Page 31 of Wasted Lust

“Is that so?” I play along. “You’re very good then. Because I’m not even sure what we did. Maybe you should enlighten me?”

He takes another sip of his Scotch and sets his glass down. The ice clinks as the door to the plane is closed and we are sealed up inside. For better or worse, I’m playing his game. I’m just not sure what the game is yet.

My family. My Nick. My past. He wants access to all of it. But he knows a lot already, so where is this going?

“Tell me, Sasha Cherlin—”

“Aston,” I correct him, and then self-consciously pick up my martini and take a sip. He’s right. It’s not very strong. So I take a longer sip because I could use a little courage right now.

“Sorry, Miss Aston. Tell me something about you that’s real.”

“What do you mean? I’m real. Everything about me is real. I live in Kansas, I go to school, I love dinosaurs. You know more real things about me than most. So what more do you possibly want?”

He’s shaking his head. “Mmmm, no. Those aren’t the real parts I’m interested in. I’ll be blunt then. We only have an hour on this trip. One hour to get a little insight into who you really are. Because once we get to the manor, I might not get a moment alone with you for a while. This might be the only date I get. So forget about Nick, and Ford, and your dinosaurs, and all the tragic things that happened to you as a child. And tell me something real about you now.”

I fold my hands in my lap and lift up my chin. “I’m not a sharing kind of girl, Agent Jax. I’m a—”

“Very tightly buttoned-up kind of girl. I know. See, that’s the part I hate about you.”

“Excuse me?”

“The part I hate, Miss Aston, is the way you partition your life into neat little packages. Did Ford Aston teach you that? Did his personality overpower yours back when you were a teenager? Did he—”

“How fucking dare you?” The words blurt out before I can stop them. “Do not,” I seethe, “talk about my father like you know him.”

“Why not? I do know him.”

“You do not know him. I have been his daughter for ten years and I have barely scratched the surface of what makes that man tick. We are very close, we have very close friends, and no one—”

“Ever gets inside that little team you grew up with. Is that it? They circled the wagons around you back when you were a teenager and pulled you into that life.”

“You make it sound like that’s a bad thing.”

“Everyone needs friends, Sasha. But they are his friends. Where are your friends?”

“I have friends. James and Harper are my friends. Merc is my friend.”

“Assassins?” Jax laughs heartily now. “Are you telling me your closest friends are all assassins? James Fenici and Harper Tate are your friends? That psycho Merc, he’s your friend? I sincerely hope not. Because that means you chose them. And all this time I gave you the benefit of the doubt because I thought they were family. Family is family. You can’t change that. But friends you choose. So tell me, what fantasy life do you live in where you choose murderers as friends?”

“I’m a murderer too,” I growl. “And you better keep that in mind tonight.”

“As am I, killer. As am I.”

The plane accelerates on the runway and I brace myself for takeoff, grabbing my drink to prevent it from spilling as Jax does the same. The engine roar is too loud to talk, so I bow my head and try to check my anger. What is he playing at? Is he trying to make me react? Does he want to force me into a demonstration of how dangerous I am? Is he looking for a fight?

“I’ll start then,” Jax says once the plane evens out a few minutes later. He takes another sip of the Scotch in his glass and then sets it down. I mimic him, for lack of something better to occupy my time and hands. “I’ll give you something real about me first. An example.”

I roll my eyes and sigh, placing my hands back into my lap. I’m tired of him already. If I had a watch, I’d check it to let him know how much he’s boring me right now.

“I grew up in Brooklyn. Well, not exactly.” The initial half-truth grabs my attention even though I want to tune him out. “I bounced. You know that term, I think. Living here and there. Never having a real home. I was a foster kid. But one day, when I was twelve years old, I bounced into the home of Special Agent Max Barlow.” Jax pauses for a moment. His eyes glaze over a little as he looks up towards the ceiling, like he’s lost in a memory. “His house was big, but old. Not fancy,” he says with a small smile. “The kind of house that says it’s been lived in for a while. But not neglected. You know that kind of house, Sasha?”

I nod before I even realize I’m doing it.

“The furniture was nice, but worn. The leather couches all had butt indents in them. Like people had been sitting there comfortably for generations. He was the seventh generation to live in that house. Ever since his forefathers immigrated to America in the mid-eighteen hundreds. They built it over and over again, adding to it as the family grew and thrived in their new country. More generations were born, and with each one they grew a little more prosperous or a little less. But they always had that home. A place to gather and be with one another. But Max was the only child of his generation. And when his wife died after only two years of marriage and no children, he started to take in foster kids to fill the house back up.”

I’m struck silent by this honest recollection of his history. I don’t spend much time on the East Coast, but forming a picture of this house—standing and expanding as life comes and goes, a monument to the temporary nature of the human lifespan—I can see it in my head. I picture brown brick, a solid concrete front porch filled with children and neighbors. Holidays and dinners.

“Did you have a home like that, Sasha?”