“I need you to boot up your computer, so I can get to the website,” I instruct.
As he goes through the boot up ritual for his computer, I get close enough to the revolver to see that it is indeed a six-shooter. I am trying very hard to keep my breathing pattern normal so that I don’t let him know how stressed I am, but it’s difficult to act like nothing is out of the ordinary when things can go so desperately wrong.
After he opens the Internet browser, I make a move to sit down at the keyboard to type and he scowls up at me as he announces, “Nobody touches this computer except me. Nobody!”
Trying not to allow the fear in my voice to seep through, I carefully spell out the Internet address to Ink’d Deep and then show him how to navigate to the wedding album that we added for Rogue and Ivy. I say a strong mental prayer because the girls’ father, Isaac Roguan has been messing around with the site to make it fancier and I hope that it’s actually functional. Never have a few wedding pictures been more important. Fate appears to be on my side because the splash page for the site is a huge panoramic shot of the whole wedding party including me, Jessica and Jessica’s grandfather, Walter. Not only are there pictures of Rogue and Ivy’s wedding on this page but Rosa and Isaac’s as well.
“Wow! I guess you do know him — unless you were just a wedding crasher.”
“Go to the third video down. It’s kinda long because Marcus got a hold of the microphone and you’d have to know him, but he can talk for a while. You’ll have to turn up the volume because the audio is kind of crappy and it’s hard to hear over the background music, but if you listen closely, you can hear Tristan say my name and talk some wedding trash-talk to me — it’s kind of embarrassing, but he does.”
Whatever I said, it must’ve been the right thing because Rowan is now completely absorbed in the hokey reception video. He doesn’t even notice when I step back and remove the gun from the other part of the computer desk. When everybody starts dancing and giving toasts, he turns up the volume some more. I take that opportunity to open the latch on the cylinder of the gun and swing it to the side so that I can see all six openings. He’s right, there’s only one bullet. I carefully turn the gun over and let the bullet fall out into the palm of my hand. I’m trembling so much, I’m certain I am going to drop it any second. Right about the time that I close the cylinder and place the gun back on the computer desk, Rowan laughs loudly at something that Marcus said on the videotape and I about jump out of my skin. “Is your friend always this crazy or was he drunk?” Rowan asks.
“Honestly, I don’t remember but that’s pretty much Marcus on any given day. He is my partner at Ink’d Deep.”
“You sleep with him?” Rowan blurts.
“Eww! No! Do you sleep with your coworkers?” I counter.
“No! In case you haven’t noticed, I work with my family,” he snaps.
“So do I,” I explain. “Marcus started working for my dad when he was just a teenager. We grew up together. He’s like my brother. He’s married to Ivy. Ivy is Rogue’s twin. Rogue is one of my best friends and Tristan’s wife.”
“You mean he’s not just some rich client you tattooed?” he inquires. “I thought you were just posing to show me how rich and powerful you are and how much of a loser I am.”
“Nope. He’s like my family,” I respond.
“That just completely blows my mind. He looks completely different from his gaming avatars.”
“He’s nothing like the world expects him to be. None of us are,” I disclose. “Tristan isn’t the only thing you’re wrong about.”
When the video ends, Rowan starts to click through some other close-up pictures of Tristan and Rogue. I take advantage of his distraction and tuck the bullet into the ankle of my shoe. He catches my strange movement and asks, “What are you doing?”
My heart starts to pound as I say, “These Velcro straps drive me crazy, they never stay tight enough.” I try to roll my shoulder nonchalantly.
He seems to accept my lame explanation as he looks back at the pictures on the computer. Finally, he turns back to me and asks, “What do you mean? What else did I get wrong?”
“You told me that if you just disappeared off the planet that no one would miss you. You’re wrong. I’d miss you.” I argue, laying everything on the line.
Rowan spins away from the computer screen and turns his gaze at me as he demands, “Yeah, so? What difference would that make? You’re my brother’s girlfriend, not mine. I’m not going to make that mistake again. Once was more than enough. I don’t want to deal with his leftovers again.”
I raise my eyebrow dismissively as I comment, “If this Shannon chick was dumb enough to let not one, but two Ailín brothers slip her fingers, that’s on her. I don’t see how that’s your issue.”
Rowan chokes back a laugh as he concedes, “You might have a point.”
I walk over to the little mini fridge and pull out some water and toss him a bottle. “Sorry, I’ve nursed Marcus through a few too many hangovers, this is kind of a habit. You’ll thank me in the morning.”
A look of total confusion causes Rowan’s face as he remarks, “Did you forget the part of this conversation where I’m not planning to be here in the morning?”
I hop up and sit on the desk as if I don’t have a single care in the world, but in reality my heart is in my throat as I continue our conversation, “Yeah, I wanted to talk to you about that.”
“What could you possibly know about what I’m going through?” he growls.
As if an invisible thread ties our hearts together, I get off the desk again and silently walk toward him and squat down beside his chair. I grab his hands, right around the water bottle as I whisper in a broken voice, “More than I ever wanted to.”
I look up into his face from my kneeling position beside his knees as I silently plead for him to listen to me.
“I know that you are not my brother, but you’re somebody’s brother. You’re also somebody’s son, somebody’s best friend, somebody’s next door neighbor, somebody’s work buddy, somebody’s ex-lover, somebody’s former student and someone’s secret crush. If you decide to kill yourself, it might be the end of your problems, but you will forever change the lives of all of those people.”
“You lie. I don’t think that many people would even notice that I’m gone,” Rowan stubbornly argues.
“Rowan, I can tell you that that’s just not true. I used to know somebody who sounded an awful lot like you. He was having a tough time in his life and he thought it would be better not to bother anyone with his problems. He told himself that he was all alone and that no one would care what happened to him one way or another and that he was an adult and too cool to be loved by his family. He got the idea that if he was only strong enough, he would be able to handle everything all by himself — that somehow it was weak to ask for help.” I have to stop and catch my breath and wipe away a tear.
Rowan leans forward in his chair, considering every word as he asks, “What happened to him?”
I suck in a large breath before I continue, still hard to say these words out loud even after all of these years. “He killed himself.”
As much as I try to just tell the story, my emotions bleed through every syllable. It’s no less shocking every time I say those words out loud. I swallow hard and search Rowan’s face for clues to see if he understands.
Rowan just silently mouths the word, “Wow.”
“Yeah, that sort of sums it up,” I reply. “His pain may have ended that day, but I was given a life sentence of it. Everything I knew to be true in my world became a lie.”
“My big brother is no longer always in my corner; I’m not anyone’s sister anymore. My dad isn’t a tough guy who never cries, my mom doesn’t know how to answer the question about how many children she has, and I can no longer say my brother never kept any secrets from me — he managed to keep the very biggest one of all away from me.”
“Oh God, Jade I am so sorry. I’m sure he didn�
��t mean to hurt you,” Rowan apologizes, as his expression grows pale.
“Rowan, that’s exactly what I’m saying — I never got to have this conversation with my brother. I’ll never know what he meant to say to me. I never got to beg him to stop. I never got to tell him how much he meant to me and how much I would miss him every single day of my life. If I hadn’t been so pushy about helping your mom with dinner tomorrow, I might’ve missed a chance to have this conversation with you too and I would be left explain to your parents… and your brothers… and your friends… and neighbors and your coworkers… and the kids down the street and the news media… and perfect strangers who don’t understand why you made the decision that no one who hasn’t been in your shoes can understand.”
I know that my words are blunt and harsh, but now that I’m on a roll, I can’t seem to stop them from tumbling from my mouth. For now, Rowan is just sitting there in stunned silence. So I continue, “Let me tell you, there isn’t any amount of time, or space, or counseling, that makes any of this make any sense. Sure, I can make rational sense of it in my brain, I can understand that my brother was probably depressed and maybe under the influence of alcohol and might have been bullied by his classmates — but in my heart, I don’t know that I’ll ever truly understand why my brother didn’t reach out to me and ask me to help him through what he was going through. For the rest of my life, I will always have two hearts of Jade. The one that was there when Onyx was still alive and the shattered one that remains now.”
Rowan visibly grimaces as he takes a swig of water and waits for me to finish.
“I’ve told you my story and for whatever it’s worth, I beg of you not to do that to the people around you,” I plead, squeezing his hand.
A flash of anger crosses Rowan’s face as he says, “Okay, I get it — you think I’m some selfish son-of-a-bitch—”
“No! I—” I start to protest.
“Do me a favor. Just shut up. I listened to you, it’s your turn to listen to me,” he snarls.
My mouth drops open in shock before I finally compose myself enough to close it.
“Look, you threw some really hard truths in my face. I still have to deal with that. Now, let me throw some back at you. I’m still twisted feckin’ sideways. Just because we had this little talk doesn’t mean that I miraculously feel better. My life is still a monstrous claustrophobic cluster-fuck that I don’t know how I’m going to deal with.”
“Fair enough,” I answer, letting out the breath I’ve been holding. “Want some help with that?”
“Honestly? Not from you,” he answers sardonically, “Right now I can’t decide if I even like you — in fact, I might even hate you a little.”
I stand up and kiss him lightly on the cheek as I announce, “You know what? I can live with that because you’ll be here to live with it too.”
Rowan chuckles wryly as he salutes me. “Touché.”
Abruptly, he reaches over and flips on a lamp. A whole quarter of the den is filled up with light. He raises his voice and announces, “You guys might as well come and join the party, you’ve been out there eavesdropping long enough.”
STRAIGHT UP, HONEST TO GOD’S truth: I’m shaking like a Chihuahua in a snowstorm. I have faced some dicey situations as a street performer, but I have never witnessed something as scary as that. Just for kicks and giggles I’ll throw in the time that I was beat up and the time that I was caught in the middle of a gang war in Miami, and I’ve still never been this flat-out terrified. When I came here with Finn to check out Jade’s little “emergency” phone code, I never dreamed I’d overhear something like that. Now I understand where Jade earned her nickname, “Ice.” From the outside, she looks cool as a cucumber, although, I can tell from the way that her left eye is twitching she probably has a massive migraine. She rarely ever says anything about her headaches; I’ve just learned to interpret the subtle signs.
I can tell from the way that Rowan shakes his head after she teasingly kisses him on the cheek that he has fully changed his mind — at least this time. The immediate crisis is likely over. Although I’m not super excited that there’s still a gun a couple of feet from my girlfriend. As I glance at the gun with trepidation, Finn sees my intent and goes over and starts to secure the weapon. He spins the cylinder and notices that there are no bullets. He yells out at me, “All clear!”
Rowan looks shocked as he demands, “Where’d my bullet go?”
Jade shrugs and replies, “I secured it for your safety.”
Finn, Rowan and I simultaneously roar, “You did what?”
Jade balances on one foot while she toes a shoe off with the other. She flips her shoe over and hits the bottom. I watch in amazement as a bullet falls into the palm of her hand.
“When in the hell did you do that? I was no more than three feet away from you the whole time!” exclaims my brother.
“That’s true, but you were also making really good friends with Jack Daniels and got a little distracted. I know my way around a few guns, so I have the ability to be a little sneaky.”
“Thank God Jett taught you to be tough. When Tristan was teaching that self-defense class, your dad bragged about you being like Annie Oakley, but I thought he was kidding.”
“You’re even crazier than I am. I could’ve hurt you with that thing. I’m not exactly in my right frame of mind these days,” Rowan confesses in a shaky voice. He looks helplessly at Jade as he asks, “Why would you take that kind of risk?”
“It’s pretty simple. I care about what happens to you. I really do.” Jade sways on her feet.
Rowan is closer and he catches her a half of a beat before I do and he asks, “Are you okay?” His voice is heavy with concern.
Jade nods carefully as she responds, “Yes, I’m fine. I just have a killer headache. If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to our room to lie down.”
I quickly glance over at Rowan as I ask, “You gonna be okay here?”
He nods tightly as he responds, “Yeah, go take care your girl. She doesn’t look so good.”
Finn touches me on the shoulder and instructs, “Go.”
Jade shrugs us both off with a heavy sigh as she explains, “Guys, I have another one of my stupid headaches. I get them all the time. No need for me to call the ‘whamulance’. I’m just going to go to take some Advil or something and crawl in bed with a bag of frozen peas, okay? No need for all this drama. Seriously, you guys need to talk.”
Jade turns around and heads toward the door. I’m tempted to follow her, but I know that she would rather I spend the time with Rowan. As difficult as it is, I stay put.
As soon as we hear the door slam, Rowan turns to me and comments, “Your girlfriend is bad-ass.”
I look at him with narrowed eyes as I respond, “I hope you mean that in the most respectful sense.”
“Oh, I have nothing but mad respect for Jade now,” Rowan clarifies. “I admit when you first brought her around, I wanted to hate her because of what Shannon did to me.”
“Me too,” interjects Finn.
“Then, I went and made a complete ass of myself and dredged up all that stuff with her brother. She could’ve kept all that stuff private and not bothered to try to help me — but she did, even when I was an asshole. If that wasn’t enough, she put herself at risk to keep me safe by taking away my weapon, in my mind that makes her pretty bad-ass.”
I nod as I respond, “If you could only see the private side of her, you would respect her even more. She hides so much of what she feels. I don’t know what I would do if I was in her shoes.” I look directly at Rowan as I ask, “Did she tell you that she was the one who found her brother after he hung himself in his dorm room? Did she happen to mention that she barely sleeps? Or that in some ways her dad hasn’t forgiven her for not being her brother? Yet, she is the kindest person I know. When I was hurt, she didn’t think twice about taking me in and taking care of me.”
“Yeah, some people are like that. Let me guess? She posted it all
over Facebook about what a wonderful person she was for doing all those great deeds for you,” theorizes Finn sarcastically.
I swing my head around to glare at him. I’m sure there must be a story there somewhere. I wonder what I’ve missed in the time that I’ve been gone. “Sounds like some cynicism there. To answer your question, no she didn’t post a thing. I don’t think she even told anyone we were staying together.”
“Congratulations, you must’ve found the one woman on the planet who doesn’t live her life on social media, that’s like finding a freaking magical unicorn.”
“I’m not gonna argue that she’s not magical. I haven’t been this happy in years and I’m here, aren’t I?”
“I have to admit, I’m surprised to see you here. I never thought I’d see the day. How did she accomplish that?” Finn asks.
“Let’s just say she helped me put some things in perspective and helped me have a little faith in myself,” I answer.
Rowan takes off his cap and runs his fingers through his hair. He throws the baseball cap onto the old couch and takes a swig of water before he mutters, “She is really good at changing your perspective, that’s for sure.”
“Rowan man, I know we’re tough dudes and all and we don’t usually talk about all this stuff but we are the Brothers A. I can’t be the Middle Brother A unless you’re the Little Brother A. We need to take care this so you’re safe.”
“What am I supposed to do? Just call somebody up and say, ‘I need help because I want to hurt myself?’ I’d feel stupid.”
Finn clears his throat and says, “As Big Brother A, I think that’s totally what you need to do, I can help you do that if you want. Why don’t I stay here in the cave with you tonight? We can go talk to Dr. Murphy tomorrow morning. He’s known you since you were a kid, if anybody can figure out what’s going on, it’s probably him.”
“I guess if I have to talk to anybody about this, it might as well be him. He’s a nice guy. Do we have to tell Mom and Dad about this right now? They got enough stuff to deal with.”
Hearts of Jade (A Hidden Hearts Novel Book 3) Page 16
