I glared at him and saw the determination in his eyes.
He had been made for the limelight and I hadn’t. My phobia of it frustrated him. I knew that but I couldn’t control it.
I wanted to scream at him for making me confront it so publicly.
Paparazzi screamed at me, "Is he finally committed to just you, Aubrey?”
I held back a snide remark and felt a shake starting to run through my whole body. A few magazines had printed pictures of Jay and me over the years as if our friendship was more. Then, the magazines had gone on to print pictures of Rome splashed with headlines like “Stonewood left for a bartender.” The story was wrong, of course. Rome did bartend at the bars he owned.
“Remind us, how long have you known each other?”
Since two blue-eyed, dark-haired devils tackled me for my candy right after they’d moved in years ago. Of course, Mrs. Stonewood made them apologize, and we became fast friends. Best friends. Inseparable, really.
Now, if I gave them an answer like that, I’d not only sound extremely committed to him, I’d crush every girl’s hopeful dream of ever meaning more to him than I did. So, I held back my answer again.
"How long have you been exclusive? Pictures of you both are everywhere.”
I cringed a little. I avoided being out in public as much as I could for that very reason. The cameras, the speculation, the ongoing story were all too much for me. I wanted my best friend without all the crap that came with him. I didn’t need to read the magazines saying that I was an idiot because Jay was running around on me. Or they would say I was a genius because I had somehow kept him around.
What they didn’t seem to ever want to print was that we were just friends. The Stonewood men, in general, didn’t really settle for any one woman. Jett and Senior Stonewood were married to their work. Jax and Jay were married to their noncommittal lifestyle.
The three Stonewood brothers were born into a life of luxury and easy access to women. Their father owned Stonewood Enterprises, one of the largest investment firms in Chicago, and their mother was a soft-hearted beauty from a little town in Wisconsin who fell for the business shark.
They were raised mostly in Chicago, but when business trumped fatherhood for Senior Stonewood, that soft-hearted beauty turned hard and took her children back to Wisconsin to learn a more modest lifestyle. Their separation was amicable, the press wrote.
I knew better. When a man who has conquered the business world begs for a woman to come back, and every paparazzi that asks him about his divorce gets cut off by him correcting them with the word separation, there’s more to the story. Every time they saw each other, there was love that couldn’t be broken in their eyes.
The girls at our school had love in their eyes for the Stonewood boys too. I didn’t think that love could be broken either until one threw her text book at Jax after catching him in the hall with another girl. He apologized, of course, and somehow that love in her eyes came right back. I witnessed the cycle over and over again. I swore to myself that I would never be that pathetic.
At least not ever again.
"Jaydon, are you and Aubrey finally official? We want all the details."
It jolted me into a sort of panic that they already knew my name. How did they always know?
Jay leaned in as we continued to walk. "So, I guess we’re back to being a couple?”
I just smiled because I’d started to feel like the crowd was closing in on me. Damn them for getting so close and crowding us like we didn’t need oxygen too.
“Relax, Brey. I got you, they are not going to swallow you up. Plus, you need a chauffeur in those six-inch heels. I've seen you fall over before," he smirked as he whispered.
I actually stopped to let out a hard laugh. What a reminder that I didn’t belong in this dress, at this event, in these heels, that I couldn’t handle the spotlight and luxury like him. "Well, thank you, Jay, but I think I can handle walking on my own,” I sneered as I let go of his arm with the intention to walk ahead of him.
Screw him if he thought I couldn’t do this. I’d told him I could, I’d made the decision, and I would own it. Damn him if he thought these heels weren’t worth the fall. Christian Louboutin bled class out of you. My feet were probably literally bleeding too, but I needed all the help I could get.
I heard his chuckle behind me. I turned to tell him off, but his blue eyes twinkled with mischief and pride. “Look at you, doing everything on your own.”
A rush to be bolder and ruder whipped through me. I wanted to knee him in the balls but knew we were on display. Instead, I resigned to mumbling for us to get this over with. Answers to the paparazzi questions were inevitable.
"Jay, give us something. How long is it that you’ve known each other again?"
"Longer than I've known any of you," he said, looking at me with all the love he could muster. I smiled back like I was in love.
"Is marriage in the cards?" Another screamed and thrust the mic at me.
"Oh, Jay and I wouldn't bind each other to an agreement like that," I said, insinuating what all the ladies wanted an answer to.
"What do you mean? Are you still not exclusive? Are you both still on the market?"