Evenfall (107 page)

“He didn’t offer me a 401K but I suppose that term would suit our arrangement.” Jess rolled her eyes at him. “God, do you have to be sarcastic every time you open your mouth? Is that some kind of defense mechanism that allows you to escape having to give out real information or something?”

Sin shrugged and glanced at his watch again. “Maybe.”

She made a face and kicked him lightly in the leg. “You suck.” She scowled and shook her head. “I never
even got you to really… I don’t know. I never even got to know you that well. I thought you’d be around a lot longer. I should have known better— someone with your rιsumι could do a lot better than a crappy night club like this.”

“Yes.” Sin nodded in agreement.

Jess kicked him playfully again and laughed. “Well, you’re not the only one who has a job at the fancy ass JKS, you know. My uncle works there and hires me from time to time to direct and plan events. I’ve organized banquets and conventions for all kinds of people. I’m on staff for the Expo as well although I’m not in charge this time, so I might even see you around.”

Sin paused for a moment and stared at her silently, all traces of amusement gone from his features as he thought about what that could possibly imply. “You’ll be at the actual event?” He asked finally.

She shrugged and rested her cheek against one hand. “Probably not or at least not for the entire thing. I just take care of the planning beforehand.”

“Oh.” He lost interest in the subject and his gaze strayed towards the door, wondering when Boyd would arrive.

There was a long silence and she continued to watch him as he watched the door and she shook her head, long hair falling around her face as her pretty red mouth turned down in a pout. “I’m going to miss you, Jase.”

He grunted and didn’t formulate a real response.

She looked down for a moment, hiding the hint of sadness that showed in her expression. “I wish things were different, you know. I mean I stopped… I act professional now but things haven’t changed. I still mourn the fact that you’re gay,” She admitted softly.

Sin finally looked at her again and both of his dark eyebrows rose. “Who said I’m gay?”

Jess looked up at him, head tilting to the side. “You did. Remember?”

He opened his mouth to protest and then remembered the incident in her office. “Oh. Right.”

She frowned slightly, leaning forward to peer at him intently. “Well… aren’t you?”

Sin stared down at her blankly for a moment and almost said ‘yes’ but something caused him to pause. Gay implied that he only liked men and while the sight and feel of Boyd’s body was enough to drive him crazy, he had to admit that he had trouble keeping his gaze from straying to Jess’s exposed cleavage and feminine curves. It was strange considering the fact that he'd previously felt nothing at all when looking at women but it had been the same for men so he didn't think he was gay so much as sexually repressed. “I don’t know.”

Jess opened her mouth, closed it, and opened it again but no sound came out. She screwed her face up in adorable confusion and ran a hand through her hair almost nervously. “Um… what does that mean? Have you— are you— have you never been with a woman?”

“You ask too many questions,” He replied flatly and looked at the door again, cursing himself for responding honestly.

She frowned slightly and leaned forward. “Jase…”

His gaze snapped over to her, eyes narrowed in a warning glare. “What?” He demanded, annoyance evident in his tone. He’d escaped this idiotic conversation with her before and here they were again, drudging it up on the last night they’d most likely see each other.

She didn’t respond for a moment but her mouth lifted in an almost shy smile. “If that’s the case, does that mean it wouldn’t gross you out if an icky girl kissed you goodbye?”

Sin rolled his eyes and shrugged. “Do whatever you want.”

Jess grinned and leaned forward, grabbing his shirt and pulling him closer to her. He didn’t resist, resigned to let her have her way so that she would shut up and leave him alone, and she seemed encouraged by his submission. Her grin widened even as her heart sped up nervously and she pressed her mouth against his full, perpetually pouting lips. The kiss was chaste, almost innocent and she pulled back a mere second after they touched although she didn’t move entirely out of his personal space.

She gazed up into his heavy lidded eyes and wet her lips almost nervously, telling herself to sit down and not make a fool of herself, to leave it at that as she had intended, but for some reason she could never listen to reason when it came to him. There was something about his expression that was dark, warning, telling her she was getting too close and that it was unwanted but at the same time… she couldn’t help but notice the way his lips had pushed back against hers. She held his gaze and leaned up, brushing her lips against his again, unable to fight the urge. This time she buried one thin hand in the unruly hair at the nape of his neck and her mouth opened partially as they exchanged another almost innocent kiss.

Sin shifted and stared down at Jess, wondering vaguely why the hell she acted this way around him and why she was beating around the damn bush. If she wanted to kiss him, she needed to do it and be done with it so that he could go find Boyd, the cocktails and the cake that Becky had been babbling about. “
Just get it over with, woman,” h
e said impatiently.

Jess raised her eyebrows at him and smirked. “Fine then.”

This time when she kissed him, she wrapped both arms around his neck and tangled her fingers in his hair. She slipped her tongue between his lips and kissed him passionately, deeply, temporarily losing herself in his taste and smell and exalting in the fact that he didn’t push her away. On the contrary, despite the fact that he didn’t respond as excitedly as she’d always hoped he would, his lips did move against hers languidly and his hands absently rested on her hips.

They stayed that way for several, long moments and mostly ignored the catcalls and jeers that their coworkers directed at them.

===

When Boyd entered the club, he saw Jessica and Sin kissing.

It was the last thing he’d expected to walk in seeing and it surprised him enough to stop and stare.
He felt a sudden sense of distaste mixed with another emotion he couldn't quite define, although he knew it was centered on her. She shifted closer to Sin, who didn't seem inclined at all to push her away, and that just made the feeling intensify.

Boyd realized he was staring so he turned to shut the door behind him and absently looked around the room with the mannerisms that he'd perfected over the months. There were maybe twenty people in the room and he had met almost all of them throughout his visits to Lunar. Most of them were dancing and a few were crowded around them watching or talking, but some of them seemed to be sprawled at the bar loudly egging on 'Jason' and Jessica.

He didn’t want to deal with what he felt at seeing Sin with Jessica so he decided to try to ignore it by approaching Johnny and Estella at the far end of the lounge. Cake and drinks nearly filled the table but they seemed to be having some sort of discussion rather than actually bothering to distribute it. Boyd meandered that way, trying to ignore the catcalls of coworkers toward Jessica and Sin.

He wasn’t entirely successful.

H
e found himself glancing at Jessica and Sin again
. T
he distaste gr
ew
.

It took him a moment to realize that what was bo
thering him was her proximity. N
ot only that she was kissing Sin but, somehow, that she was touching him at all. He did
n't know why that was at first. H
e'd seen Johnny and Estella touch Sin when he'd stopped by Lunar before but somehow it hadn't annoyed him as much
.

It was d
ifferent with Jessica, though.

He felt threatened by her;
as if she was somehow jeopardizing the position it had taken him a year to reach.
All that time it took for him to
be able to touch Sin without being in danger of losing his life and some big-breasted woman could walk right up to him and stick her tongue down his throat without Sin even blinking.

The enmity that came with that thought made the undefined feeling grow until Boyd realized with a start that
it was jealousy.

After the initial moment of confusion at the feeling, he tried to reason with himself. As much as he didn't like the situation for his own reasons, he couldn't exactly complain about it. He'd never brought any of this up with Sin so there was no way he'd know. And any time they'd been confronted with words like 'relationship,' 'boyfriend,' even 'lover,' Boyd had been right there with Sin saying that really wasn't the case.

Boyd just knew that he trusted Sin, which was saying a lot because there were very few people he could truly say that about.

He didn't let the thoughts make it to his expression, though; he wandered nonchalantly over to the table as if he hadn't noticed or cared about Jessica and Sin. Focusing on the situation would just make it worse and he didn't particularly want to go through the night feeling annoyed or on guard. He'd spent months acting as Kadin Reed, and years ignoring what he was feeling or feeling nothing at all, so it made it easier to put the thoughts out of his mind.

Once within speaking distance, he waited for Estella to pause before he languidly drawled to Johnny, "Leaving the door open, man, that shit's dangerous. I could've been an axe murderer. Your security sucks."

Johnny grinned at him in greeting and wrapped a muscular arm around Boyd's shoulders in much the same way he'd done to Jess earlier. "I'm off the clock, bud. And your roomie is too busy playing tonsil hockey with the boss lady to care about security, which is just not fair in my book."

Estella rolled her eyes at Johnny and smiled brightly at Boyd. "What's up, Kadin?"

"Hey Estella, not much," Boyd greeted her with a lazy smile then turned to Johnny. "What's not, that you gotta do all the work?"

Johnny shrugged and made a face. "More the fact that my tonsils aren't in on the game."

"Well, you could always try to crash the party," Boyd said.

Johnny snorted and glanced over again. "I don't think I'd be able to even if I tried."

Across the room, Sin seemed to sense that Boyd had just entered the club and he looked over, pulling away from Jess finally and moving to stand. She stared at him, eyes slightly wild and lips swollen as she grabbed his arm and tried to get him to stay. She opened her mouth to say something but when he automatically pulled away, she followed his gaze and her cheeks reddened when she saw that Boyd was there.

They briefly exchanged words before Sin crossed the room to greet Boyd. He glanced down at the cake, which had his fake name on it, and shook his head in dismay. Civilians were strange. "Hey."

Boyd looked over when he heard Sin's voice. "Oh, hey," he greeted him idly. "How'd your last shift go?"

Sin shrugged and swiped his finger across the chocolate frosting on the cake, ignoring the look Estella gave him. "Uneventful."

"Eh, probably best. One time I had the shittiest last day at work; even those few hours seemed too long." Boyd looked down at the cake and then back up at Estella. "Can we eat this before he destroys it all?"

"Might as well," She replied with a shake of her head. "I spent a lot of time making this cake pretty."

Sin smirked and grabbed a chunk with his hand, not bothering to cut it or anything. "Tastes better without silverware."

Boyd rolled his eyes. "Not just silverware with you, plates too. I think there's a two-year-old stuck in your brain screaming to get out."

"Maybe I just don't care about unnecessary rules of etiquette," Sin replied blandly.

"I don't think you care about many rules," Boyd said, amused.

Sin raised an eyebrow at Boyd and his smirk turned wicked. "You should know."

Johnny reached out to follow Sin's lead with the cake but Estella slapped a plate and a fork in his hand before he could. He made a face at her but then turned to Boyd. "Did you sign up to work at the Expo too, Kadin?"

"Fuck no," Boyd said easily. "Wayyy too much work and I bet it's boring. Besides, if I did that I'd never get to check out the art. Definitely not worth it. Maybe I'll stop by to browse, though. Some really famous people are gonna be there."

"Where do you work anyway?" Johnny asked with a raised eyebrow. "I've never heard you mention a job."

"I probably haven't mentioned it," Boyd said with a shrug. "I don't really have one right now. I worked my ass off in the States before I came here so I'd have enough money to chill for a bit. There's some nice Art Uni's in the area that I wanted to enroll in if I can figure out how to pay for it. I was gonna get a
job but it's hard here and I guess my rιsumι isn't good enough. So for the moment, I'm trying to do some odd jobs for extra cash."

"I have an odd job for you," Johnny said with a leer. "It involves nudity and a whole lot of lubricant."

Estella wrinkled her nose at Johnny. "Don't you have anything better to do than try to get every attractive human that crosses your path into bed?"