Free Muse - Fighting Fate #1 by Maree Green

hell.
    What I hadn’t accounted for was the jealousy. That had come way out of left field, but there was nothing I could do. I just had to sit back and watch, and try like hell to calm my rising bitch meter every time some bimbo groupie touched him.
    Kaeli sat through it all and watched with amusement and fury. Amusement because the girls all made fools of themselves, and fury on my behalf because she felt like Jace was still disrespecting me after taking my V card in Aspen.
    No, I hadn’t told her about the arrangement I’d made with Jace. I felt horrible for keeping it from her, but I knew what it would sound like to someone standing on the outside, and to me it was more than just sex. I felt like if I said it out loud, it would cheapen it somehow.
    Every day at lunch, Jace would occasionally look over at me with this deeply intense gaze, and my skin would feel like he’d lit it on fire. I wasn’t sure when the next time we’d get together would be . We hadn’t really discussed that part, but I hoped it was soon. I needed his touch like my sanity depended on it.
    It wasn’t until I was in the car with Aiden on Friday afternoon, that I found out I’d be seeing him that night.
    “The guys are coming over for practice tonight,” he said in passing as he navigated a corner.
    “ Really?” That surprised me.
    Even though they had sound rooms set up everywhere but Jace’s house , they usually practiced at Dean’s.
    Aiden shrugged. “Sure. Why not? Jace thought it’d be a nice change of scenery.”
    So it was Jace’s idea. I struggled to keep the smile off my face. I liked knowing he was doing everything he could to see me. Well, I hoped it was for me, and not just because he wanted to practice in our dungeon. “Are they staying over?”
    “Nah, we’re just going to go over the set we’ve got planned for the gig next week. Dean wants to use the new song Jace wrote, but I don’t know if it’ll be ready. He still hasn’t finished the lyrics and won’t let Dean help him.”
    He said the last bit like it pissed him off. “That’s fair,” I countered. “It obviously means something to him.”
    He gave me a dry look. “This is Jace we’re talking about. He doesn’t have meaning in his life.”
    “Neither do you.”
    His expression softened. “I have you. You’re all the meaning I need.”
    I had no retort to that. It was the truth. We had a special bond that went beyond the twin thing. Growing up, we’d always known when the other one needed us. I remembered once when we were ten, I’d come out of my room and told Mom Aiden had hurt his arm. At the time, he’d been at a party, and as Mom was trying to make sense of what I was saying, the phone rang and she was told that Aiden had fallen off the trampoline and broken his arm.
    Aiden of course didn’t need to be convinced that I’d known, because he’d experienced it once before when we were four, and every time since then when I had an anxiety attack.
    After that, when we were older , and Aiden had started going to parties, Mom occasionally used our connection to ask me if Aiden was safe. Neither of us minded. We knew she just worried.
    “Besides, he said if we do the song, he wants to sing it ,” Aiden continued.
    That surprised me. Jace had never expressed any interest in singing lead before. “Wow. It must be important to him if he’s not willing to give up the words.”
    Aiden snorted. “I don’t know what his deal is. He’s been acting weird the last couple of weeks. Well, since Aspen really – and that’s when he came up with the new song too.”
    I swallowed. “Weird how?”
    “I don’t know. Not weird really, just different. The girls seem to be pissing him off.”
    I was momentarily stunned by Aiden’s words. Could it actually have been me that’ d affected him like that? I didn’t really think it was possible, but what else could it be?
    Bringing myself back to Aiden, I said, “What girls?”
    He shrugged. “Oh there’s