There was no way I was going to tell Remy about his proposition towards me. Remy would be thrown in jail tonight for assault; that I had no doubt of. He wouldn’t allow any man to disrespect me, connection or not.
“What do we do now?” Jaxson asked before taking a large bite of his soup.
“We can go home and be around the people we need to be around, just in case these physical ailments continue to plague us, or we can wait around here and hope Lincoln Hudgens comes around,” Jace said thoughtfully.
I sat there deep in thought for a moment. “We should take a vote,” I finally said. “If we all continue down this path, I think we would all prefer to be around our family and friends. I pleaded my case with Lincoln. The ball is in his court.”
“I want to go home,” Noah stated.
“Me too,” Jaxson agreed.
“The jet is on standby,” Remy added.
“I need to quickly touch base with Leo, but I’ll support whatever Blake feels is right,” Troy informed me as he handed me a summer roll.
“Home sounds good,” Drake admitted.
“Then majority has voted.” I nodded my head. “When can you talk to Leo? Can we get all the preflight ready by tomorrow morning?”
“I’ll call Leo and the crew tonight.” Troy nodded.
My phone started ringing, and Drake leaned over to look at it. “It’s Jemmy.” He sighed.
I groaned. “Has she been trying to call you guys as much as she was calling me?”
“More,” Drake said wryly. “I haven’t been answering her. You know how dramatic she can be.”
I reluctantly answered it. Might as well get it over with. “Yes, Jemmy.” I stuck her on speaker, so I wasn’t the only one to have to suffer through her dramatics.
“Why hasn’t anyone been answering me all day long?!” she cried plaintively.
“We’ve been kind of busy,” I said wryly.
“Too busy for me?!” she whined.
“Jemmy,” I sighed wearily. “Noah, Drake, Jaxson and I aren’t feeling the greatest right now, and I’m struggling with a lot.”
She harrumphed loudly. “I just wanted to let you know that we found out something. Something big!”
I set my food on the nightstand and leaned into Jaxson. He set his own bowl down and embraced me. He kissed the top of my head and placed one of his hands under my shirt. I loved his need to feel my skin. He was rarely content to just hold me when we were cuddling. He always had this thing with finding somewhere where his hands could touch my bare skin. I didn’t think he was even aware of it, and it wasn’t always done sexually.
“What’s that?” I asked knowing she was hoping for a more enthusiastic response.
She let out a loud sound of frustration once more. “Maybe I don’t want to tell you now.”
“Fine, then don’t,” I replied in monotone. Today had been mentally and emotionally exhausting. I didn’t feel like playing her games.
“You’re no fun,” she howled once more. “Fine, I’ll tell you. Cora was going through some old boxes of Steven’s. She ran across some interesting things, like his relationship with a girl when he was fifteen. She got pregnant. Her parents took her away to have the child. Steven signed the birth certificate, but he also signed over his rights. They found a whole bunch of photos of the child. Can you imagine being practically married to a man and he never even bothered telling you that he had a child and was still in contact with the mother? So now Cora and Beth know that’s why Cora couldn’t have any children. Steven already had one out there, so it lowered Cora and Beth’s odds of any future children with Steven. But he never told them any of this. Can you believe that?!”
I looked around the room and saw the guys seemed just as uninterested in her gossip as I was. It was mind-blowing for sure, and I felt terrible that Beth and Cora loved a man that had a secret love child, but at the end of the day, I had more pressing things to worry about. Like the loss of our gifts. This could have waited until we got home. It wasn’t vital for her to blow up our phones all day long.
I made some kind of noncommittal noise, and she saw it as an opportunity to continue her monologue. “The kicker is, his high school fling was Imala Hudgens.” She paused dramatically. “She was one of the girls that were produced in your grandmother’s experiments.”
Maybe I was too tired to think straight, but I knew I was missing something.
“Lincoln Hudgens’ mom. So, Lincoln Hudgens is Imala’s and Steven’s child?” Drake asked into the silence.
I gasped as everything connected. “He referred to his father as a sperm donor today, so I don’t think he knew anything about Steven keeping in touch with Lincoln’s mom.”