I stopped abruptly when he cut me off. “No?”
He shook his head. “I’m not doing this with you.” He let go of my hands and pushed away from the table. “I’m getting ready for bed.” He walked away, down the hall to Symon’s bedroom.
I ran my hand through my hair, sighed and sat back in my seat.
“You okay?” Symon asked.
I huffed. “I don’t know.”
Symon got up and walked over, then cupped my cheeks and kissed me gently on the lips. “Can I do anything to make it better?”
“You just did.”
He smiled a little, then pecked my lips again. “If you’re okay, I’m going to go check on Jax.”
I rubbed his forearm. “Okay. Go make sure he’s alright.”
He kissed me again. “I will. Come back there if you need me, okay?”
I nodded and he placed one last kiss on my lips, then walked away after Jax.
“Shit,” I muttered as I blew out a frustrated breath and sat back in my seat. Well, that could’ve gone better.
Symon
I walked into my bedroom to find Jax sitting on the floor with his back against the bed, knees up with his head tucked into his arms. I closed the door behind us and walked in, then knelt in front of him. I put my hands on his biceps and started rubbing them a little. “Want to talk about it?”
“Not really,” he said without looking up.
I stayed on my knees, but lowered my ass onto my calves and just stared at him. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know how to fix this. I ran my hand through Jax’s hair and leaned in to kiss the top of his head. I just sat there quietly, rubbing his arms and hair, and waiting for him to look up.
Finally, he said, “I’ll be fine, Sy.”
“I know. But… I need to make sure.”
He finally lifted his head and looked at me with a sorta sad smile. “Thank you.” He grabbed one of my hands and laced our fingers together. “I just… when Tanner and I were together before, I felt like I was his dirty little secret, you know? He never let me around his family because he was ashamed of me—of us.”
“I’m sure that’s not it. There’s no way he was ashamed of you, Jax.”
One corner of his mouth lifted a little. “That’s what it felt like. The thing is, I knew his family. Tanner and I grew up together, so I’d known his family my whole life, really, you know? So it was just… a slap in the face that I suddenly wasn’t allowed to go to his cousin’s birthday party with him or his brother’s graduation party or any of those things because I’d always gone with him for years. But that was when we were just friends. Once his dad found out we were dating, he… he told Tanner that he didn’t want to see it or hear about it, and instead of standing up for me, Tanner just… didn’t.”
I took a deep breath. “You guys were really young, and he was scared—”
“Please don’t defend what he did.”
I blinked at him. “I’m… not. I’m just trying to… understand. Obviously, I wasn’t there, but I’m here now, and I can tell you that Tanner isn’t ashamed of us. He’s not. He’s just worried about his family being assholes to us. I think… I think he thought he was protecting you back then.” I held up my hand to stop his protests. “I’m not saying it was right, and I’m not sticking up for him. He should’ve listened to you about how you felt. But… I know him, Jax, and there’s no way he did any of that with the intention of hurting you.”
He blew out a breath and ran his thumb over my knuckles as he looked off to the side. After a few minutes, he said, “I know he didn’t mean to hurt me, but he did. And he didn’t listen when I tried to explain.”
I nodded. “I know.”
Jax shot me another sad smile, but this time it looked a little less grim. “Come here.” He opened his arms and once I started to move, he straightened his legs, putting them between mine so I’d climb on his lap. I smiled a little and kissed his forehead. He pulled me down to give me a long kiss on my lips, then pulled me into a hug. I tucked my head into his neck.
“Can we get Tanner to come in here?” I asked after a little while.
Jax nodded against me. “Yeah. Can you go get him?”
“Sure.” I kissed his neck. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m good, pumpkin.”
I smiled a little at that. It was such a goofy name for me, but I liked it. I liked when either of my guys called me a nickname that only they called me. It made me feel like I was special to them.
“I’ll be right back, Romeo.” I kissed his neck, then his jaw, then his cheek, then the small smile on his lips. I got up and walked out of the room to find Tanner. When I got to the living room, I didn’t see him anywhere. I peeked in the kitchen, but he wasn’t there. I walked back down the hall and looked in the bathroom, then into the spare room, but Tanner wasn’t there, either. I looked back into my bedroom. “Jax, Tanner’s gone.”
“What?” Jax looked at me with wide eyes. “What do you mean?”
“I can’t find him. He’s not in the apartment.”
Jax walked out of the bedroom and looked around, grabbing his phone. I beat him to it and dialed Tanner’s number. He picked up on the second ring. “Hey.”
“Where are you?” I asked.
“I’m… outside.”
“What? Where? Outside where?”
“I’m in the parking lot. I… started to leave, but when I got to my car, I changed my mind. And now I’m sitting on my trunk, unsure of what to do.”
“Unsure…? Are you serious right now? You need to get back in here. What the hell are you doing?” I asked, glaring at him even though he couldn’t see me. Jax stood in front of me with his arms crossed over his chest, looking just as angry and upset as I felt. I pulled the phone away from my ear and put it on speaker so he could hear Tanner, too.
“Are you sure you want me to come back?” Tanner asked, his voice sounding sad and distant.
“Yes,” both Jax and I said in unison.
I heard Tanner take a deep breath. “Okay, I just… I didn’t know if you wanted me anymore, so I was going to…” He sighed. “Okay, I’ll be up in a minute. Let me finish this cigarette.”
“Since when do you smoke?” I asked.
“Since I bummed one off of your neighbor that was smoking out here a few minutes ago. I was stressed. I smoke when I’m stressed.”
I wrinkled my nose at that, but Jax was standing there with his mouth open. He looked into my eyes, but said to Tanner, “We’ll come down. Just don’t go anywhere. We’ll be there in a minute.”
“You don’t have to, I’ll just com—”
“No,” Jax cut him off. “We’ll be there in a minute.” He grabbed my phone and disconnected the call. “Come on.” Jax grasped my hand and pulled me to the door. Neither of us even bothered to put our shoes on. Jax led me out to the parking lot and over to Tanner and his car.
Tanner was still sitting on his car’s trunk and when he saw us, he stubbed out the cigarette and started to get up, but Jax rushed over, let go of my hand, and stood right in front of Tanner, blocking him. I stood there, unsure of what Jax was about to do. He looked pissed, so I half expected him to punch Tanner in the face or something. But they just stayed there, staring into each other’s eyes for several seconds. And instead of Jax pushing him or something equally as forceful, he lifted his hands and gently cupped Tanner’s cheeks before pulling him into a slow, soft kiss that was sweet and sexy at the same time.
I walked a little closer to them, and Jax broke their kiss, then looked straight into Tanner’s eyes. “If we’re doing this, you have to promise me something.”
I watched Tanner’s Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed. “Okay.”
“Promise me you won’t pull this shit again.” And just like that, angry Jax was back.
“Wh-what?”
Jax’s jaw clenched. “Promise me you won’t be a dumbass and try to leave with the first sign of trouble. I’m allowed to have feelings; I’m allowed to b
e pissed at you or upset at you. But I can’t be afraid you’re going to leave every single time I express those feelings, Tanner. If we’re doing this, the three of us, you have to be all in. You can’t have one foot out the door.”
Tanner swallowed again and whispered, “You’re right. I’m sorry. I didn’t think about it like that.”
“Promise me.”
“I promise.”
Jax blew out a breath. “Good.” He dropped his hands from Tanner’s face and looked at me. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m okay.”
Jax backed away from Tanner. “We need to get inside; the ground is fucking freezing and Sy and I don’t have shoes on.”
“You guys came out here in bare feet?” Tanner hopped down from the car.
“Yeah. We didn’t want you running away,” Jax said as he walked over to me. He stared at me for a few seconds, then smirked and quickly bent over, wrapping his arms around my waist. I shrieked when he picked me up over his shoulder and smacked my ass. He turned around and looked at Tanner. “I think we need to take him to the bedroom immediately. Maybe we can test out the bed again and see what kind of improvements we want for the new one.”
I laughed. “Don’t you dare carry me up all those steps, Jaxon.”
He ignored me and started walking. “Come on, baby, we need to get him naked.”
Tanner laughed a little and I looked up to glare at him as Jax walked into the building. I sighed. “He’s going to hurt himself.”
“You wound me, pumpkin. I can handle your tiny ass.”
Tanner just shrugged. “I’m not getting in the middle of that.”
Jax stopped walking and turned a little toward Tanner. “But that’s exactly where we want you.”
Tanner’s gaze softened and he stepped up a couple steps to kiss Jax.
I cleared my throat. “Um, guys, I’m still upside down over here, and the blood’s starting to rush to my head. The wrong one. Get me inside.”
Both of them chuckled and Jax started climbing the stairs again. He carried me all the way to the bedroom and dropped me on the bed before stripping me down to nothing. He stared at me for several seconds before he covered me with his still clothed body and kissed me, leaving me breathless before Tanner took his place.
Thank god, we’d worked through that because now that I’d had them, there was no going back. I needed them both in my life.
Chapter Sixteen
Jax
I was nervous. Plain and simple. I was nervous about seeing Wiley again. It wasn’t that I thought Tanner’s brother would be an asshole or something; it was that Tanner had always been so weird about how we were together whenever we’d seen his brother—which wasn’t often, if at all—after we’d started dating. Back then, we were supposed to act like we were just friends. And I hadn’t known how to do that. But today, Tanner had told us to act normal around him. He’d told Sy and me that Wiley was fine and if he wasn’t, he’d have to get over it.
But I couldn’t get my last encounter with Tanner’s brothers out of my head. Tanner’s older brother—Gallagher—had told me that I was no good for Tanner, and that I should just leave him be so he could find a woman to marry and have a family with. Granted, that’d been Gallagher, not Wiley, but still. Did Wiley feel the same way about me? Was he going to be an asshole? What if he did something mean to Symon? Or Tanner, for that matter? How were we going—
“Jax?” Symon’s voice pulled me out of my thoughts and I turned to him. “Are you okay?”
I took a deep breath and nodded. “Yeah, I’m fine.”
Symon frowned. “Do you want to try this bed? Tan and I like it, but I want to make sure we get something that all three of us like.”
My heart thumped hard in my chest, and I sorta melted a little right there. Symon was the sweetest person I’d ever met. He was really all in with us. There was no doubt in my mind. He’d been the one that seemed a little unsure about trying in the beginning, yet, he was the one making sure we were taking steps for our future together as the three of us.
I leaned over and pecked his lips. He froze in surprise for a second, and I smiled at him. “Sorry, pumpkin, your lips are too kissable. I’ll try it right now.”
He nodded and I climbed onto the bed beside Tanner. Tanner rolled onto his side to look at me. “This one is my favorite so far. What do you think?”
I wiggled down into the mattress a little, then turned my head to look at him. “I like it.”
He smiled. “Me too.” He pecked my lips—something he never would’ve done in public when we were teenagers—then sat up and climbed off the bed. It was so big, he had to scoot over on his ass before he could swing his legs off.
I looked at Sy. “I like this one. But… are you sure you want to get a king? Isn’t that going to be too big?”
Symon and Tanner looked at each and both snickered a little before Symon looked at me and laughed out, “You’re the biggest bed hog. So yes, we’re getting a king so I don’t have to sleep with my ass hanging off the bed every night.”
I blinked at him. “You’re joking, right?”
“About what?” He laughed again as Tanner shoulder-bumped him.
“Sleeping with your ass hanging off the bed.”
“Uh,” he chuckled. “No, I have to sleep like that sometimes.”
“What? That’s not okay. Why don’t you make us move over?”
Tanner smiled and put his arm over Symon’s shoulders. “It’s not me he has to worry about.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I leaned up on my elbows. This mattress really was comfortable.
Symon leaned into Tanner’s side. “It means that you spread out on the bed and lay there like a rock. You’re impossible to move once you’re sleeping, and you never wake up no matter how much I push you and poke you.”
I frowned at that. “I’m sorry.”
Symon smiled at me. “Don’t be. I love when you sleep in my bed. I just want to get something big enough for all of us.”
I nodded and started to climb off as Tanner kissed Symon’s temple. I took a deep breath, trying to get rid of the little bit of guilt I now had at taking up all the room on the bed. Symon suddenly grabbed my hand and pulled me to standing, then he whispered, “It’s okay, Romeo. No big deal. I needed a new mattress anyway.”
“Sorry.”
“Oh my god, stop. You’re fine. Come on, let’s find that annoying salesman so we can buy this thing.” Symon laced our fingers together, then kissed the back of my hand as he pulled me along.
We found the guy and led him back over to the mattress we wanted, then went to a desk to fill out paperwork, set up a delivery time, and pay for it. The guy kept shooting the three of us weird looks, but he was perfectly polite. He was probably just wondering what our relationship to each other was. Tanner had kissed Symon’s cheek at one point, and just to mess with the guy, I grabbed Symon’s hand and kissed it a few times, then reached behind Sy and ran my hand through Tanner’s hair. Tanner smirked at me, so he knew exactly what I was doing, but I lifted a shoulder at him. The salesman gaped at me for a minute, then went back to talking to Symon. Tanner and I both chuckled a little. Symon was too engrossed in filling out paperwork—who knew there was so much just to buy a damn mattress?—so he didn’t notice what we were doing. Or at least, I didn’t think he had.
When we got into Symon’s car to drive to lunch, Symon said, “You’re such an ass, Jax.”
“What? Why?” I asked with a little laugh in the back seat.
“You were torturing that poor salesman. He was only, like, nineteen, you know.”
I laughed. “I know. I couldn’t help it. He kept staring at me weird.”
Symon sighed. “I’m pretty sure he was looking at you like that because you’re hot.”
I wrinkled my nose. “I don’t think so.”
Symon waved me off, then said to Tanner, “We’re going to be really early. Do you want to grab a table and just wait to order until your b
rother gets there, or is there somewhere else you guys want to go?”
“I’m fine with waiting at the restaurant.”
“Me too.”
“Okay, restaurant it is.” Symon drove the couple-minute drive to the restaurant, and when we went inside, they seated us right away. We got our drink orders put in, but told the waitress that we were going to wait until everyone was here to order food. We were sitting at a square table, so my guys were on either side of me with the open chair straight across from my seat.
Tanner said to me, “You don’t have to be nervous, Jax.”
“Why would you think I’m nervous?” I asked innocently. Or I tried to look innocent, anyway.
Tanner rolled his eyes. “You’ve been chewing on the inside of your cheek all day and you’ve been distracted. It doesn’t take a genius to know that you’re nervous.”
I sighed and ran a hand through my hair. “Okay, fine, you got me. I’m nervous.”
“Wiley isn’t going to be an ass, I promise.”
“Did you tell him about us yet?”
“I talked to him yesterday. He thinks it’s weird, but he said as long as I’m happy, he doesn’t care what I do.”
“Good.” I nodded, then grabbed a roll from the basket in the center of the table.
Symon looked at me with a soft smile, and I knew he was offering his silent support. I smiled back and took a deep breath.
We only had to wait about ten minutes for Wiley to get there. He was a little early, so it worked out well. When he rounded the corner, my eyes went wide. Holy shit, he looked so much like his brother now that he was older. It’d been such a long time since I’d seen him, and back then, he’d still been a kid. But he was all man now, and wow, he was like a replica of Tanner. It was a little creepy. Tanner was a little bigger in the muscle department, but Wiley was still hella muscular, and he was definitely bigger than me now. Which was weird. So weird.
When Wiley walked over to our table, he ran a hand through his blond hair—the same shade as Tanner’s—then connected his brown eyes—the same as Tanner’s—to my green ones and smiled at me. “Hey, JJ. It’s been a long time, man. How are you?” He held his hand out to shake.
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