CHAPTER ELEVEN
AUBREY
JAX DISAPPEARED into the crowd for the rest of the night, and I was more bothered by that than relieved.
The times in battle where one side retreats without surrendering, there’s a sort of confusion and waiting period. I didn’t know if Jax had retreated to regroup his army or had given up.
Both of the thoughts terrified me.
When the dinner party began to disperse, I figured I could bail on everyone. I wanted time to myself, alone with my thoughts.
Katie tried to give me the space I wanted but Vick glared from her to Rome to Jay like she would eviscerate them one by one if they didn’t follow me home.
So, we headed to my apartment together. When they all had settled in the living room watching some house remodeling show, Vick turned her eyes on me. “Can we please decompress by talking about Jay’s family?”
Jay groaned, and I turned toward the oven where I’d been spending my time making brownies. I’ll admit it was a diversion tactic. I didn’t want to decompress and talk about them. I wanted to forget.
“Please, can we not?” Katie grumbled from the floor where she sat.
Rome’s eyes met mine from the rocker he sat on. He took the seat every time like he owned it, spread his legs out, leaned back, and rested his tattooed arms over the armrests. From the corner of the room, he saw everything that went on like he watched over it, like a lion overlooking his kingdom. “You okay over there, baby girl?”
“Just fine,” I singsonged as I took the brownies out of the oven and started to cut them into squares. “I’m really proud of Jay graduating. I’m happy we all got to spend it together.”
And I’m happy it was over.
Jay got up to grab one of the brownies.
“All right. Remind me to never buy dessert again,” Jay said as he popped a whole brownie square in his mouth.
I glared at him and he smiled wide with brownie all in his teeth.
Rome moved in and shouldered Jay out of the way as he took his own brownie square. “Why aren’t you baking for the men in your life every night?”
I smiled. “You men don’t give me enough motivation to bake every night.”
Rome cut me off. “I think I gave you something last night when I—”
“Rome!” I yelled.
Vick yelled, “I knew it!” at the same time.
My eyes snapped to Jay. He didn’t know, we’d all kept it from him. He looked around. “What’s going on?”
We all looked anywhere but at him. I started to shove a brownie in my mouth. It wasn’t that we wanted to hide things from him, it was just that he was the light of our group. His easy going way helped us all to unwind and relax. We couldn’t have him uneasy.
“Seriously.” He leaned back on his heels and crossed his arms. His muscles bunched under his T-shirt and his jaw ticked. “You guys are hiding something, and I don’t want to be shielded like a damn child ...”
“Well to be fair,”—Katie started—“you are the baby in your family. You do act like—”
“Don’t start your psycho-babble from a class you slept through, Katie.” He didn’t even crack a smile when he said it.
“Oh, fuck off. I got an A in that class,” she mumbled from the floor as I grabbed my glass to take a long swig of the red wine. I figured I was about to need it.
“Rome and Brey are sleeping together,” Vick blurted out loud enough for the damn neighbors to hear.
“What?” Jay whispered so quietly the neighbors probably thought no one responded to Vick’s outburst.
“Oh God.” I rushed to clear the counter and busy my hands.