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“Upset. Hurt. Confused. Why didn’t you tell me? What is this, this thing between all of us? How’s it going to end?” And then I add in a tiny voice, “Am I replacement for her?”
“No. No way!” Ace bangs his hand down on the desk, making me jump. He comes over to the back of the sofa and leans on it, squeezing my shoulder in his big hand. “No,” he repeats, shaking his head and as I stare up into his violet eyes, I see nothing but sincerity there.
Rebel scoops me up in his arm and takes my place on the sofa, keeping me cradled in his lap, my feet dangling over onto Jax’s lap. He takes them in his hands and holds them. Thorn comes around from the window to sit in front of the sofa, cross legged on the floor, and takes my hand in his.
“Look, Rae,” Thorn begins, “I - we - really care about you. You’re not a replacement for anyone or anything. We weren’t even looking to like you. We weren’t looking for anyone.”
“He’s right you know, we’re crazy about you,” Rebel tells me, kissing me on my temple.
I look from one guy to the next, really looking at their eyes and faces for signs of betrayal or deceit. I see none. All I see is genuine emotion. I may not know what these guys did to my sister, but I do know that they’re not messing around with me. They actually care about me.
And I care about them too. I do. As more than just hot guys who make me melt. It would be stupid to deny there’s real feelings there, and I’m not in the habit of lying to myself.
But here’s the thing.
I LOVE my sister more.
“Will you tell me about her?” I ask tentatively. I watch carefully for their reactions. Ace looks heartbreakingly sad. Rebel and Thorn look resigned. Jax is unreadable, but when the others give him a nod, he begins to speak,
“Her name was Lizzie. She transferred in year eleven, which never happens. Rebel met her first when she tutored him for English, but we all knew who she was. She was impossible to miss and absolutely beautiful. We all liked her. We fought over her. We all tried to date her, and it was a disaster... Lizzie was the sweetest girl I ever met, and when she realised that we were fighting too hard over her, she took herself out of the equation.”
“You mean she...?” My eyes widen in horror.
“No! Nothing like that. Just that she stopped dating us. And she didn’t really talk to us much after that either. And it really really sucked. We preferred to be fighting over sharing her than not having her at all.”
“Why did she... you know?” My voice is barely a whisper.
“We don’t know. We really don’t. And it still eats me up inside. There’s a chance our fighting was to blame, or maybe it contributed, even though it was months after when she jumped.”
“You called her just some girl.”
“I know. I shouldn’t have. She was so much more than that.”
“But Michael said that the princes weren’t allowed to date outside of the inner circle?”
“Fucking hell!” Rebel huffs, running an exasperated hand through his hair. “What the fuck else has he been saying that he fucking shouldn’t have?” I flinch.
“Erm that there’s always five girls, five guys, you all date each other and not outside of the circle. And that he was in the circle, but you guys kicked him out for some reason...”
“Did he say why he was kicked out?” I quickly shake my head no in response to Jax’s question. “Interesting.”
“Little fucker,” Rebel mumbles under his breath, while Ace slams his hand on the desk again and cries “Podlasica!”
“He’s a fucking weasel, you’re right Ace,” Thorn adds.
Jax takes a deep breath and then lets it out slowly.
“Okay, that’s a lot of information to go through. There’s so much more to this than I can explain right now. I don’t want you to think I’m copping out, but I’m going to ask you to trust me.”
“Trust you how?”
“Trust me when I say that Michael cannot be trusted. He’s spun you half a picture using half-truths that don’t tell the full story. Let me tell you the whole story, but accept that it’ll take time. I want you to trust that we’ll tell you the whole truth.”
“I can do that.” I can wait. I can bide my time if it means finding out what really happened to Lizzie.
“Are you sure? I know you don’t trust us.”
“I do!” I protest. How does Jax know? He’s always watching too closely. I feel like he looks inside of me and reads my soul like it’s no more complicated than a baby’s ABC book. I’m going to have to be more careful around him. I can’t put my guard up because he’ll notice, but maybe I can take control of which parts I let him read.
