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I couldn’t help but laugh when Jersey’s head whipped back toward the other two while I kept pulling him into the house. Then he stopped dead in his tracks at the sight of Indy sitting at the kitchen island painting his fingernails.
“How many people did you move into my house?” He asked. “And why are they all children?”
“Don’t worry. Your friend is still here too,” I said. “You know, Kyle.”
I giggled again as I said the name out loud.
“Don’t start with me,” he said and squeezed me harder with the arm that was still around my shoulders.
“That’s Indy,” I said. “Utah had him come stay here too when they decided to help us.”
Indy jumped up to come around to our side of the kitchen.
“Man, they did a number on you. You don’t look anything like you did when they sent that first video. Catfished the hell out of me. I’d shake your hand,” he said and wiggled both sets of fingers in front of his face. “But they’re still wet.”
“My head hurts too much to even attempt to respond to that right now,” Jersey said and kept his hold on me to make sure I walked toward the living room with him.
“I kind of moved into your room,” I said quietly as we walked down the hallway. “I don’t have to stay in there with you if it’s weir—.”
“Shut up, Fancy Face. I’m way more concerned about the other males you moved in here than about which room you picked.”
“Memphis trusted them,” I said while I helped him sit on the edge of his bed.
“Do you trust them?”
“I think so. I don’t really understand why they’re here or why they helped. I don’t know what Memphis did to convince them to go against Nate.”
Somehow, this didn’t feel like the right time to tell him what Memphis had uncovered about the deaths of everyone in his family. I was entirely certain that such a revelation would go over better if Memphis was at least present when he learned about it, but my heart sank into my stomach when I watched him reach for the picture of his wife and daughter that sat next to the bed. He sighed and held it against his chest while he laid back on the bed and let his legs dangle over the edge.
“I didn’t mean to keep it from you,” he said quietly. “I wasn’t trying to hide them. I never imagined you’d find out about them without me being the one to tell you. I didn’t think —.”
“You don’t have to explain yourself to me, J. You’re like a million years old. It makes sense that you would’ve had a life with other people before I was even born.”
He chuckled. “Enjoy it while you can, baby. I heal quickly, and then I’ll make sure everyone you’ve moved into this house can hear you scream your apology.”
It probably shouldn’t have been so comforting that he was still the exact same asshole I remembered, but it was. I stood there and smiled at his threat until someone knocked lightly on the door behind us.
“Hey, Jersey Boy,” Memphis said quietly. “I told Kyle you were back. Asked him to come in and get you set up with another IV. I sent Utah out to get the supplies for that and to keep changing out all the bandages.”
“Utah,” he growled.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
trista
Jersey didn’t do much more than sleep for nearly two weeks, and everybody in the house gave him a wide berth to do just that. While he started out in the bedroom with me, he wasn’t there when I woke up the next morning. He’d moved to the couch in the living room at some point during that first night, and that’s where he’d been ever since. I spent an outrageous amount of time trying to convince myself that he was just having to work through some things, or that maybe he was having a difficult time adjusting to being back in his own house. I tried not to believe that it had anything to do with me, but he did choose to leave the photo of his wife and daughter next to that side of the bed.
Kyle came into the house to check on him twice every single day, but they never really spoke. He changed bandages, provided medication, and gave Jersey updates on what he’d been doing around the property but there was no in-depth conversation. Memphis and I decided to hold off on discussing his family until he was in a better state physically, in case his mind was still in just as much turmoil. I put a significant amount of effort into convincing myself that it wasn’t bothering me, but with every night that he spent on the couch and every day that passed without really being able to spend time near him, the weight got heavier.
The rest of us fell into a weird pattern. The thing that made it weird was that it was perfectly comfortable; to everyone, it seemed. Utah was up before the sun to make breakfast for all of us. The smell pulled us from our rooms, and we ate together in the kitchen while Jersey slept in the living room. Kyle would make a trip in to check on him. Memphis and Indy spent their days in front of their laptops. Utah disappeared in his truck for a portion of most days to run errands for the tech twins. And I just fucking waited for Jersey to come back to life. My patience for that seemed to be wearing down a little more each day, no matter how well I thought I was keeping it to myself.
“If you spend one more day moping around this place, I’m going to start sending you out with Utah every day,” Indy said from across the kitchen island.
“That’d probably bring Jersey to life faster than anything else,” Memphis said.
“I’m not moping.”
“You are,” Utah said. “It’s depressing as fuck.”
