“I fucked up. With Jax and Blue. And I don’t know how to fix it.”
“Jax and Blue are both reasonable people. I’m sure if you talked to them, you could sort it out.”
Fucking Lukas with his logic.
“What if talking was what got me in trouble in the first place?”
“Then you talk more.”
Even though he couldn’t see me, I scrunched my face. “You’re really shit at this, you know.”
“Hey, I never said I’d be able to give you good advice. But if words made a mess, then it stands to reason that you need different ones to make it right.”
“Ugh. And here I was hoping that I could wave my magic penis and make my problems disappear.”
Lukas barked out a laugh. “That only works in porn.”
“Goddammit,” I said, surprised to find myself smiling. Whether it had been the clearing out of the closet or knowing that Lukas and I were still solid, or a combination of both, I felt good. Almost hopeful.
But now I had to figure out what to say to Jax and Blue to repair the damage that I caused and pray that they’d be able to forgive me.
TWENTY-FIVE
JAX
Boys are confusing.The thought plagued me all week as I tried to navigate my feelings for Blue and Asher. They were both important to me. But Blue and I hadn’t seen each other since the last time we were together, and neither one of us had seen Asher since everything fell apart.
It was easy for me to end up caring for both of them. Asher was young and sometimes that made him act in ways I wouldn’t, or say things I wouldn’t, but he was honest. He adored Lukas with a single-minded kind of affection, even if he didn’t understand exactly what it was he was feeling. He had the courage to feel it anyway. To live and breathe it. And, yeah, it caused a bit of a mess between the three of us, especially him and Blue, but I couldn’t find it in myself to hold that against him.
And Blue. He was harder to get to know. The kind of guy who kept a lot of shit close to his chest, but he was such a presence in every room that it never felt like he was hiding. He carriedhimself with the confidence of a person who knew they’d walk away from anything that didn’t serve them.
As for me, well, I was just an idiot, torn between two guys, wondering if I was greedy for wanting to have my cake and eat it too.
“Uh-oh,” Dad sing-songed. “Someone’s got his thinking face on. Careful, or it might get stuck like that.”
I rolled my eyes. “I’ll have you know that a lot of people pay good money to see this face.”
Dad snorted a laugh. “It’s not your face they’re paying to see, kid. I hate to break it to you. But, seriously, what’s with the face?” Dad got to his feet and opened the cupboard above the fridge. Pulling out a bottle of whiskey, he cracked it open and brought it to the table. He poured a generous amount in his coffee, and a slightly less generous amount in mine.
Instead of answering, I took a sip of my coffee and the bite of the whiskey ripped through me, making me shudder. Dad remained unaffected, of course. Growing up, spiking his Sunday coffee was the one vice Dad allowed himself to have. When I got older, he let me join in on the tradition.
“There’s this guy.”
Dad smiled into his coffee. “It’s always a guy.”
“Well, actually, there’s two of them.”
Dad’s eyebrows whipped up, but he shrugged, taking it in stride.
Nothing I did had shocked him in a long time. And even when it had, he’d never made me feel bad about the things I wanted.
“Do they know there’s two of them?” Dad asked, a cross between curious and hopeful that he wouldn’t have to lecture me if I was playing with people’s emotions. Dad could put up with a lot, but dishonesty wasn’t something he tolerated.
“Of course they do. They were both there. Both times.” While I never went into detail about the things I did, Dad and I talked about almost everything. He’d always known about my career. It had been the subject of another Sunday coffee confession and while it had been excruciatingly uncomfortable, Dad had accepted it.
“You’ll have to walk me through the problem.” He added another splash of whiskey to both our cups and gave me a wink. “Some conversations need more lubrication. So to speak.”
“Not sure I like the word lubrication coming out of your mouth, but cheers.” Our mugs clunked together, and I took another sip, the whiskey burning a little warmer this time.
