Page 87 of Undeniable Love
“It’s fine,” she murmured. “We’ll just…you know…pause.”
“That’s bullshit!” Lily declared as she poured herself some juice and sat down. “I get that this morning wasn’t the time to fight about it, but you can’t just go home and be okay with this. And that was really shitty of him to drop that on you knowing that he had to leave. Not cool. Definitely not cool.”
“But in his defense, he’s kind of in crisis mode and doing what he thinks he has to do,” Noah suggested. “Here’s the thing, Jax is sort of the glue for all of us—meaning me and Simon. We didn’t have a great relationship with him when we were growing up because he had this relationship with our father that we never had. It was messed up. But once we all got older, he’s just always there when we need him. Even when we don’t realize we need him.” He laughed softly. “And you know what sucks? We never get to do that for him because he never lets anyone know when he truly needs something.”
“Or someone,” Simon added. “It’s like he has this weird sixth sense about when something’s going wrong in our lives and just shows up. He may act like a goofball and sometimes he does things that totally rub people the wrong way…”
“He baits people a lot just to get an honest response from them,” Juliette clarified.
“But ultimately, he’s always there for us and we need to return the favor. So…what do we do?”
But Lucy knew. “He shouldn’t be alone and putting all this pressure on himself when what he needs is someone to be here for him the way he’s always there for everyone else,” she stated. As much as she wanted that person to be her, she was going to have to work on a few things first to make that happen.
They were all quiet for a moment before Noah spoke. “The last thing we want is to step on your toes or steal your thunder, Lucy. So if you’re thinking that this needs to be your thing, we’ll all step back and be the supporting players you want us to be.”
“Yeah,” Simon agreed. “Just tell us how you want to handle this, and we’ll help.”
Lily got up and found the box with yesterday's muffins in it. “If we’re going to plot and plan, we’re going to need more than just juice and coffee.” She placed it on the table before going back and grabbing napkins and plates. “Are those going to be enough or do we need to whip up some omelets or something?”
The thought of food wasn’t particularly appealing, but Lucy knew she needed to eat something. “The muffins are fine, but I think there’s some fruit in the fridge that maybe we can put out too?”
“On it!” Lily called out, and within minutes there were muffins, an assortment of fruit, and a variety of juices on the table as they all began tossing out ideas to help Jax over this hurdle.
Juliette tackled this in her best publicist mode. Everything she suggested seemed well thought out and methodical, but maybe just a little too…cold.
“Not that I don’t love some of those ideas,” Lucy commented. “We’re dealing with someone we all love and care about and I feel like maybe that was kind of…”
“You’re thinking like you’re dealing with a client,” Simon told her gently. “And while you have a brilliant mind, we need to maybe soften things a bit. We want him to feel loved and supported and not quite like a project.”
“Does anyone have an in with the Warriors’ staff?” Lily asked. “Maybe if we knew exactly what the team asked of him, we can work with it. What about his closest friends? Would they know anything?”
“No,” Lucy said, shaking her head. “Remember how they told Jax not to talk to his teammates about this whole situation? We’ve been the only ones with him since he left practice on Saturday, so we’re the only ones who know what’s going on.” Muttering a curse, she reached for a muffin.
And that’s when she knew where they genuinely needed to start, because ultimately, she finally knew how she wanted this all to go.
“Okay, what does everyone’s work schedule look like for the next week to ten days? The Warriors have a home game followed by one up in New York. We need to look at the calendar from now until when he gets home from that trip.”
“What are you thinking?” Noah asked.
Grinning, she said, “This is what we’re going to do…”
It was dark out when Jax got home that night and when he pulled up to his house, he hated the thought of going inside alone.
All day Declan and Travis had been talking his damn ear off because apparently word traveled around about the extortion plan and his reprimand by pretty much everyone in the Warriors’ organization. They had offered to take him to dinner or to get a pizza and come over to hang out with him, but he’d turned them down.
Misery did not love company in this instance.
Even though he’d be coming home to an empty house regardless of what happened this weekend, he was feeling haunted by how he ended things with Lucy this morning. All day he did his best to push those thoughts aside because he had to, but now that he was home with nothing else to do but sit around and think, he knew it would play in a constant loop in his head.
The garage door opened, and he pulled inside before dragging his tired ass into the house.
“Hey! You’re home!”
“What the…?” Sitting on the sofa in his living room was Simon. Tossing his duffel bag aside, he looked around in confusion. “Um…what’s going on? I thought you and Jules were flying out this morning.”
“That was the plan, but she got a call from her grandmother—her Nana, I think—that her grandfather had fallen and so she decided to fly up to New York to be with her.” Standing, he stretched. “I didn’t want to go home alone, so I figured I’d hang out with you for a few days. Won’t that be fun?”
His brother was the most annoying ray of sunshine and the most upbeat person on the planet.