by Cassie James
I whimper when he drags himself away again all too soon. “Don’t worry,” he says, his breath caressing my cheek, “We’ve still got plenty of time for me to help you christen this place properly.” He puts a suspicious slant on the last word, and when I realize why, my cheeks heat instantly. He knows about last night with Smith. That’s the only explanation. He laughs at my embarrassment, running his free hand across the red of my cheek. “You didn’t think to close the outside door last night. We got quite the listening experience.” He pauses for a second before adding, “You might want to check on your boy later, though. I don’t think he was really ready for the reality of all that.”
“Shit,” I groan, running my hand over my face as my blush grows hotter. Jake’s barely gotten used to being part of a group in the first place, and now I’ve probably run him off thinking I’m going to always be flaunting my sex life with the other guys in front of him or something. That was so fucking stupid of me. How could I have forgotten to close the damn door?
Jax loosens his grip on my hair to stroke his fingers through it instead of grabbing me by it, his fingers slowly working out the tangles that built up in my sleep. “He’ll be okay, Juliet. You just need to reassure him.”
I study him carefully as an amusing thought hits me. “Did you ever think you’d be the one reassuring me about another guy?” I still vividly remember him being a total ass to Patrick when he knew Patrick was interested in me before I did.
“Definitely not.” He lets out a low laugh. “I told every guy at Patience that I was going to have you first and I’d kick anyone’s ass for looking at you twice.” He winces, not so thrilled to tack on, “My intentions weren’t great.”
My response is a snort so loud that I slap both my hands over my mouth in horror that the sound came out of me. But damn is it the understatement of the year for him to say his intentions weren’t great. I know what he thought. He’d fuck me and discard of me in some way cruel enough to run me off before I ever got the chance to settle in. “I guess it’s a good thing no one listened to you.”
Now it’s his turn to snort. “Oh, plenty of people listened. Unfortunately, there were three too many assholes that didn’t.” He winks playfully, letting me know there’s not actually any hard feelings about that now.
It’s funny, really, how the jealousy in my relationships has only come out when one of the guys didn’t feel their own position was secure. Even Jax, who doesn’t even remotely seem like the kind of guy that would ever be into sharing a girlfriend, seems completely keen to go with the flow as long as he doesn’t feel like the odd man out. Patrick has been the same way. Ever since we got past the initial weirdness, he’s become one of the most solid guys I’ve got. He welcomed Jake with open arms—which was completely unexpected all on its own. The two of them couldn’t be more different.
“Shit, Jax. The folder! Stop being such a distraction.”
“Me?” He looks offended by the accusation. “You’re the one who’s definitely not wearing a bra under that sweatshirt.” My head drops down to check, but there’s no obvious sign that I’m braless. I’m not so gifted up top that I can’t get away with going without a bra every once in a while, but when I glance back up Jax is still staring at me with that knowing smirk. Somehow he knows. “Talk about a distraction,” he murmurs as he lowers his hand and starts to push Smith’s sweatshirt up my midsection.
I slap his hand away. “Folder. You. Remember?”
He groans, but he does pull his hands away, lacing them behind his head like it’s the only way he can stop himself from touching me. “Lead the way, Princess.”
We walk together out to the cottage, but a problem presents itself once we’re inside. The only system we found yesterday was the one I’d proposed based on severity of what the person had done. But we don’t actually definitively know how Hollis would rank anything, and we also don’t know what else might be in Governor Woods’ folder.
“Fuck this. He’s got to be with the worst of the worst. Let’s not waste time pretending otherwise.” Jax strides to the stack of folders next to the fridge, and sure enough he goes right to Ed Woods’ file. The thickest one in the stack.
We don’t really have time to go through everything piece by piece. The other guys could wake up any minute. I hold my hand out. “Give me half the stack. We’ll look just for anything involving you, okay? That way we can get through everything before anyone realizes we’re out here and comes barging in.” He hesitates, and it’s nearly enough to break my heart. His dad’s done a real number on him. But I am not Ed Woods, and I’m not going to be the one to pay for his sins. I wiggle my fingers. “Jax, I just want to help protect you from this. Let me help.”
He moves so slowly I barely resist snatching half of his stack myself, but he finally manages to separate Ed’s folder into half and hands me the back half. I’m sure he’s realized by now the juiciest stuff always seems to be in the front. I don’t say anything as we stand side-by-side at the kitchen counter, working silently through our respective piles in search of anything that could link back to Jax’s paternity.
We finish about the same time, both of us looking over at each other with disappointed expressions. It doesn’t make sense that Hollis would keep so much shit on people but just so happen to miss this one thing.
“Dammit!” Jax shouts so loudly that I flinch. He slams his fist against the counter, cursing again as he sucks in a pained breath.
The only thing I can think to do is wrap my arms around him. He’s kept this secret so carefully, and now he has to worry that it’s all going to come out in front of the guys. If it’s not in Ed’s folder, it’s still got to be here somewhere else. Hollis didn’t overlook anything—not anything that major, at least—I just know it. I can’t help but feel like this whole thing is kind of my fault. Maybe I shouldn’t have brought the guys here. Maybe this was something I was better off doing on my own, despite Pearl’s suggestions to bring the guys to the beach house. I just didn’t picture Hollis as a cruel man from any of the stories I’ve heard, but what he’s done here seems decidedly cruel now. He put people’s futures at stake. Jax’s future. And it isn’t fair, because Ed’s secret is really Jax’s secret, even though it’s really Ed’s fault. Which is a whole confusing thing all on its own.
A thought strikes me. I release Jax and spin to rush into the other room. “Where are you going?” he calls after me, but I don’t bother answering since he follows me a few seconds later. I can feel him staring at me as I start knocking around the folders by the table in the entryway right by the door. “I hardly think Ed Woods would earn a spot right by the door. The guy’s an asshole, sweetheart. I’m sure he’s got more skeletons than the rest of that stack combined.”
But it’s not Ed Woods I’m looking for. “Ah-ha!” I shout triumphantly. I hold the relatively thin folder up in the air, knowing even before I open it that I’ve got to be right.
Jax snatches it out of my hand. “Me?” He reads his own name written across the label. He narrows his eyes at me. “You’re suspiciously good at this whole thing. It makes sense, I guess. This whole weird, stalker thing is obviously in your blood.” I don’t know whether to take that as a compliment or an insult, so I don’t respond either way.
Instead, I nudge him. “Open it.”
He flips it open and finds exactly what I knew he would. A DNA test right on top, with several other papers linking his mother’s infidelity and his so-called-father’s choice not to pardon his biological father.
“What a fucking asshole, keeping all of this shit. This could have ruined me.” Jax grasps the pages so tightly in his hands that the paper crinkles, the sound echoing around us. It would be so easy to agree with him, but finding his paperwork here like this, it tells me something completely different from what he’s thinking.
“Jax. I think he was protecting you. He scoffs as he shoots me a skeptical look. “No, seriously. Think about it. If someone were to have gotten in here over the years, Ed Wo
ods would have been a big find—but no one would have been looking for a file on a teenager.”
Jax seems to consider my words. “He put my file in the stack right next to the door,” he argues. But I’d already considered that, too.
“Look.” I leave his side to open the cottage’s front door. He watches me, clearly not seeing where this is going just yet. But he will. I step out, pulling the door closed behind me, but then I open it right back up and step through. “What do you notice?” I ask.
“Uh…?” He looks right at me, instead of around me, which I point out. His eyes narrow as he tries to take a closer look. It finally seems to dawn on him as he slowly nods, seeing what I was trying to point out. “The table is hidden behind the door when you first come in.”
I nod along with him. “Which means anyone coming in here at first would do exactly what we did and look to the coffee table first. They would only find your folder if they were really committed to going through everything, in which case, everyone would be screwed anyway.”
“You’re right,” Jax admits in disbelief. “Hollis Lexington protected me. As much as I guess he was going to protect anyone”
“Don’t sound so surprised. Pearl had lots of stories about the two of us together as babies. I’m sure he carried a soft spot for you because of that even after I was gone.” For a long moment, we just stand there looking at each other. I don’t know what Jax is thinking, but I can’t help thinking of all that time we missed out on—and how it all worked out for the best for me. Despite many, many traumatizing years with the Browns. But hell, who hasn’t lived through a bit of childhood trauma?
Now, with this one crisis averted, we both go back to the abandoned folder in the kitchen. I stare down at the pages of the governor’s transgressions, wondering just how the hell the guy has managed to keep so much under wraps.
“Juliet? There was something in here I do think you should see.” He hesitates before handing it over to me. “I’ll admit my father is an asshole of epic proportions, but keep in mind he’s still got friends in high places.” I understand the underlying warning as soon as I realize that he’s handing me a personal letter.
I skim over the words of the letter written in a handwriting just similar enough to Jax’s that I don’t have to wonder if it’s for real. The words make my blood boil. It’s not just a letter, it’s a threat. One that Ed addressed to Pearl what looks like only days after Hollis’ death.
I know what Hollis has. Now is the time to destroy everything once and for all, and to let me take my rightful place at the table. Now that Hollis is gone, it would be unfortunate if you had an accident with no one around to help you.
“I can’t believe he had the balls to put all of this into words.” Angry tears drip from the corner of my eyes and I swipe them away with the back of one hand. That man had no right to threaten her, especially not so soon after she’d lost the only family she had at the time. This takes asshole to a whole new fucking level.
Jax sounds pained as he agrees, “It’s bullshit. I guess because back then he wasn’t quite so high up on the political food chain, he probably thought he could bury something like this if it came out. Or hell, he was just so worked up about the whole thing with Hollis that he didn’t care.”
I hand the letter back to Jax, not even wanting to touch it any longer. It’s confirmed several very unfortunate things for me. That Ed Woods is the nastiest man I’ve ever had the displeasure of knowing. That Ed Woods’ last visit to my great aunt Pearl was most definitely not a friendly one. And that Brock Forrester wasn’t the only one that knew Hollis was keeping tabs on everyone.
None of these things are good news for me.
I’ve just turned to Jax to try to talk this through some more when we’re both stopped dead by the unmistakable sound of the front door opening. A voice calls out, “Hello? Jules? Jax?”
Chapter Twelve
Jax manages to ditch his folder behind the refrigerator just seconds before Ace steps into the kitchen. “Hey.” He eyes us both with a healthy dose of suspicion. “We all got worried when we couldn’t find either of you. No one realized you’d be coming back in here so early. We were talking about going for breakfast since all we’ve got here is the junk food from the car.”
Before I can get a word out, Jax is already nodding, but I do the opposite and shake my head. “Actually, do you all think maybe we could have someone go pick something up and bring it back?” I look around us at all the folders we’ve still yet to touch. “I think I’m ready to face what’s in here—before I lose my nerve.”
“Yeah, of course. Uh, Jax is the only one with a car,” Ace points out.
Jax looks like going to pick up food for everyone is the last thing in the world he’d want to do. “We could ask Jake to go,” I suggest. Jax starts to protest, but I stop him with a stern look. “Jake’s the best driver I know. He won’t hurt the car. And he’s the only one that doesn’t really have an invested stake in whatever we find in here. It makes the most sense to send him.”
“Fine,” he mutters.
I put my hands out and patiently wait for him to pass along his keys, which he does with the most pained look I think I’ve ever seen. I thank him with a chaste kiss on the cheek that makes Ace raise his brows. Not that I had a choice, after the lack of control I showed with Jax already this morning, anything more than quick brush on the cheek and I would have been going for round two on over-exposing my sex life to an audience. I’m not quite ready to do that so soon after the first embarrassment.
Leaving the two of them in the cottage, I go back to the main house in search of Jake. When I find him in his guest room looking horribly pensive as he stares out the window overlooking the beach, my heart sinks for a long moment.
He must sense my presence, because he turns before I say a word, his face lighting up when he catches sight of me. “Good morning,” he says, sounding completely calm and collected, in spite of what I’d been expecting.
I cross the room as I return his, “Good morning.” I look for any sign of him being upset, but his face doesn’t give away anything.
“Someone told you, didn’t they?” he asks with a grimace. I stopped what feels like a safe distance away for us to have this awkward conversation.
“Yeah.” I sink my teeth into my bottom lip as I try to think of what to say, but all I end up coming up with is, “I am so, so sorry.” When Jake doesn’t immediately respond, the rambling starts. “I didn’t mean for that to happen. Just because you agreed to date me alongside other guys doesn’t mean I plan to rub that in your face. I would never want to make you uncomfortable, and I really don’t expect—
“J, stop.” He closes the distance between us. “Last night was awkward as fuck. And I’ll admit, for a second I thought maybe I just wasn’t cut out for this. But Patrick pulled me aside when the other guys started to go to bed, and we played some stupid card game for a little while and talked about other stuff.” Jake shakes his head with a laugh that sounds as surprised as I feel. “There’s this weird brotherhood thing going on between your boyfriends—I’m not sure if you realized that. And even though it’s fucking weird, and everyone in Nikon Park would definitely not understand, it sort of works. Better than I actually expected.”
“I’m sorry, I feel like I’m missing something. How’d you go from second-guessing to comfortable again over a game of cards?”
Jake puts an arm around my neck and leans in to kiss me softly. He pulls back just slightly, so that his next words brush against my lips. “It wasn’t really the card game. It was just the reminder that life is still normal. Doing one thing that other people don’t understand didn’t change anything else. I mean, I’d like to not listen again like that, but it didn’t change the way I feel.”
“Are you sure?” I ask, almost too afraid to get my hopes up.
“Juliet, I’ve always been the forever guy. I messed up when I walked away the last time. I told you before, I won’t ever make that mistake again.”
He skims his fingers over the back of my neck. “Last night was a good reminder that sharing you doesn’t mean losing you, it just means gaining a very strange group of new sort-of-brothers.” He pauses for a second. “Is it weird to think of them as brothers? Friends doesn’t seem right, either. Ugh. I’ll keep working on that one.”
My head falls back with a laugh. Leave it to Jake to try—and hilariously fail—to put into words exactly the same sort of thing I’ve been thinking about this whole situation.
“Alright, well in the spirit of, uh, brotherhood or whatever. Do you think maybe you could pick up breakfast so the rest of us could start sifting through the cottage?” I offer up a cheesy smile with both rows of my teeth showing. He shakes his head at me as his lips break into a grin of their own.
“Of course.” He pockets the keys and sits down on the edge to put his shoes on. It’s there he pauses. “I’m not going to become the team gopher now just because I’m the outsider, am I?”
“Probably not,” I answer with a teasing grin. I don’t dare tell him that he could probably convince Ace to run errands in his place anyway just because Ace is so damn nice. I’m sure he’ll figure that out on his own time. Not that it will matter. Jake’s a nice guy, too, so he’d probably never dare take advantage of how nice Ace is.
I help Jake figure out breakfast orders before he leaves on a mission to a cute breakfast place a few streets over. When he’s gone, I go back to the cottage to find that Smith and Patrick have both joined Ace and Jax in there. They all look to me as I enter, waiting I’m sure to see if I’m actually ready for this today.
