by Cassie James
“Juliet!” Salma’s sudden exclamation makes me jump.
I turn to her with a frown. “What?”
“The painting!” She scrambles out of the room without another word. Sadie and I exchange confused looks before following after her to see what the sudden frenzy is about. We catch up to her by the front door as she points excitedly at the painting on the wall. My eyes zero in on the beach scene. It’s the same painting I tried to straighten my first day here, but Pearl snapped at me not to touch the artwork.
I’m operating on pure instinct as I carefully pull the painting off the wall and flip it over. Time slows as the painting settles in my hands, the back of the canvas isn’t the only thing that greets me. Tucked into the side is a photograph with Hollis Lexington at the center.
I stare down at it, fingers going white because of how hard I’m holding the edges of the painting. After all the pictures Pearl and I looked through together, why was this one hidden? Not just in any hiding spot, either, but placed carefully in a spot where I would inevitably look. Pearl was always a few steps ahead of me, she had to know I’d find this. Or that someone else would beat me to it.
“Uh, what is that?” Salma asks, leaning against me so she can get a better look. Not that it helps, since she lets out a confused little noise from the back of her throat. I blow out a long breath as I let my eyes scan the people on either side of my grandfather.
“That’s my grandfather there. Next to Governor Woods.” I do another pass over the other figures, but no one else stands out. I mutter, “Who are those other people, though? I don’t recognize any of them.”
Salma shifts and looks a little closer, but she shakes her head. “I only recognize Governor Woods. I have boarding school to thank for that.” She wrinkles her nose. We’re all quiet for a moment as we stare at this picture that Pearl chose to keep hidden.
“I know them. All of them,” Sadie eventually breaks the silence. We both turn to look at her to find that Sadie looks like she’s seen a ghost. Her wide eyes are trained on the photograph, her face pale. “This is my grandfather, who died not long after yours. And Patrick’s grandfather, who died just a few years ago.” She points at each person as she explains who they are. Her finger trails to the opposite side of Hollis, to the person standing on the other side of Ed Woods. “And this is Ace’s dad.” It’s the last person that seems to confuse her the most.
“You sound surprised,” I point out.
“Yeah,” she agrees slowly, drawing the word out. “Because Ace’s father was never part of this crowd. Patrick’s grandfather wasn’t really, either. He didn’t think much of Jax’s dad, so they usually avoided each other. These are not people that would have taken any old picture together, Juliet.” She traces her finger around the edge of it. “And… I mean, this had to have taken place after all the issues between our grandfathers because Woods is standing here with them—that all started long before Ed Woods showed up on the scene. Which means they should have been feuding, not posing together.”
None of it makes any sense. Patience might be a town full of people trying to keep up appearances, but if no one expected these guys to be seen in a photo together, why would they have done it? None of them look like they dislike each other, though I guess I know as well as anyone that looks can be deceiving around here.
There’s also one other thing about this picture that’s abundantly clear. It wasn’t taken at a beach which means there’s no reasonable explanation for why it would be tacked onto the back of a beach picture. The background behind the men looks like concrete. As if they’re in some kind of basement or something. Nothing you’d expect to see in a nice beach house. Or even in a nice Patience house.
Sadie shudders, drawing my attention back to her. “Do you know what this is?” she asks.
“No,” I admit. “I just remembered how Pearl didn’t want me to touch this painting when I first got here. At the time, I just thought she didn’t trust me, but now…”
Sadie points down at the photo, real concern shining in her eyes as she looks from Salma to me. “These were the most powerful men in Patience. The most money. The most clout. And even though no one ever saw the whole group of them together—here they are. In a picture hidden at Lexington Estate.” She gasps a deep breath. “Juliet, are you sure this isn’t Hollis’ treasure?”
Fuck. What is she’s right? What if I’ve spent this whole week thinking I was going to walk into Hollis’ treasure at the beach house, only to find out that the actual treasure was just a secret friendship between some rich old guys?
I put the painting carefully back on the wall and turn to the girls. I swallow hard so I can get my next words out. “I think it’s time the guys and I have that talk.”
Chapter Four
Convincing the guys to meet me at the house to talk was almost as difficult as convincing the girls to leave after the mysterious photo reveal. Sadie huffed and protested, but finally gave in when I reminded her this was the only way to stop her from having to deal with a mopey brother any longer. I called Patrick first since he was the closest thing I had to an ally and convinced him to talk Ace into coming. Smith took a little coaxing, but eventually showed up at the front door, phone in hand as he rolled his eyes over how much shit Jax was giving him as he tried to convince him to get his ass here, too.
Now that they’re all here, though, it feels like the worst part of giving a presentation at school. Four sets of eyes are trained on me as we sit around the table on the back patio. I chose this spot. I couldn’t bear to talk inside. I needed the fresh air to keep me from feeling suffocated.
It’s been a week since Pearl’s funeral. A week since the guys were furious to find me sharing a bed with Jake. And a week since I told them I knew where Hollis’ treasure was—which now I’m second-guessing after seeing that photo. Maybe I don’t actually know anything. The whole week I refused to have a real conversation about any of it. Why? Because I’m terrified. Of losing my boys. Of solving Hollis’ mystery and losing what feels like my last link to my family. Of not being enough to keep everything together.
But after finding that picture of our family members all together, after listening to Sadie tell me she didn’t understand why there was a picture of them all together, I figure it’s about damn time we sort it all out. I grew up in Nikon Park, for fuck’s sake. I’ve faced fear before and came out on the other side just fine. No one ever wins by being too afraid to try. There’s only about a million different catchy slogans that say so.
“Are you going to start, or are we supposed to be doing the talking?” Patrick interrupts my inner pep-talk. He doesn’t sound mad when he says it, just genuinely curious. My stomach twists as I meet his eyes. I feel guilty about the way I’ve treated all of them, but particularly him considering I’d been callous towards him when he’d been the one that tried to be supportive. It was me that couldn’t handle things.
I open my mouth to speak, to maybe start apologizing until I’m blue in the face, but completely different words than I intended find their way out. “Maybe we shouldn’t do this anymore. Maybe it’s just too hard and doesn’t work the way we thought it would.”
For a split second, no one says anything, but then it’s like they’re all talking at once. I can’t even tell one protest from the next, the voices all blend together as they get louder and louder. It’s Jax that finally shoves out of his chair so violently the whole thing goes flying out behind him. “Everyone shut the fuck up.” He glares at the other three guys before turning to me with the same look. “Especially you.” I bristle. “You didn’t want to talk about this when you had the chance, so now you don’t exactly bear the right to control how this goes. Do you have any idea what it’s been like watching you walk around like a zombie this week?”
“Jax—”
“No, shut up,” he snaps, and I bristle again. But the part of me that would usually buck up and rail against him takes a back seat to the part of me that feels really fucking bad about how
the past week has gone. I fall back in my seat, crossing my arms over my chest as his eyes narrow into dark slits. “We all agreed to give you space, especially when you kicked us the fuck out last weekend, but this is just ridiculous. Maybe it’s too hard? Hell yes, it is. But this is what you wanted, so you don’t get to just give up on it now that it’s your turn to deal with the hard stuff.”
My breath catches in my chest as Smith nods along fervently with Jax’s words. I glance toward Patrick to see him offering me a tight smile. It’s Ace, though, that makes my stomach clench again. He’s staring at me with open hurt in his eyes, and every shitty thing I’ve felt over the past week crops back up again. I drop my head into my hands and focus on my breathing, taking one breath in and exhaling slowly as I try to figure out what the hell to even begin to say to them. Of course I don’t want to end things. That was such a stupid thing to say.
“What do you really want, Juliet?” Jax challenges after a few seconds of stilted silence, and I shrug helplessly. I want everything to go back to normal, but I don’t know how the hell to make that happen. Why can’t anyone seem to understand that? “What. Do. You. Want. Juliet?” His words sear me to my core, and I jerk when he slams his hands on the patio table.
“Jax, you need to calm down, man,” Ace starts, and my heart splutters to a stop in my chest before kicking up in double time. I glance between my shaking fingers to see Jax turning toward Ace’s much bigger frame, nostrils flaring as he opens his mouth to protest. But Ace isn’t looking at Jax anymore. His eyes are trained on me, glinting in the low light of the late evening as he heaves a heavy sigh. “Is this because of him?”
Jake. He doesn’t even say his name, but the effect is instant. His shoulders tense first, then I watch as all of my boys tense up in turn. I take another shaky breath before pulling my head out of my hands and squaring my shoulders. Maybe I brought them all here to talk about the treasure, about the mystery behind the weird picture I’d found with Sadie and Salma, but this—my friendship with Jake—is the crux of all of our problems, and if they’re ready to talk about it…
“No,” I answer easily. “None of this is really about Jake. I’ll admit I should have thought through how it would seem to you guys that I’d shared a bed with him, but if we can’t work through something like that, I really don’t know how this is supposed to work.”
“Don’t lump me in with everyone else,” Patrick says with absolute disgust and a hard edge to his voice. I open my mouth, but my response dies on my lips when he continues with a darker scowl, “I did try to work through things. I told you I’m fine with you dating Jake if that’s what you need but you—”
“You said what?” Smith’s eyes cut in Patrick’s direction, and it takes everything in me not to just stand up and leave as tensions rise again. Ace’s eyebrows furrow as a dark look passes over Jax’s face, and I feel like I’m going to be sick for how much my stomach twists and drops and clenches. This isn’t going at all the way that I expected it to. I guess I just thought if I was ready to talk rationally now that they would be too.
“What? How much did it really change when she added Ace or Jax?” he challenges Smith with a lazy shrug. Smith runs a hand through his hair as he groans, and my mind spins around Patrick’s argument. It’s the second time I’ve heard it in a week, but it doesn’t make it any easier to hear, especially when my other three boyfriends look like they really fucking disagree with him. “At least this time we’re all talking about it.”
“We’re not talking about shit,” Jax snaps, and my fingers tighten around the table again. He spears a hand through his dark hair before pacing a few steps away from the table and all of us. His shoulders jut up and down as he breathes heavily. I have to figure out how the hell to get this conversation back under control, clearly, but I’m so fucking dumbfounded by the way the hurt in Ace’s eyes is slowly being replaced by curiosity that I can’t focus.
“Is this what you want, Juliet?”
No. Maybe. “I don’t know,” I admit quietly. I don’t know how the hell I’d make it work—not with Jake in Nikon Park and all of us here. Not when Jax clearly can’t handle the idea of there being anyone else. “I love Jake—I’ve loved him forever,” I breathe out, and all of their eyes snap in my direction. Jax’s eyes shine with that same sort of angry vulnerability from last weekend, but I tell myself to keep talking and just put everything out there. “It doesn’t change the fact that I love you guys, too. I honestly just don’t want to hurt anyone.”
Smith stands suddenly, and I’m preparing myself for him walking away from me, my heart aching as I realize he was the first to come to me and is now going to be the first to go. Instead, he surprises me by circling the table and crouching next to me, peeling my fingers away from the table to grip my hands in his. “It’s not like breaking up would be any kind of solution.”
“It would be easier,” I mutter with a halfhearted shrug. I try to pull my hands from his but his grip is too strong and he doesn’t budge at all.
“Easier for who? You think any of us would find it easy to walk away? If that were the case we would have done that long before now.” I try to jerk my hands away again but he jerks back, his eyes narrow as he tightens his grip. “I can’t imagine it would be easy for you, either. Being left here all alone. What are you going to do? Become Pearl? Be the keeper of Lexington Estate but never take a chance on anything else worth living for?” He shakes his head like the thought is almost unbearable. “If you can tell me that’s really what you want then I’ll walk away right now.”
Goddamn him. I glance up, staring at each of the guys for a short second in turn. The turmoil that’s eating me alive is reflected in their own tense postures, in the way Jax’s jaw ticks as he glowers in my direction, in the way Ace’s shoulders are bunched near his neck, in the way Patrick’s honey-colored eyes swim with hurt. Smith runs his thumbs along my knuckles in soothing circles, and my breath catches in my chest. Of course I wouldn’t be happy without them. Even hearing him say it makes me realize how stupid it was for me to suggest in the first place.
My voice trembles as I tell him, “No, that’s not what I want.”
He pauses for a second before asking, “Do you want to bring Jake into the fold?” His eyes shine with sincerity as he waits for my answer.
Yes.
No.
Maybe.
I can feel the tension radiating off the other guys, but I look only at Smith as I answer. “I don’t know,” I tell him quietly, the words barely more than a whisper. I really just do not know. I love Jake, but it’s never felt like the right time to do anything about it. The same seems to apply now. It’s like we’ve always been missing our chance.
“Smith, what the hell are you doing?” Jax finally snaps, but neither of us look at him. “We can’t just fucking…” He trails off in time for me to hear him stomping his way back toward us. “How many more strays is she going to take in?”
Anger bubbles to life inside of me, sudden and hot in its intensity. I jerk my hands out of Smith’s grip—this time he lets me—and turn my eyes in Jax’s direction. His arms are crossed over his chest, and a truly ugly look is marring his otherwise handsome features. “That’s not fair,” I snap even though all I want to do is remind him he’s the last stray I’d taken in. “Jake’s my best friend, and he has been for years. If this hadn’t happened—Patience and Pearl and being a Lexington—I probably would have ended up with him at some point. So don’t you dare call him a stray!”
“So you do want to be with him?” Ace asks, but the hurt that’s been in his eyes all week long isn’t reflected in his tone anymore. There’s a hint of defeat in its place. “You’d rather date him than us?”
My answer is immediate and emphatic. “No.” And it’s the truth. Yeah, it’s been weird this week, and I’ve been miserable, but it’s because of some sort of self-assigned penance for what I’d done to them. Not because of them. “I don’t want to lose any of you.”
“So the
n date him, too, if that’s what you need,” Patrick says, just as emphatic as I was seconds ago even as Jax snorts. “Just as long as you don’t dare give up on any of us.” Jax opens his mouth to speak, but Patrick cuts him off without even giving him a chance. “Shut the fuck up, Jax.”
Even from here, I can see Jax’s jaw tighten as he crosses his arms, but he does stop whatever he was about to say. Smith’s hand finds mine and he laces our hands together in what I guess is supposed to be his show of solidarity. Even Ace nods thoughtfully, seeming to be willing to go along with Patrick’s suggestion. But this isn’t really a majority-rule sort of situation.
I meet Jax’s eyes, trying to look past the anger in them. “I would never do something that was going to hurt you. I hope that you can come to terms with the fact that Jake will always be my friend, and that’s it. You have every right to set boundaries, and as your girlfriend, I’m going to respect them. Okay? No more sleepovers, I promise.”
It pains me, giving up any hope of ever having more with Jake. I don’t think I even realized how bad I wanted it until now that I have to accept that it’s officially just never going to be an option. But I committed to these guys, each of them, and I don’t get to just change the rules to suit myself whenever I feel like it. I won’t do that to them—or to us.
Jax’s expression softens, but I can’t bear to hear him say anything that sounds even remotely pleased about this new development. My fingers find the key around my neck, my index finger running along the ridged edge as I try to draw some strength from it and remember the other reason I summoned them all here.
“There’s another reason I wanted you all to be here. I was with Sadie and Salma earlier, and we found something I think you all should see.”
Chapter Five