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His pain was so deep I could feel it. I gasped as I clutched my chest. There was a tightness. The knife clattered to the floor as the pain brought me to my knees. I desperately sought to get air into my lungs as I could feel all his hidden emotions. His mother abandoning him. His feeling of responsibility that Jemmy had been abandoned as well. His need to please the people that meant something to him. His inability to let go of those who hurt him, thinking they deserved the unconditional love he longed for.
“Blake!” Drake called out in panic. His panic making the pain worse.
“What the hell happened?!” Remy came rushing into the room, kneeling beside me. “Breathe, baby, breathe.”
“Is she having an asthma attack?” Rose asked, concern in her voice.
Remy gathered me in his arms as I saw the darkness gathering around the edges of my vision. “Drake follow me,” Remy bit out. “You two stay here!”
“Jax,” I called desperately in my mind, “please tell Drake to relax. I can’t, I can’t breathe.”
“Relax, honey, relax,” he urged me.
As Remy slammed the study door closed behind us, I heard the ringing of Drake’s phone.
“Yeah,” Drake said in a short tone I didn’t think he was capable of.
“Shit!” It was the first time I ever heard him curse. “Okay, man, okay. Thanks.”
“Who was that?” Remy asked as he sat down with me cradled in his arms. “What did he want?”
I could see Drake close his eyes as he breathed in deeply and blew out. He did it several times before the tightness started to abate, and my vision began to clear once more. He took a few more deep breaths and opened his eyes to meet mine.
“I’m sorry,” Drake whispered. “I forgot.”
“Forgot what?” Remy nearly shouted.
I sat up in his arms and wrapped my arms around his neck, burrowing closer to him. “It’s not his fault, he didn’t mean to,” I said quietly.
“When we connected,” Drake sat down on the other side of us and put his hand on my back and gently rubbed it, “something else happened. She told me this afternoon that she could feel what I was feeling. Rose and Jemmy started fighti
ng, and I must have had strong feelings. I didn’t realize she could feel it that acutely. Jax told me she called out to him and told me to calm down.”
I felt pleasantly warm in Remy’s arms, and I liked feeling Drake’s gentle touch. I started to giggle to myself as Remy let out a curse. I couldn’t help it. A week ago, if you would have told me I would find comfort in anyone’s touch, I would have called you a liar. Today, I found myself enjoying it. I didn’t know if it was because we were fated to be together or I had forgotten how nice it was to be touched by men that didn’t want to hurt me.
Remy stayed in the study to talk to Jace and Troy, while I went back out to help Drake finish dinner and make sure it was ready by the time Noah and Will came home. Jemmy had made herself scarce when she saw I was okay and Rose quietly sulked at the island, still on her phone. I helped Drake with the cake and decided I might like to learn how to bake. In the past, all the baking I did came from Dunkin Hines and Betty Crocker.
Dinner was a bit tense, but it helped that Noah was around; he regaled us with some of the crazy stories he heard in medical school. Will kept casting me glances, but it wasn’t the time or place to ask him the questions we wanted answers too. We didn’t have the time to pick Will’s brain after dinner because we had to go to the game.
We had to drag Ella away from the television for dinner. We didn’t have cable at home, so she was being introduced to a whole new world of animated characters. She was only mollified when Jemmy encouraged her to ask Drake for swimming lessons.
“I can do that,” Drake agreed. “We’ll have you jumping off the diving board in no time,” he smiled at her.
“After dinner?” Ella asked excitedly.
“We have Jax’s game tonight,” I gently reminded her.
“Aww,” she groaned as she stuck her fork into her potato with a vengeance.
“Tomorrow,” Drake promised her.
She brightened up.
“We need to hurry if we want to get good seats,” Will said as he glanced down at his watch.
We quickly finished our food and Drake put the finishing touches on the cake before we headed out the door. I made a few thermoses of hot chocolate and Jemmy made a couple thermoses of coffee, slipping some Baileys in it when she didn’t think anyone was watching.
I gave her a pointed look and she batted her eyelashes at me and grinned.
