’s the last thing I want.” He pauses. “Jesse won’t hurt you now.”
“Now?” I croak.
“He knows what you mean to me.” He makes an exasperated noise. “But I don’t think that’s the whole issue.”
I lose my breath and it feels like all sense in my head. “What do I mean to you?”
The background turns silent for the first time since I answered the call. He’s alone. “I’ve fallen for you, Drew. It’s the thing that I love about you that Jesse wants to take and now he won’t. He can’t.”
“What thing?”
“Your light. That part of you that remains good despite everything. Jesse is in the business of taking, Drew. Please don’t take it personally. In the past, I didn’t care what he wanted or what he took when it came to girlfriends or women. It didn’t matter because there wasn’t an attachment. He’s had an attachment to you from the moment he saw you, and I don’t think it’s a healthy one.” He breathes heavily. “My attachment to you is healthy, and it bothers him.”
It’s Riley’s light that draws me to him. It makes sense he feels it in me. “I’ve fallen for you too,” I whisper. The words feel like a dirty secret instead of a gradual realization that people come to. I knew going into this, it wasn’t going to be anything close to normal. “I don’t know what to say to him, Riley.”
“He has a lot on his plate. I don’t think you need to say anything. What’s changed, really?”
I groan as I walk into the elevator and wait for security to flank me on all sides. Riley hears the elevator ping. “Hey, I have something for you when you get here.”
Grinning, I say, “Yeah? Other than naked kisses?”