That news makes me chuckle, and Jace joins in with a shake of his head.
“How the two of you can be twins is a mystery, bro. Jared is by and large one crazy asshole. You know, I called him earlier and he was actually about to scale their wall and break into their house. With Veronica in residence. I swear he was hoping she’d catch him just so he could lose it on the fool.”
I’m not surprised at all. Jared seems tame most of the time, but my twin brother is anything but. Being a spook and carrying out some seriously questionable missions, I know what my brother is capable of. Add to the fact that he’s been watching our crazy-ass family for a good year now and seems to hate them all with an abiding passion, and it’s a miracle one of them hasn’t just vanished by now.
That signals an improvement to me, because a few years ago the guy would have just acted and answered questions later. I suspect that his hesitance with just attacking them all has something to do with Paulie Hayes, Veronica’s best friend and the one woman I’ve seen Jared show an interest in.
Too bad for him, the girl seems just as vain and useless as the whole bunch of them. She’s a beauty, though, so if she doesn’t stop shaking her ass at him and tempting fate, I’m positive that he’ll finally lose all patience and just take what he wants.
“He’ll be fine for the meantime. If he gets out of hand, I’ll reel him in,” I say, sighing tiredly.
I hope it doesn’t come to that, because the man has some rage issues. Twin or not, he’ll kick my ass and hand it back to me for my efforts. Jared is, shall we say, a product of some of the shit he’s seen over the years, and he never hesitates to take out anyone he considers a threat.
“You think I should trade out assignments with him before things get ugly?” Jace asks after a while.
“Nah, man. He’s more likely to beat you than thank you for your concern. Leave him for now, like I said. I’ll keep an eye on him.”
Jace nods and shrugs his shoulders, a move I’ve seen on him more often of late. He hasn’t done it since he was a kid and those idiots at school tried to bully him.
Let’s just say that Billy Ray ended up crying like a baby when a much younger Jace handed him his ass and threatened to teach him manners till they finally took.
“You okay, man?”
He looks back at me and shrugs again, trying for the smile that I haven’t seen in a while.
“I think Tracy is back in town.”
I whistle beneath my breath.
“Yeah? You gonna make a play for her again?”
Tracy Mayfield is the girl Jace ran off five years ago when he decided to take the job homeland security offered both him and Jared. To him, it was a case of love versus country, and since Tracy wasn’t about to drop her life and do what he wanted, he chose country and broke her heart.
She left town to get away from the humiliation of seeing the idiot sniffing after any skirt in a mile radius, not a day after he cut her loose, and she hasn’t been back since.
“I called her the other day. She told me to suck a dick and go sky diving without a parachute.”
“Ouch.” I laugh, feeling terrible for the guy.
He hasn’t stopped loving Tracy all these years, and having her around now isn’t great, especially now with his mind focused more on staying home and giving homeland the finger.
He can afford to retire and consider his options, but I’m not sure having Jace and Jared running around town like two loose cannons is a good idea.
“Yeah, anyway, like I was saying. Case is taking care of things on the ex-boyfriend end, and Jared is keeping things together on our end. All we need now is to keep Roman from getting himself killed and we should be okay.”
I snort at that and turn back to watching the women and the two married asses in the family dote on their wives. Whipped, poor SOBs.
“I’ll keep my eye on him, too, and hope that things come to a head sooner rather than later. You know how he gets when things move too slowly for his liking.”
We start talking about some trivial shit after going over a few key points that I’ve been considering before I finally decide I’ve been patient enough and go get Clari from Ma’s greedy clutches.
I may not be planning to make love to her tonight, but after the kiss that’s still burning through my blood, I’m not about to waste my time convincing myself that there isn’t more than one way to satisfy my urges.
“Clari. Ma, we’re going to bed. Settle down, woman, she’s not leaving for the Kremlin. We’re just going upstairs.”
***
Clara
I know the minute that Miah comes over and all but sweeps me out of the living room that things are going to change tonight. I am so excited, it’s all I could do not to squirm the whole way up the stairs and into his room.