“Where’s Jackson?” I murmur.
“See,” Drew says, before coming over to sit on the coffee table right in front of me. “Text him, Deac.”
“Okay, I’m texting,” Deacon says. “But I don’t believe for a second your motives are a hundred percent pure, Drew.”
“Of course they’re not,” Drew says with a shrug. Then he lets out a wistful sigh, staring off at nothing. “Sully’s at the gym right now. Definitely want to be home before he has a chance to shower…”
“Can we get back to the matter at hand, please?” Deacon prompts.
The corner of Drew’s mouth quirks in wry amusement, then his expression shifts to one of concern as he scrutinizes me. I can only imagine how disturbing a sight I must make right now, with the puffy eyes and the snotty jumper and the general aura of patheticness. “What’s going on, Sky?” he prods gently. “Deac said you came over here all upset last night?”
I nod, feeling myself choke up again as I try to explain. “Everything was perfect, and beautiful, and amazing. And now it’s all gone. Everything’s ruined. Came to yell at Deacon for wrecking everything.”
Drew glances up at Deacon in confusion. “I’m obviously missing something.”
Deacon winces and lifts a hand to rub through his dark blond hair. “Um…I sort of suggested he might be in love with Jax…”
Drew surges to his feet, putting his back to me as he rounds on Deacon. “Youtoldhim?”
“Wait—you know?”
“Of course I know, everyone knows,” Drew says with a huff of exasperation. “Well, except the two of them, obviously. And you.”
“What do you meaneveryoneknows?” Deacon demands indignantly. “I only figured it out yesterday. Why didn’t anyone tell me?”
“Because we knew you’d go all Deacon and fly into Cupid mode and something like this would happen,” Drew says, gesturing wildly in my direction.
“Well, obviously I didn’tmeanfor this to happen,” Deacon bites back.
“What did you think would happen? That they’d just skip off into the sunset together?” Drew hisses.
“You never know… You thought you were straight, so maybe—”
“Wakeup, Deacon,” Drew says with obvious exasperation. “Haven’t you realized yet this is a two-way street? If Jax was in any way attracted to men they would have got togetheryearsago.”
“What—how is that even…?”
“You know, you should really pay more attention to your sister when she tells you shit.”
Their conversation is making no sense to me. Something about road signs and Deacon waking up with his sister? I don’t have the energy to figure it all out. I just want Jackson to be here already.
ChapterFourteen
Jackson
I waketo the now far-too-familiar sensation of being smothered by a warm, hairy, wriggly pillow. The fucking cat.
“Get off me!”I say in a muffled growl, turning my head and causing Rocket to meow in displeasure as he’s dislodged from his sleeping place. He bounds from the bed and stalks out of my bedroom, turning his head back once to issue me with a forlorn look.
“Don’t look at me like that, cat—you’re not going to make me feel bad for not wanting to choke on hairballs first thing in the morning.” I let out a sigh, running a hand over my face. I’m talking to a cat as though he can understand me. I’ve clearly gone mad.
My stomach lets out a loud grumble, and when I check the time on my phone, I see why—it’s after ten am. I wouldn’t necessarily call myself an early riser on the weekends, but I don’t usually sleep this late. The smell of breakfast cooking tends to wake me by about nine if I’m not up already.
But I can’t smell any of those delicious pancake and bacon scents this morning, and the apartment seems quiet. Maybe we were low on groceries again and Skyler had to duck out? But he would have texted me to let me know he was leaving the apartment, and there’s nothing on my phone.
Curious, I slide out of bed and tug on a pair of sweats before heading out into the living room, which I’m slightly alarmed to find is completely empty.
I frown as I wander around the apartment, checking Skyler’s bedroom, then the bathroom, then out in the hallway, my concern increasing with every unsuccessful search. I’m sure it’ll turn out to be something really dumb—he decided to hit the gym and forgot his phone, or something like that—but yesterday was kind of strange, and last night even stranger.
