Neither of them touch her unless she’s paying attention, but Jaxon gets around that by spreading his legs to the point that their thighs are constantly touching. I hate that she flinches away from me. Dimitri can be pissed; he can stay pissed.
I won’t regret fucking Hope, but the other two points… I can’t fucking undo it. I can’t go back in time and keep Coach from grabbing her. I can’t make myself fire that gun.
“Jax, shut up. Dimitri isn’t pushing me into your space. Stop blaming him. You could have sat upfront,” Hope snorts.
“That’s the problem. He’s not doing that and he should be.” Jax flashes a ridiculous smile.
She rolls her eyes, but I see a hint of smile on her lips. I almost smile too, just happy that she’s happy.
Dimitri slides his hand over Hope’s thighs, pulling her closer against him. “You get her every night. Sharing is caring.”
“Yeah, I care about Hope more than you.”
She shoves them both. “Hey. There’s going to be a ‘hands off’ rule if you two are going to use me in a tug of war!”
“Always the front seat, sweetheart,” I say.
Hope meets my eyes in the rearview. “I do like the front seat.”
“Rude,” Jaxon argues.
“I second that,” Dimitri grumbles.
“Well, he’s not going to be pulling me onto his lap the whole drive!” Hope sits taller. “He’d never distract himself while driving.”
Oh, if she only knew the ways I wanted to distract her.
They tease each other a little softer until Hope gets riled. “No more three in the back seat! Never again, do you hear me?”
When we get out of the car, she narrows her eyes at Jax and Dimitri. “I mean it.”
She steps closer to me, then looks up, a soft smile playing on her lips. “Are we going to see a friend? A shady new therapist?” she guesses. “You three should tell me where we’re going when we’re going places.”
“You’re just along for the ride,” Jaxon teases.
We get to the door and I use the key we were given when we signed the paperwork, provided a bribe, and called Dimitri my boyfriend, to open the door and get to the elevator. The ride up is quiet, and I wonder what she’ll think of the place. When we step out of the elevator, she keeps looking around, still unaware of what we have planned. At the end of the hall, I open the door to the bare bones of our new place. Jaxon lets out a whistle.
She looks around and her brow furrows. “I don’t understand.”
“We’ll be moving in here at the end of the month. We all canceled our leases so…” I motion.
She and Jaxon look at everything. “You want us to truly live together. And what about my place… well…” she inhales a shaky breath, and I can see her mind working this out.
“No fire escape,” I say to Jaxon.
He nods once. “A good deal.” He pats my shoulder.
Dimitri leads Hope to check out both bathrooms and looks at me. “I’ll try to deal with my shit.”
“Just picture me when you’re tackling the other team. Make me pay for shit that way. Become the MVP,” I say with a shrug even though I hate it.
Dimitri hesitates a second, then nods. It’s a step forward, which is something. Something is something to hold onto.
HOPE
I’m not sure how to feel about out new living situation. I don’t even know what I was thinking when I cancelled my lease this morning. Am I really going all in? Living with my monsters… But maybe a clean, fresh start is all I need. The place is big enough. We should get a room divider or something, or maybe build a wall somewhere. We can’t sleep in one room, right?
I kind of want to live on the balcony. I could read there since there’s another balcony above ours to keep the rain off.
