Phoenix Fallen by Heather R. Blair Page B

predicting Fannie, but then he suspected Rissa could hold her own.
    Jules was smirking when Rissa slipped in beside him. Her eyebrows shot up.
    "What's so amusing there, big guy?"
    "Nothing." But his lips quirked as he shifted the XTS and pulled into traffic.
    She put on her belt, giving him a suspicious look. "So tell me about your friends."
    He shrugged. "They're a married couple, Fannie and Scott. Two kids, twins, boy and a girl. Toby and Tish are four and they will wind you up if you let them. Don't let them. Please."
    The twinge of a headache pinched his temples as he recalled some of the things Tish and Toby had pulled on other women he'd brought to the house.
    "Sure. I think I can handle two preschoolers."
    Jules almost choked at this but shrugged again. She'd learn.
    "So, who have you known longer? Scott or Fannie."
    From the tone of her voice, she'd already guessed. He answered anyway.
    "Fan. I've known her almost since the day I moved to Chicago. She's helped me through some rough times."
    It was slight, but he felt Rissa's body stiffen even though they weren't touching.
    "Not like that," he shook his head. "You are a jealous little thing, aren't you? With a dirty fucking mind."
    She huffed. "Not at all. I just like to know where I stand. And yes, by the way. I do have an extremely dirty, fucking mind." Her sidelong look made him squirm a little. He hastily got back to the safe part of their conversation.
    "Well, you know where you stand with Fan, alright? She's not a former girlfriend, or anything like that. She's a friend, more than, really. She's like family."
     
    Great. More from what he wasn't saying than what he was, Rissa inferred she was being introduced to what amounted to a mixture of mother and sister and best friend. Yay.
    She'd been a bundle of damn nerves since last night. Taking him to Crave after what had happened last time was a risk.
    But it had gone well, even very well. It had only been when they left the club that she'd started to get tense again. There had been a familiar feel to the night, oily and heavy. Just the August heat, she had told herself. But Rissa hadn't slept well and now this…party. Meeting Jules' people. Fannie. She felt the love in his voice every time he mentioned the woman's name.
    This was just bound to be a gas. But Rissa straightened her shoulders and soldiered on.
    "And Scott?"
    Jules snorted. "Scott's a friend, I guess. I have to claim him as he's Fannie's. He's also a co-worker, of sorts." He tipped his head at her curious look. "Free-lancer. He's ex-military."
    "And a para, I would guess?"
    "Yup. Plant elemental. An extremely strong one."
    Her eyebrows shot up again. That was fairly rare, elementals of any nature were. And usually their power was weak. "Is Fannie, too? A para, I mean."
    "Yeah. She's an empath. But she's never worked for us. She prefers to stay away from all that. She had enough of being labeled a para after the Reveal. You know how it was."
    Sure she did. Life had definitely sucked for the paras for a long time after the Reveal. Plenty of them that could hide their powers did so gratefully. Rissa couldn't blame Fannie. Especially as she was an empath.
    People were always bugging empaths, wanting to know the answers to all those insecure, nagging human questions; does he love me? Is she lying? Cheating?
    Etcetera, etcetera.
    It was probably enough to drive anyone mad. Despite herself, curiosity sparked.
    "And your para talent? It's psychometry, right?" She'd gotten that from her initial Googling of Jules that day of the press conference.
    He pulled down an innocuous suburban street, one lined with a pleasant combination of two-story and ranch-style houses. The sky was deepening from purple velvet to black pierced with faded stars. Lawns, some scattered with colorful jumbles of toys and bikes, others with haphazard gardens or well-tended rose bushes screamed normality.
    Rissa looked around, feeling out of place. This was so not her scene. She'd gone