My body went stiff with the reminder of our mission.
“When I tell you what I need to tell you, they’ll think I’m doing them a favor. They’ll use it against you, Logan. That’s what they do. That’s why they pair us. But you’re stronger than they think. No matter what happens, remember that. Remember what I’m about to tell you and believe in it.”
I nodded. My head started to buzz with the pain of the shift.
Jo yanked on my shirt to get my attention. “I’m sorry I was never able to tell you this before. But now that I know how it all ends I must. I love you, Logan Middleton. You remember that. I love you.”
And then everything went black.
Chapter 30
“I really need to talk to you,” I begged Jenna, who had her head peeked outside her front door. It was past curfew. She had always been a stickler for the rules. Most of the time. Except for the rules I made her break.
When I woke from the shift I was shaking so bad that my teeth were literally chattering. I didn’t think that was possible outside that weird as hell tent scene in that vampire movie Jenna made me see over the summer. Apparently, some men found that kind of thing sexy. Something about the damsel in distress.
My uncle didn’t say anything to me when I came to, and I wasn’t prepared to talk to him. Too many things had changed in that afternoon for me to be able to go back and pretend I understood a damn thing about the man who raised me. I wasn’t even sure how to talk to him.
I needed time to think.
So, I drove and drove until my car found its way to Jenna’s.
The girl I cheated on.
Sure, I didn’t have sex with Jo. And I hadn’t even begun to make sense of what happened between us, but I knew I’d betrayed Jenna. The first girl to ever love me.
Jenna shot another glance back into her house, no doubt calculating if she could get away with stepping outside for a few minutes before SportsCenter went to commercial. Either she felt she had plenty of time or saw how I desperate I was because Jenna stepped out her door and closed it quietly behind her.
Jenna looked up at me, wrapping her arms around her to protect her from the chilly fall evening. I scrambled to get my jacket off and handed it to her. I couldn’t bear to sit there and watch her shiver.
“Is Jo all right?” she asked quietly as she slipped on my jacket.
I swallowed and looked down. I didn’t deserve to look at her.
“I heard about the fight with Alec. I heard she went crazy,” she continued.
I nodded, running a hand over my eyes. I took a deep breath and looked up quickly at Jenna. She was so bright. So soft. Everything Jo wasn’t. Everything I was about to give up. I swallowed again.
Jenna took a step towards me and took my hand. “What is it, Logan?”
My heart skipped a beat. I could hear the worry in her voice. God. This girl worried about Jo. Worried about me. Hell, she probably called Alec to make sure he was all right. How could I hurt the girl who didn’t know how to hurt?
Jenna wrapped her arms around my waist and laid her head against my chest. “Won’t you tell me, Logan? You’ve been so distant lately. I miss you.”
I felt my eyes start to sting. I blinked a few times to clear them. Jenna moved her head so her chin was resting on my chest and her eyes, her beautiful blue eyes, looked up at me. I saw a thousand different memories in that moment. Memories that had nothing to do with Jo. Memories that had nothing to do with shifting and the end of times. Back when my life was still my life.
I cupped her face in my hands and gently pressed my lips against hers. I didn’t feel the same heat overtake my body as I did with Jo. But I felt something different. I felt peace. I felt the place I’d always know and understand.
And there is something supremely beautiful about that.
“Let’s go somewhere,” she whispered to me.
I raised an eyebrow, keeping her in my arms. I couldn’t escape the feeling that the minute I’d let her go she would be gone forever. “That’s not exactly following the rules, Jenna.”
She smiled slightly. “I don’t care tonight. I just want to be with you. We haven’t had a lot of time just for us.”
She meant because of Jo. I’d forced Jo into our lives. I’d let whatever I had with her destroy what I had with the girl in front of me. “Let’s go.”
Half an hour later, we were in my car making out. We had parked on one of Chesapeake’s country roads. I knew we were getting close to that line. The line that separated fondling and dry humping in the back of a rent a car and something else. Something that’d always been more intimate than I expected it to be.
Half of our clothes were already off. The windows fogged up from the heat we were producing. We hadn’t talked much since leaving her house. It was mostly a chorus of mouths and hands. I moved my hand up her back to the clasp of her bra. “We don’t have to do this tonight,” I said gently.