“But you trust Alex and Gwynn, right?” Jayne twisted the doorknob to see if it would budge. It didn’t. Assured that the lock would hold, Jayne took Parker to the counter by the sink. “Alex and Gwynn aren’t bad people, and they trust Everett enough to let him take TD’s kids for him. If TD, Alex, and Gwynn all trust him, then why shouldn’t we?”
Shep’s brow flattened and his eyes lost their shine. He wrested open the diaper bag and took out the towel Jayne had stowed inside, then laid it over the cold counter. “So you’re gonna base whether a person is trustworthy or not off the opinion of your internet friends?”
Irritation prickled the hairs on the back of Jayne’s neck. He set Parker down and started to undo the buttons of his onesie. It wasn’t wrong for Shep to be suspicious, but attacking Everett, who’d been nothing but kind to them, was taking it too far. “That’s a gross oversimplification and you know it. The Single Dads are Harlow’s friends.”
“Harlow’sinternetfriends,” Shep shot back. “Internet friends he’d met, what, once in his life, according to what he told us?”
Irritation bled into anger. Jayne clenched his jaw, holding Parker in place with one hand while he freed him of his onesie with the other. “You really want to go there? How many times did you meet Evie in real life before you decided that she wasn’t some random person on the internet who was out to hurt you? How long was it before you gave her our address, helped her run away, and then brought her into our home?”
“That’s different!” Shep raised his voice. “We video chatted! Her account wasverified.It’s not like you can say that about your friends. Yeah, I mean, Harlow might be friendly with them or whatever, but it’s not like you really know who they are! Why do you think I insisted that I go over to Gwynn’s house last night? It’s not because I wanted to. We can’t trustanyone,Jayne. Anyone who isn’t a Biernacki isn’t safe.”
Was that the game he wanted to play? Anger roiled behind Jayne’s eyes, its turbidity so intense he wasn’t sure he could hold it back. It stirred up old, bitter emotions that Jayne thought he’d tamped down long ago, and he had no choice but to let them go. “I’m not really a Biernacki. Does that mean you can’t trust me?”
Shep clenched his fists. “Stop that. You are.”
“I’m not.”
“Well… whatever.” Shep shook his head. “You know what I mean.”
“No.” Jayne exhaled heavily through his nose. “I don’t.”
God, where had these feelings come from? The last time Jayne had struggled with thoughts like those, he’d been a teenager—not much younger than Shep was now. By law, he was a Biernacki. By heart he was one, too. But by blood?
Blood doesn’t matter,the memory of his stepfather’s voice reminded him.The love in your heart does.
The thought offered little comfort now that Jayne’s heart was shut down for business. He adored his brothers and his son, and he would do anything for them, but love didn’t work the same way it had when he was a teen. It wasn’t the magical, mystical force it had once been, and it would never be again.
The weaponized butterflies were a fluke—a biological impulse meant to get Jayne to breed. That wasn’t love. At best, it was lust.
Blood may not have mattered, but if it came down to a matter of heart, Jayne wasn’t sure he could trust anyone at all.
“Family,” Shep stressed. “Jayne, I meanfamily.You’re legally a Biernacki, anyway. If you try to tell me you aren’t, I’m going to take Parker’s dirty diaper and use it to thwack you in the face.”
Jayne lifted an eyebrow. “That’s biological warfare, you know. You could go to jail for that.”
“Yeah, well, at least it’s not familial warfare.” Shep shook his head. “Don’t try to pull shit like that, okay? You’re my brother, you’re family, and whether you like it or not, you’re a Biernacki. We’re in this together.”
The conversation had veered wildly off track, but maybe it was for the better. Jayne blinked a few tears from his eyes, then reached into the diaper bag to find the wipes. Shep might have been wrong about the Single Dads, but he had every right to be wary of them. After all their family had been through, he wasn’t wrong to distrust outsiders. He didn’t know what had happened last night—that Everett had saved him. To Shep, he was just some guy who’d asked Jayne out for breakfast.
If Jayne had been in his shoes, he wouldn’t have trusted someone like that, either.
“Remember how I said I didn’t want to talk about last night?” Jayne asked. He stripped Parker of his dirty diaper and let Shep hold Parker while he balled the diaper.
“Yeah.”
“Well, you were right. It was Bastian.”
“I fucking knew that he was going to come back!” Shep looked as angry as a teenager could while keeping a baby secure on a changing station. “Harlow did the best that he could, but you can’t fix crazy.”
“You can’t,” Jayne agreed.
“I told you that you shouldn’t have gone out.” Shep shook his head. “Are you okay? Did he hurt you, and is that why you were late getting to Gwynn’s this morning? What happened?”
Jayne frowned. “I don’t know.” Shep handed him a plastic bag, which Jayne used to stow the diaper, but didn’t tie off just yet. He set it aside. “I woke up this morning and all I could remember about last night was that I’d ordered a drink. That was it. The drink went from the bartender to me—I didn’t put it down once. Then, nothing. I woke up this morning somewhere I didn’t recognize in a nice bed with clean sheets. I’d been cleaned up a little, and my clothes were laundered. My phone was charging on the bedside table. When I tried to get up, my legs wouldn’t work.”
“Bastian date-raped you?” Shep gawked. “Jayne!”
“No, he didn’t.” Jayne wiped Parker clean. “He tried to. He drugged me, at least, but the rape part never happened. I don’t know what happened last night, but I do know that I was never touched. When I made my way out of the bedroom, Everett and his friend were there. They offered to make me breakfast and drive me wherever I needed to go. I told them to fuck off, of course.” Jayne noticed the agitation building on Shep’s face. “I trust the Single Dads with Parker, but I wasn’t about to tell two strangers that I was on my way to pick up my six-month-old son, even if they did save me.”
