I close the door and simmer in the news a minute before pulling out my phone and dialing.
“Hi, this is Drew’s phone. Leave a message. Thank you.”
Huffing, I wait for the fucking beep I’ve grown to despise. “Drew. It’s Jake. I’m coming back to Atlanta in about three weeks. Wait for me.” I hang up and dial another number.
“Hey Jake.”
“Jaxson, you bastard, what did you do!”
He chuckles and asks, “Has the plan gone forward then?”
“Yes, it’s gone fucking forward. What the hell?!”
Jaxson’s deep base lowers. “It’s all Dad, Jake.” He pauses. “I think Dad wants to reach out to Jett, but he doesn’t know how. This gave him an opportunity, in a weird way.”
“Really weird. But he may have just…you know.”
“Saved someone’s life. I know.”
“Yeah,” I mutter, staring at where my older brother just told me this incredible news.
“And Jett’s the one saving it. Maybe Dad can respect him after this. Maybe there’s hope.”
“Maybe.” I turn the deadbolt and head for my bedroom. “Anyway, I guess I have to say thanks.”
“What took you so long?”
“Fuck off.”
We hang up and I look around at the one shitty dresser, mattress, and two open suitcases I’ve been living out of since I got here. I start to unpack, muttering to myself, “Might as well, now that I know it won’t be forever.”
DREW
I ’ve listened to Jake’s message about twenty-three times when, as I’m walking up to our apartment, I finally delete it. Then I press ‘undelete,’ and listen once more, standing by the spiral staircase I’ve never climbed since I moved in on the first floor.
There his voice is again. Deep and sexy. And determined.
“I’m coming back to Atlanta in about three weeks. Wait for me.”
“Oh God,” I whisper as the line goes dead. Every time I listen to those amazing three words I remember the night he proclaimed he was going to make me his if he still felt the same way about me.
But it hasn’t been that long.
Of course he feels the same way.
And a man always wants what he can’t have.
I delete the message and hit ‘Clear all,’ banishing it to wherever deleted, heart-breaking messages go. Is there a room somewhere where people listen to them, saying things like, “Oh, how sad?”
I guess I have to find a new home soon. I can’t live with a guy who did what he did, and now won’t leave me alone. Is this how he says he’s sorry? Pretending like he didn’t fuck Bernie all night long while I slept past the start of my workday?
Why is life so damned hard?
I unlock the door and scream.
“Drew! It’s just me!” Jason shouts with his hands reaching to soothe me.
“Jesus H. Crimminy, Jason! What the hell!” I grab my heart and gasp my breath. “You scared the daylights outta me!”
“I’m sorry. I have a key. I should have left a note on the front or something. Wasn’t thinking.” Then he starts laughing, takes off his baseball hat, rakes a hand through his dark-blonde hair and says, “You should have seen your face. Shit, that was funny.”
“Not funny, Jason. NOT funny,” I mutter as I slip off my flats and lay them on the mat. “You’re wearing your shoes. Would you take them off please?”
“You sound like my brother.”
“I’m just trying to be respectful.”
He throws up his hands, the muscles flexing under sleeves of a loose t-shirt with a picture of Prince on it. “Yes, maam.” As soon as they’re off, he follows me into the kitchen.
I need some water. I’m nervous, now that the initial terror has died down. Jason being here isn’t entirely unexpected. Don asked me one more time a week ago if he could give this nephew my number. Why he wants it is a mystery I don’t care to solve. I’d rather just stay under the radar. I’m still trying to get over his brother.
“So, how’s it been without Jake?” he asks.
“You tell me,” I shrug, pretending not to be curious. “How’s your family handling him being far away for the first time, what with Jett and Jeremy gone?”
Jason jumps up to sit on the counter, socks swinging. “Nice memory, Drew.”
“Well, it’s your family.”
“Uh huh.”
“Stop looking at me like that.”
He smiles wide. “Like what?”
“Like you know things you don’t.” I motion for him to let me into the cupboard he’s blocking. Grabbing two glasses, I pour and hand him one.
As he glugs down half the glass, I head away.
“Okay, see you later.”
He starts laughing.
I whip around. “What?!”
“I didn’t come over here to watch Jake’s T.V. I have three of my own.”
“You have three T.V.s?”
“Yep.”
Sighing, I jut my hip out to lean on the kitchen island. “Okay, then why are you here?”
His face goes surprisingly sober. “I want to talk to you, Drew. It’s not an easy subject. I guess that’s why I haven’t come earlier.” He jumps down and walks toward me. He’s much taller than I remember, and from the look on his face, whatever he’s about to tell me, it isn’t all light and roses. “Let’s go to the living room.”
“Is it that bad?”
“Well…yeah.”
He motions for me to lead the way. I tuck my legs under me on Jake’s couch, and grab the throw blanket I bought so I’d have something of my own out here. I wait for him to rearrange his baseball hat a couple more times as he preps himself. He’s staring at Creative Loafing on the coffee table. “I haven’t got that issue yet.”
“Jason!”
“Sorry. Right.” He faces me. “It’s about Bernie.”
I bristle immediately. “I don’t want to hear this, Jason. I don’t want to hear you apologize for your brother. He’s a big man. He can do it himself.”
Ice-green eyes blink at me. “Why do I have to apologize for Jake?”
“Are you kidding me?!” I start to remove the blanket and leave, but he reaches out and stops me.
“Hold on! Hold on! Let me just say what I came all the way here to say. It’s not polite to not give me the chance, is it?” He cocks his head with a sincerity I can’t ignore.
“Well, that’s not fair.”
“If it’s what I have to do, then I’ll do it. For Jake.”
I’m very confused and extremely reticent, but I was raised right and you don’t turn someone away when they ask for your ear. Not where I come from. You hear them out and THEN you walk away.
“Fine. Go ahead. But I’m not happy about this.”
“I know.” He sighs and does that thing with his hat again. Damn the muscles on these Cocker boys. No wonder they think they can get away with anything and have you still sticking around like some piece of furniture.
I pull my knees up and tuck the blanket more tightly. “I’m waitin’.”
Jason throws the hat across the room and says, “I was in love with her.”
My jaw drops. “With Bernie?” He nods. “You and Bernie?”
“I thought she was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. And I’m in the music business. She was a model. So we both ran in the same fucked-up circles.” His eyes lock on mine. “Drew, she was in love with me, too. At least, I think she was. I’m not really positive on that, because the drugs fuck with her and who knows what the hell she feels anymore.” He shakes his head with memories clogging his mind as he looks away from me.
I am utterly stunned. Jason and Bernie. And Jake slept with his brother’s ex? That’s even worse than what he did to me. Well, kind of. Honor is honor, after all. If you don’t have a moral code to stand by, you fall. And you take down the people who love you.
“Ah Drew, it was a hard time. I got into drugs when I was with Bernie. You don’t understand. I thought
she was everything. I’d never met anyone so damned easy on the eyes, and she’s real good at making a man feel special.” He pauses. “But when I met her she was already using. She brought me into it. The two of us together, it was a fucking disaster. Our bank accounts got sucked dry. Work vanished. Justin told Jake and Jeremy, and they both called Jaxson and before you know it, I was in the middle of a fucking Cocker Brothers intervention.”
Frowning at how painful that must have been for all of them, I whisper, “I’m so sorry, Jason.”
He lays his head in his hands. “It’s okay. I wasn’t addicted to the stuff. Not really. I don’t have that gene. But I was addicted to Bernie. Even when I went cold turkey under their orders, I ignored them when they said to leave her. I stayed with her, followed her around like a bodyguard. I begged her to let me take her to rehab. She wouldn’t go.” He looks at me with real pain in his eyes. I nod to tell him I understand. He inhales and continues, “Things got worse, with all the…guys…” Jason rubs his face with both hands and shakes his head out like a dog after a jump in the lake.
“She has a lot of admirers,” I whisper, remembering all the men who were always at her place. “She’s very beautiful. Even in her addiction.”
He nods and looks at me. There’s something in his expression I can’t read, like he wants to say more, but the story’s too big for just us. “Yeah, a lot of admirers,” he says almost to himself.
“Why are you tellin’ me this, Jason?”
“Because I want you to know that when she knocked on Jake’s door…” He pauses. The idea is just as hideous to him as it is to me. “…it was to get back at me. She hated that I fell out of love with her, that I stopped coming around after months of her refusing to get help. And maybe – God I hate to say this, but I know her, so it’s probably true – maybe she did it to break your feelings for him, so you’d stay with her.”
My brain is spinning. So he’s okay with Jake fucking his ex? He forgives Jake? I guess blood really does run deep.
“I don’t have feelings for Jake,” I whisper, my heart telling me otherwise.
“…Because, Drew, she’s very manipulative. It’s the drugs. It’s not her, but the drugs are her, now.” He rubs his face again. “God, I fucking hate cocaine. I’ll never touch the stuff again.” Jason’s shoulders start shaking and I realize in surprise that he’s crying. I go and put my arms around him. He leans into me and cries, covering his face. “I loved her so much,” he rasps.
“She’s lovable. She really is. I’m sorry, Jason. I’m so, so sorry, but you can’t blame yourself. I know that sounds cliché, but clichés exist because they’re very common truths.” I pet his head and whisper, “Bernie won’t quit until she wants to quit.”
He nods and sniffs, pulling away in a manly, I-can-handle-it gesture. He wipes his face and won’t look me in the eye now. “Yeah. I know. It sucks.”
I sigh, “It does,” handing him a corner of the blanket.
He wipes his cheeks with it. “Don’t tell my brothers about this, okay?”
“Never will. I promise.”
He’s staring forward with his nose all red. We sit silently for a few moments then he rises up and retrieves his hat, smoothing down his dark-blonde hair before putting it on. “I’ve got a busy day in the morning, so…”
“Yeah. Okay.” I get up to walk him out, but he stops me.
“No, stay. I know the way.” A charming smile flashes as he meets my eyes. “My brother likes you.”
“Oh yeah? Well, I hope we can be friends.” Fuck that hurts even to say.
“He likes you more than that, Drew. And P.S., I don’t remember him ever bringing a girl to a family dinner.” Jason bows. “WOMAN. Excuse me. Not a girl.” He spins around with style and I wait for the click of the closing front door before I breathe again.
I don’t move for a very long time. There are so many things swirling around my brain now that he’s told me his side. They were in love, he and Bernie. Or at least he was in love with her. She might have loved him. Who knows what Bernie feels anymore?
Oh Jake…why’d you have to sleep with her? Is she really that hard to resist? I saw you melting when she said thanks for letting her stay over. I saw the look on your face, the one I’ve seen on so many men’s faces when they talk to her.
Why’d you have to break my heart like this?
JAKE
“I told you not to talk to her, Jason.”
His voice is as clear as if he weren’t over a thousand miles away. “Sorry, man. Had to.”
“When was this?”
“Well, you’re coming back tomorrow so it was, what…” He pauses. “I don’t know. More than two weeks back.”
“He fucking talked to Drew behind my back,” I mutter to Jett who’s sitting beside me at Lincoln’s Road House.
Jett calls through a calloused, cupped hand, “You’re an asshole, Jason!”
Jason laughs. “Tell him I said it takes one to know one.”
“I’ll do that,” I smile. “I’d put you on speaker but the music is too loud.”
“I can hear that. The Eagles. Predictable.”
“Jason hates the Eagles, apparently,” I mutter to Jett.
Jett shouts at the phone, “That’s because Jason likes that Hip Hop bullshit.”
On an amused chuckle, Jason tells me, “Fuck I miss that guy. You’re so lucky.”
“I am. We’ve been hanging out a lot. It’s been good.” I look over at Jett who stares ahead with a smile in his eyes. Not one for sentimentality, but he feels the same as I do. I think he needed to reconnect with me as badly as I did with him. “Well, I hate to tell you this Jason, but it didn’t work. She hasn’t responded to my texts.”
Jason pauses in surprise. “What the fuck? Well, that’s weird, man, I don’t understand it.”
“Women,” I mutter in agreement.
We hang up and I lay my phone on the bar. Gwen, the bartender whose ass Jett has been tapping for the last week or so, smiles at him as she walks up. “Another round?”
“Oh yeah,” he smirks.
“Sick fuck.”
“You know it, Gwen.”
She grins over her shoulder and goes for the fridge to grab more beer. He turns toward me, and doesn’t watch. It’s this motion that lets me know he’s not that into her. He didn’t even look at her ass. I doubt they’ll hook up even one more time, knowing my brother.
“Dwight missed a meeting today.”
I stare at him, realizing what that could mean. “You’re shittin’ me.”
“I am not.”
“Did he fall off the wagon?”
“Not yet. But I think we went soft on him. Tonk’s connected with him more than the rest of us, which Scratch saw comin’. But I told Tonk he’s gotta stay tough. It’s not a man we’re fightin’. It’s the disease.” Jett glances over as Gwen pops tops off our bottles and sets the frosty fuckers down. “Thanks, babe.” He hands me mine and we tap them together. “Thank God we don’t have that bite, man.”
“Pure luck.”
“Ain’t that the truth. Because I would hate to stop the days when I enjoyed a cold brew.” He takes a good-sized gulp and sets it down on the counter, hard.
“Hey!” a guy shaped like a bear shouts. “Your name Jett?”
I glance over since the guy is in my eye-line. Jett turns around really slowly to take a look. “Yeah?”
The guy barrels over with fire shooting out of his ears. “You’re messing with my brother.”
“I’m not into men, Grizzly Adams. No matter how hairy.”
The guy reacts. “You callin’ me a—”
“—I’m tellin’ you I’m not interested in whatever it is you’re sellin’.” He motions up and down the hulking frame looming over us. “No matter how ugly.”
The guy reaches back to punch Jett. It’s on. I leap up as two more guys jump off their chairs.
Whether they know this guy or not, I don’t know. Some men just love a fight.
> I’m one.
Jett ducks in time then punches the guy in the stomach.
I use the force of one of the guy’s bodies running toward me to shove him nose-first into the bar counter. He grunts as blood gushes out the crack in his bridge and his nostrils. His buddy punches me in the gut. I recover and elbow him in the chin, sending his teeth chattering and his jaw offline. He’s not gonna give up easily so he tries to grab me but I dip out of reach and punch him in his ribs three times.
Jett’s knocking the bear silly with agile, strong punches the guy can’t get ahead of, not for lack of trying. My brother is a trained boxer, went semi-pro before The Ciphers. As the guy crashes into a table and takes it down, Jett turns to me and sends a front kick to the broken-nose fucker who was coming at my back without my knowledge. The guy makes another loud and painful grunt as the wind vanishes from his lungs. An uppercut later and the guy I’m fighting has to go to the hospital for his jaw. He probably should have quit after I jammed it the first time. Now he’s going to be drinking out of a straw. But maybe he likes smoothies.
I took a couple hits, nothing lasting.
Gwen calls over, “Cops are comin,’ boys!”
Jett shakes his head and walks to the mess he left behind. “I’m guessin’ your brother is Dwight?”
Bloodied and delirious, the bear barely nods.
“We’re helpin’ him, you dumb shit. Stay out of our way and you might still HAVE a brother.” Jett shakes his head in disgust and looks at me. “Let’s go.”
I throw down some cash for Gwen, take a long, quick glug of beer, and stroll out after my older brother. Just like old times.
DREW
I ’ve been stressed out all morning. His plane comes in today, but I don’t know when. Nothing I do can help me concentrate on these proposals. I’ve completed the initial cataloging of what worked and what didn’t work for the company. And now it’s my job to see if I can’t find any nuances I missed that might help them in future negotiations. I’d been doing a great job at it, quite frankly.
Cocky Roomie: A Bad Boy Romance Novel (Cocker Brothers of Atlanta Book 1) Page 13
