She slapped her hand over her mouth as the two brothers and Alicia stared at her in shock.
“Holy shit.” Rory spoke first. “My father and Aunt… Holy shit, Jen. I might not be able to have sex again.”
“He won’t. Not for a week at least,” Noah agreed.
Alicia sighed. “Your family is so much more interesting than mine.”
Jen wasn’t going to talk about it ever again. Her mother didn’t deserve to be the subject of gossip. “Don’t joke. My mother only told me so I’d be able to make an informed decision.”
Rory frowned. “Really? That sounds more like a helping of guilt pie to me. I didn’t think Aunt Ellen served that kind of thing.”
“You don’t understand. She feels responsible for Dad and Uncle Sol’s relationship.”
Noah crossed his arms. “I get it. But she’s not. I lived with that man my whole young life. He’s carrying around more baggage than three Brady’s could carry alone. She isn’t the reason he’s an asshole. She might think that—hell, he might think that—but it’s not true.”
“She said he wasn’t always like that.”
“Wasn’t always obsessed with appearance?” Rory asked. “With competition? With putting a good foot forward to represent the Finn name and make people forget his dad was a likable mobster?”
Jen bit her lip. Her mother had mentioned that.
“Do you know your father used to come to our house once a week without fail for years to try and talk to Sol?”
She shook her head.
“He’d wait in the driveway and we’d go out and talk to him. Sometimes he’d throw a ball around or tell us stories about the trouble he and Sol would get into when they were kids. But our father never let him in. Not once in, what, ten years?”
Rory nodded. “Yeah, he’s a stubborn bastard.”
“That doesn’t change anything. Not for me.”
Noah ran a hand through his curls and made a sound of frustration. “I don’t usually do serious, so everyone should mark this day in your calendars. Trick and Declan aren’t Sol and Shawn. They grew up in a different time, they had different issues and, to be honest, they never would have been able to share her forever. Not if my father was part of the equation.
“Trick and Declan aren’t brothers in competition, they’re lovers who both seem to be crazy about you, too. Declan isn’t worried about the Kelley name and frankly, he’s financially comfortable enough not to have to give a shit about anything. And Trick comes by that personality trait naturally.”
He gripped her chin gently. “Most importantly, you’re not Ellen Finn. You are Jennifer Finn and you’re my favorite cousin because you never follow the herd. You don’t need anyone else to prove how spectacular you are, but you deserve to enjoy happiness if you find it. However you find it. So let’s get you to Tasha’s so you can pay whatever penance you feel you need to pay, but think about what I’m saying. You decide what kind future you want to have, because you’re the one who’ll have to live in it. Alone or not.”
“What he said,” Rory agreed. “If Sol taught us anything, it was how not to have as many regrets as he does. It turns you sour.”
She wanted them to be right. She wanted to have a choice. When she gave Alicia her key and let Rory drive her to Tasha’s house, she closed her eyes and let herself imagine the future she wanted. She managed to stop crying before they carried the first box inside.
Chapter Eleven
One week later…
Jen rolled her eyes as she walked back to the guest bedroom from the shower and heard the noises coming from her brother and sister-in-law’s room. She hoped Stephen was being careful, but ever since the doctor said Tasha was doing well and sex—particularly oral—could actually be a positive thing on occasion? There was no stopping her.
She wouldn’t be surprised if Tasha had paid that doctor in tarts to get that particular prescription.
Her heart twisted, just a little, and she told herself it didn’t hurt as much as it had yesterday or the day before. As long as she kept herself busy and focused, it would eventually get better.
It had been five days since she’d written the letter. After a few sleepless nights spent thinking about what Rory and Noah had said, Jen had finally let Tasha bring up the subject she’d been avoiding. They didn’t talk about Ellen, but Tasha had shared what she went through after she left Stephen when she was trying to protect him from a scandal. How she’d rationalized it, and how wrong she’d been. Then she’d gotten her BDSM teaching face on and told Jen about all the poly relationships she’d seen in her years at the club that were successful and why they worked.
“It’s about the people in them, Jen,” she’d stressed. “Do they bring out the best or worst in each other? Do they enjoy sharing or is everything a competition? Are they together because it’s forbidden and sexy, or because they’re in love and they can’t imagine living another way?”