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“Let’s sit,” Dexen said. “Do you want anything to drink? I think there’s some healthy shit still in the blender unless Xaiden licked it clean.”
JJ was the first to sit on the farthest end of the couch from Dexen. I wasn’t sure if I should sit near him or in the middle. Dexen sat a few spaces away, so I sat down, closer to JJ but not right up against him.
“I’m sorry you had to come here like this,” Dexen began. “Xaiden was worried, and I’ll do anything for him when he’s like that.” I didn’t know the full story of what happened in X’s past but by the way JJ nodded, I wondered if he did, or if he’d witnessed the lengths the brothers would go for each other. It wasn’t my business to ask so I stayed quiet. “I got drunk this week, repeatedly.” Dexen scrubbed a hand over his face. “It’s not like me, at least not normally. I had so much eating at me, I didn’t know what else to do.”
“You could have talked to me or JJ,” I offered.
“You maybe, but I was certain if I reached out to JJ, he’d tell me to go fuck myself.”
“It was certainly a possibility,” JJ stated.
“What’s going on between you two?” Dexen asked.
“That’s not why—”
I cut JJ off by reaching out and putting my hand on his thigh. I focused on Dexen. “We’re together, getting to know each other.”
“Are you fucking?”
“You’re a real piece of work,” JJ scoffed, shaking his head.
“I’m curious.”
“We’re not,” I said. “We’ve fooled around but we haven’t had sex yet.” Fucked was so… crass to me. And I didn’t want to use the word penetrate. It felt too clinical. JJ and I weren’t in love, but we were in something.
JJ’s hand covered mine. “It’s about more than that between us.”
Dexen glanced out the window. “It wasn’t just sex for me, Greer. Maybe at first, but after a while…”
“Then why did you push me away?” I was almost positive I knew, but I wanted to hear it from him.
“If I let you get close, you wouldn’t like what you saw.” His eyes met mine again. “There’s not much left of me.” He rubbed his hand over his chest. “In here.” This was what I needed from him. I needed the raw, unfiltered man beneath the mask he liked to keep in place.
“I think there is, but you’re afraid to let anyone get close to you. What happened between you and JJ, that couldn’t have been easy on either of you. I know from watching you both when the other is mentioned, that pain still lingers. Love does too. Something that strong can’t be wiped away like it never existed.”
“I can’t…” Dexen dropped his gaze to his lap where his hands rested.
“You can’t or you won’t, Dex?” JJ asked.
“Does it matter?”
“Yeah, it does.”
Dexen’s face lifted, this tiny spark of hope there. “What are you saying?”
JJ sat forward, coming closer to me to interlace our fingers. I wasn’t sure if it was to ground and support him or if it was to keep him from going to Dexen. “Is there anything else you’ve lied to me about?”
He shook his head. “No, never.”
“Did you ever kill someone who wasn’t a threat to me or a loved one?”
Dexen’s answer was as solid and fast as the one before it. “No.”
“I can’t handle the lies. I won’t. If someone is after me, I want to know. Don’t keep me in the dark and act like a hero. I’m not fucking useless.”
“I never said you were, but you don’t want that life, so I kept you from it.”
“That wasn’t your decision to make. It seems no matter what I want, I keep getting dragged into it.”
