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“My problem with you, Jade, is that I don’t trust you.” Unlike Jade, Spencer’s every word is dripping with venom. I knew he wouldn’t like her being around from the moment we got the order, but I never expected him to hate her as much as he clearly does.
“So don’t trust me then. You think I want to be here?” She asks, and I see confusion flash in his eyes for a moment before he buries it. Judging by his reaction, he did think that. He always thinks people are out to get us and what we have, so I can understand that line of thinking. Usually, I would go so far as to even agree with him, but the more we learn about Jade, the more I think this is just her way of surviving. Froggie offered her help, and while she may not want it for herself, she does for the girls. Jade has worked so hard to save them, and that means she’s as much under Froggies control as we are. At least until she decides it’s not worth it or that she can do it better without us.
If she walks because of us, Froggie will have our heads.
I open my mouth to tell Spencer as much, but Jade holds her hand up at me, and I close my mouth again.
“You don’t have to like me, Spencer, you don’t have to trust me. All you have to do is what your precious leader says. Other than that, you can pretend like I don’t exist.” She takes a step up to him, closing the small amount of space between them. She tilts her head up and meets his eyes as her own narrow in anger.
Someone her size shouldn’t be intimidating. I probably would have laughed if I had seen her do this before I knew her. But knowing her makes all the difference because I know she could lay him out right now. I know that if she really felt the need, she could probably kill him, and we might not even be able to stop her. Hell, she might be able to take us all down if she really wanted to, but she doesn’t. She shouldn’t be intimidating, and it also shouldn’t be as attractive as it is.
I shake the thought away as I focus on them. Zander stands just a step behind Jade, watching just as closely as I am.
“Next time you're jealous, just say so big guy. It’s a hell of a lot easier than going through all of this bullshit every time.” She says before patting his chest. She drops Zander’s hand as she sidesteps Spencer and heads toward the door that leads to the house.
I’m barely able to keep my mouth from physically dropping open as her words register. One quick look at Zander lets me know he wasn’t able to. His eyes are so wide that it would be funny any other time.
She makes it all the way to the door before Spencer opens his mouth again. She’s so close that I hope she just keeps walking, but the moment his words are out, I know she won’t.
“As if I could ever be jealous of an untrustworthy harlot.” He doesn’t yell this time, but he might as well have. His words ring out in the garage, followed by a silence so intense it feels like all sound has been pulled from the room by a black hole.
Jade stops dead. Her hand raised to reach for the door now hangs in the air, immobile for a moment before it comes back down by her side. She turns to face us, where we all stand near my SUV, frozen as we await her reaction. A quick glance at Spencer shows me he at least has the decency to look uncomfortable, but he makes no move to apologize.
“You can say whatever it is that you like about me, Spencer, but until you find proof that I’m actually as untrustworthy as you claim, how about we just agree to stay away from one another.” Her words are unwavering, her face void of emotion, but from where I stand, it looks as if he’s finally hit his mark. Emotion swirls in her eyes, and if I knew her better, I would say it seems as though his words hurt her. Before I can dig deeper into that, the emotion is gone.
“Don’t get comfortable. I’ll find what I need to get Froggie to give up on this rescue mission before you know it, and you can go leech off someone else.” Spencer tells her.
Jade simply nods, her face still a mask of indifference before she turns and walks through the door, leaving the three of us in the garage.
What the fuck just happened.
Before I have a moment to dive into that, Zander is on Spencer, just like I knew he would be. At this point, I really can’t blame him. Spencer deserves it, so I let it play out and see where it leads instead of intervening.
“What the FUCK was that!?” Zander screams as he grips the front of Spencer’s shirt and slams him into the side of the car.
Spencer doesn’t even flinch as his head slams back into the window.
“She needed to know that her little sex-on-legs act isn’t going to get her shit here. We aren’t fucking her, and we sure as fuck aren’t going to fall into any of her traps. Just because we have to keep her alive doesn’t mean she gets to do whatever she wants with whoever she wants.” Spencer says as he looks from Zander back to me. When his eyes land on mine, he looks at me as if he expects me to agree.
Usually, we’re on the same side, Zander is the one who is most likely to fly off the rails, and we typically pull him back in with hard truths and occasionally an ass beating when he can’t hear reason. This time though, I worry that Spencer is the one in need of the ass beating, and no matter what he says about trust, I find that I do, in fact, have some faith in Jade.
I might be unwilling to hand her all of our secrets but I don’t believe that she’s a threat to us the same way that Spencer keeps insisting she is. If she wanted to, she could have put us down a thousand different ways in the last week. But she hasn’t, and the connection she seems to be building with Zander seems genuine, no matter what Spencer tries to make it out to be.
Zander pushes his arm up under Spencer’s throat, pressing in and pinning him to the car. Spencer wasn’t making any kind of move to get away, but Zander’s made sure of it while also ensuring that he has his undivided attention. “I don’t know who you think died and made you king, but you need to listen and listen well. I will do whatever the fuck I want. If I want to fuck Jade and she wants to fuck me, thats what we’ll do.” Spencer opens his mouth as if to argue, but Zander pushes harder on his neck, effectively cutting off his air and making it impossible.
“You don’t have to trust her, but I do, and I don’t think Rick thinks she’s some scary bitch who’s come here to take us out either. So until you can, without a doubt, show me that she’s here to chew us up and spit us out, you need to back the fuck off. Before I make you back the fuck off.” He slams him against the car once more before releasing him and following Jade into the house, slamming the door for good measure.
“We need to talk.” I tell Spencer before he gets it in his head that this is over. When I look back at him, he’s sagging against the car. It seems like the fight went out of him now that Jade is gone and Zander is no longer threatening him with violence. Too bad for him because while I don’t feel the need to be violent right now, that’s not to say it won't end up that way if he can’t get his head out of his ass.
Over the next few days, we work on getting Jade registered to start the next semester with us. There’s a lot of back and forth between Hoppers and the house as we try to get all of her information in order with Kratos. It takes two days but eventually, we put together enough background and schooling to make it look like she should be there. Anything that isn’t airtight is easily overlooked with the hearty donation from her “family,” aka Froggie.
With that taking up most of our day yesterday and today, I make sure to steal Jade away once we’re back at the house for the night. Each day, I try to show her more. Watching her face light up with every new thing is so addicting. She looks at me like I’m the thing that’s bringing her happiness. I’ve never really cared about what other people think of me, but I would give up my best knife to have her keep looking at me like that. The first time I have that thought, it catches me off guard, but even if it startles me to care so much and want her attention, it doesn’t make it any less true.
We continue making simple meals. Unfortunately, Rick is the chef in our group. But the things I teach her are still delicious and, in my opinion, essential for everyone to know. Like mac and cheese, everyone should know how to make that.
I also show her more music. Whenever we have downtime, we cycle through songs and artists; before I know it, she has her own Spotify playlist. Whenever we go out, and she hears something new, I have to tell her the artist so she can add it to her list. It doesn’t matter if we’re in the car, at the club, or in the gym. Music seems to be something she can’t get enough of, and I love that I got to show it to her, that I get to experience this with her.
Tonight I’m taking her down to Clair’s library. Rick told me that she seems to pick up a lot of the magazines that are lying around the house while she drinks her coffee early in the morning before I’m awake. Most of them are fashion ones from Clair, but some are my car and motorcycle ones. Apparently, it doesn’t matter to her what the material is, so long as she can sit and read.
