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I shook my head. “I don’t have a flight for another two days.”
His relief at my answer was evident in the way his face relaxed slightly. Turning his head, he glanced out the windshield, swallowing hard. “Do you mind driving me back to Bristol? I know it’s out of the way, but I need to talk to you.”
“About…us?” I didn’t know how I wanted him to answer.
Fuck, I didn’t know much where he was concerned these days. The past four weeks, I hadn’t gotten so much as a text from him.
What I did know? I missed him.
He flexed his fingers on his thighs, but he shook his head. “As much as I would love to talk to you about that, I have something else I need to discuss.”
Concerned, I reached for his hand. The tone of his voice told me something was wrong. He hadn’t been in California as far as I knew. He flew out to Bristol the day after he’d been arrested for fighting with Nate, and he didn’t come back. Kassa said he was just decompressing with Alicia, but I wondered if she even knew what her brother had been doing.
Jace turned his hand over, his fingers intertwining with mine and squeezing for a moment. But then he was releasing me and shifting back into the seat so he could face me better. “Thanks, Kin.”
He was quiet until I got on the interstate, but he didn’t seem like himself at all. I couldn’t tell if he was nervous or just upset from the funeral.
Hating the silence, I cleared my throat. “You’ve been in Bristol all this time?”
“More or less. I wanted to be close to Alicia.”
There. I could hear it, the change in his voice, the sudden tension that was starting to spill off him. My heart rate picked up, and my palms began to sweat. “Is everything okay? I mean, I know Nate got off with just paying a fine, but did you get in more trouble for the fight?”
“Nah, it’s all straightened out. Don’t worry about it, babe. Alicia is still a hell of a lawyer. She got me off with just paying a fine like Nate.” He gave me a tight smile, and I chanced a glance at him. His eyes were so full of agony it made my heart squeeze painfully.
“Jace, you’re scaring me,” I whispered.
“I’m scared too,” he choked out, running his fingers through his hair.
The next exit was coming up, and I took it. I didn’t stop until I found a McDonald’s and pulled into a parking spot. Unbuckling my belt, I threw my arms around him. I felt his hands on my back, and I thought they might have trembled a little.
“What’s wrong?” I didn’t know why I was crying, but the tears were suddenly blinding me, and there was a huge lump in my throat.
“I don’t know what to do,” he whispered, his voice breaking.
“What about, baby?” I asked, pulling back so I could see him.
His throat bobbed, and it took him a few seconds before he could speak. “It’s Alicia. You remember all those headaches she was having a while back?” I nodded, my gut clenching as I waited for him to continue. “She kept telling us it was just migraines brought on from stress at work. Fuck, there were all kinds of excuses. We were worried, but she played it off like they were nothing. And then Kassa came to live with us, and we all thought Alicia was relaxing enough that the headaches went away.”
“They didn’t?”
“It was never just a migraine.” The tears were flooding out of him now, his forehead pinched. “She has a mass. It’s in a part of the brain they can’t get to without causing more damage than good.”
“No,” I whispered, not wanting to believe it.
He nodded. “She didn’t do a scan until like six months ago because she’s so stubborn and was busy with work. But the headaches got worse and she passed out one day, so she went back to the doctor. She…she has a tumor.” His head fell back onto the seat, his eyes closing.
My own tears were flowing freely now, a sob trapped in my chest. Alicia was an amazing person. There was nothing she loved more in the world than Gray, Kassa, and Jace. She treated me like one of her own from the first time Jace brought me home to meet her. It didn’t seem fair that she was going through this.
“Do…Do the others know?”
“No,” he said, shaking his head adamantly. “And you can’t tell them. Fuck, Alicia swore me to secrecy. She doesn’t want to worry Kassa and Gray, especially with them planning their wedding. I don’t think she wanted to tell me, but I found her in bed covered in sweat and her own puke. She confessed everything to keep me from calling an ambulance.”
My breath caught in my throat, and I had to swallow hard before I could speak. “Why are you telling me?”
Jace cupped my face in both hands, his fingers trembling even more now as his damp blue eyes met mine. “Because this secret is killing me
, Kin. I needed to share it with someone, and I’ve wanted to share it with you from the moment Alicia told me everything. I knew you would understand, that… Fuck, I don’t know. I just need you.”
