Act Your Age, Eve Brown (The Brown Sisters #3)(33)

“Well,” he muttered. “Good.” Except it wasn’t good, because Eve was still here, and he really didn’t want her to be. He was starting to find her . . . charming. Jacob usually saw charm as useless and insubstantial, but somehow, she made the damn thing stick. Made it solid and welcoming, like a well-built brick house rather than smoke and mirrors.

That was technically a good thing, but he hadn’t expected it, and so he decided to resent it. He’d always hated surprises. “What possessed you to come over here at this time of night and waste perfectly good bread? My perfectly good bread?”

“I’ll buy some more tomorrow,” she said, throwing what remained of the bag—yes, throwing it!—casually on the ground.

“You’ll fuck up my supp—”

“Supply is my responsibility now, anyway,” she cut in, and Jacob was left to wonder how the bloody hell she’d known that. He hadn’t mentioned it, because frankly, he hadn’t wanted her to do it just yet. Supply monitoring was a delicate business, and Eve seemed a bit bloody ditsy, to say the least. Plus, he’d only known her for a few days. Putting her in charge of securing sausages and whatnot seemed premature. They hadn’t even had their first post-employment meeting yet.

Because you’ve been avoiding her.

Blah, blah, blah. The point was, she knew too much. “Who told you that?” he demanded. “It was Mont, wasn’t it? I heard him come and visit you today, you know. While you were baking.”

Eve, who was windmilling her arms at the first duck with almost no effect, snorted a laugh. “Visit me? I thought he was on his way to visit you.”

“Well, yes. Wanted to check I hadn’t died while he wasn’t looking. But I don’t see how that mission took him to the kitchen.”

Earlier, it had occurred to Jacob that he’d left a bit abruptly after the Finger Licking Moment, and he’d started to feel almost . . . bad. After all, Eve was so unrelentingly earnest, she might as well be a puppy, and if you kicked a puppy, even by accident, you had to pick it up and rub its belly and say sorry. Not that he’d intended to do something so awful as apologize. Or rub Eve’s belly. He’d just planned to pop into the kitchen and say something vaguely friendly, to negate his earlier awkwardness.

So down he’d gone, only to find her laughing. With Mont.

“You should be aware,” Jacob said now, “that I think he likes you.” It would make sense, after all. Eve was technically attractive, and technically interesting, and really quite capable in a way that made Jacob’s stomach tighten, but also quite silly in a way that made his chest fizz, so, yes. He could see it. Why Mont might like her, that is.

“Everyone likes me on first acquaintance,” Eve said, then flicked a look at Jacob. “Well. Except you.”

“I—” He snapped his mouth shut before it could betray him.

“Aha! Success!” The first duck had finally taken the hint and fucked off, waddle-flying away with an affronted squawk. Eve clapped her hands and did a little jump, and Jacob thanked every god he knew that the moon was currently covered by cloud, because if he’d seen that movement in any kind of light he probably would’ve noticed something awful. Like her tits.

Or her thighs, in those tiny shorts he absolutely hadn’t been looking at.

“And by the way,” Eve went on, “Mont didn’t tell me anything. I read about it in the handbook.”

Jacob froze.

“SUPPLYING ONESELF: THE ART OF REMAINING READY,” she went on.

Jacob froze some more.

She walked toward him in the dark, her shadowy outline drifting closer. “Are you all right?” she asked. “Is this some sort of concussion thing? Do I need to reboot you?” And then she reached out a finger and tapped him on the nose.

He caught her wrist automatically, trapping her hand in front of his face. Her skin was soft—almost unnaturally soft. She must bathe in butter or milk or something because if he didn’t know better, he’d think her whole body was wrapped in satin. He could feel her pulse beneath his fingers and it was fast. Probably because she’d just been grabbed by a strange and silent man in the dark.

He let her go.

“Well,” she said cheerfully, “I wasn’t expecting that to work.” But she moved away with a speed that didn’t quite match her casual tone.

Damn. Every time they did something other than argue, he managed to fuck it up. Surprising, how tense and unhappy that made him. Jacob wasn’t in the habit of giving a shit about people who weren’t on his pre-approved list. It was complicated and it always ended badly.

Badly, as in: with him dumped on someone else’s doorstep like a bag of rubbish.

Now, why was he thinking about that?

With effort, he wrenched himself back to the conversation they’d been having before everything had somehow gone off the rails. “You’ve been reading my handbooks.”

“Oh, yes. Mont gave them to me.”

“And you—actually read one.”

She sounded confused when she corrected him. As if she didn’t understand his disbelief. “I read all of them.”

“You—read—all of them.”

“I can read, you know.”

“You’ve been here for two days!”

“Technically three, since it’s past midnight.”