“I’ll get it booked. Why don’t you call Amber, see if she and Noah can come for dinner?”
Jasper wrinkled his nose. “We’re going to cook?”
“No.” He wasn’t feeling generous enough to cook for her after everything, and he certainly didn’t want to deal with the dishes if they were leaving tonight. “Have her bring dinner.”
Jasper nodded, quickly leaning in to press a kiss to Vincent’s cheek before snatching up his phone. By the time Vincent got confirmation they could leave at two, Jasper had convinced Amber and Noah to come for dinner and bring food.
Whatever Amber had to say, Vincent could only hope it started mending things instead of causing more drama.
JASPER DIDN’Twant to be here. Bad enough he was losing part of his alone time with Vincent. Now the one place he could find any sense of peace and quiet was being invaded. Worse, the food wasn’t even good. Amber and the others loved the pizza place they always ordered from, but Jasper was sure its best flavor was nostalgia. Only drunk or over-caffeinated college students stressing over finals could tolerate wet-cardboard pizza crust and old grease.
Vincent had taken two pieces to his office to let them talk, and Jasper was stuck somewhere between relieved and betrayed. He managed two bites before giving up, eyeing Noah as he ate one slice after another like he hadn’t eaten in days. Considering how much weight he’d lost since the last time Jasper saw him, that was likely closer to the truth than Jasper wanted to think about.
Maybe he’d gotten spoiled over the last year, especially the last few months. Ever since he met Vincent, the quality of the food he had access to was an entire galaxy better than what he’d grown up with. But time was ticking, and Amber had only taken a few bites of her first slice, with the air of someone eating their last meal.
“What’s going on?” he finally asked, unable to keep quiet any longer.
Amber dropped her hands to her lap and glanced at Noah instead of answering. “You really won’t go see him?”
Noah didn’t look up from his pizza as his lip curled back in an impressive sneer. “He’s not my father.”
Jasper tensed and watched Noah from the corner of his eye, but Amber grunted softly, as if she’d expected that response. He narrowed his eyes at her. “You don’t seem surprised.”
“Funny,” said Noah, “neither do you.”
“I found out the same time you did.”
“Oh yeah? When was that?”
“When you called from jail,” Jasper admitted softly. He’d nearly taken the money from his father’s wallet regardless in order to bail Noah out, but without a way to get to the jail, he’d been powerless to help. Noah studied him a moment before shrugging and turning back to finishing off the rest of both the large pizzas by himself.
“Did you really only call us both here to beg us to go to the hospital?” Jasper demanded. He shouldn’t have been surprised, but he’d hoped that maybe, just maybe, she’d put what he wanted over what she thought was best. She’d been there earlier. No way could she be asking Jasper to deal with that bullshit again.
“No,” she said softly, taking a breath as she straightened. “I was hoping you’d take a DNA test.”
“To prove what? That we’re half brothers? We already know that.” Jasper sat back in his chair and crossed his arms.
“No. I want all three of us to take one.”
Jasper stared at her as he waited for her to explain, but Noah responded before she did.
“Fuck you.” Noah dropped the half-eaten crust of the last piece of pizza to his plate and sat back. “I don’t care if we’re more than cousins. Bit too late to give a shit about that, don’t you think?”
“I need to know—”
“I don’t.”
“—if he’s really my father!” Amber shouted over Noah.
“What?” She couldn’t have meant that. She was older than both of them, though not much older than Noah. No way were their parents cheating on each other even before he was born.
Noah scoffed. “Like I said, bit too late to care. What are you hoping to get out of knowing now?”
“I just want to know the truth.”
“No,” Jasper said, shoving to his feet with a scraping of chair legs across the floor. “I don’t want to know. You didn’t grow up in that hellhole. Even if he’s your biological father, it doesn’t change anything.”
Noah made a considering noise. “It could change some things.”
