“Brey, I just think it’s a fucking bad idea.” Katie followed me in as I unlocked the door to my apartment.
“What’s a bad idea?” Rome said from my couch.
I eyed him and Vick who were watching TV and eating some of the food I’d saved in the fridge for myself. “You two do know that you don’t live here, right?”
Rome shrugged and Vick smiled innocently before she said, “We were really hungry, Brey.”
I wanted to tell them to order their own food or ask if they wanted to eat mine. But I couldn’t bring myself to. It wouldn’t have been polite.
“Go get your own damn food, you freeloaders,” Katie said for me when she saw my face.
Rome waved her off. “That’s rich coming from you. What’s your latest sugar daddy’s name?”
She rolled her eyes. “Just ’cause the men I’m with can provide for me and you can’t provide for any woman …”
Katie had a type she always looked for. None of us agreed with it because those types were ones who could provide extravagant gifts for her.
“You got it wrong, Kate-Bait. I provide something other than money and gifts to the women I’m with.”
“Gross, Rome.” Vick shoved him. She looked at us. “Come on, fill us in. What’s a bad idea?”
Katie spoke for me again. “Brey’s having Jax help her with this last class she needs to pass to graduate.”
Rome jumped off the couch. “What? What the hell do you mean he’s helping you with this class?” Rome paced my small living room, his muscles rippling.
I shrugged, and went to sit down next to Vick. We watched Rome pace toward Katie, united for the first time. She followed his lead. “Yeah! That’s what I said,” she practically seethed.
Vick leaned in and whispered, “I, for one, am totally on board with you doing this even if it is just to see these two like this. They. Are. Fierce.”
“Vick, the whole damn world can hear you even when you whisper,” Rome growled, crossing his arms over his chest as if accusing her of conspiring with the devil.
Katie aligned with him and crossed her arms too. The two of them stood on display. Tomb Raider and the darkest version of Gladiator.
I smiled at them both glaring at me. “You two would be kind of cute together.”
Katie’s eyes bulged before she spit, “Fuck you, Brey. Get your shit together. This is a fucking bad idea, and if Rome is the only one who agrees with me, so be it. Jax is a bad toxicology report waiting to happen. You were addicted once and the next time you get addicted, you won’t survive it.”
I wanted to argue, wanted to say she was wrong. Every person who survives heartbreak wants to believe they could survive it again. No one is ready to agree that the first break nearly killed them and that one more crushing blow could be the end of their heart.
I wanted to argue.
But I couldn’t.
Vick shot up, facing Rome and Katie. Her blonde hair swayed like usual, this time with warning. “You two need to back off! She needs this. Either of you heard of closure?”
Rome opened his mouth to argue.
She stepped up in his face and shoved her finger into his chest. “No. You don’t get to answer the question about closure.” She poked his chest again. “You don’t have closure. You used Brey as a distraction. You keep using every woman you sleep with as a temporary closure that just leaves a larger, gaping hole afterward—”
Katie cut her off. “Hey, that’s a little harsh. Rome and Brey had an understanding. No one got hurt.”
I nodded my head because it was the truth.
Katie continued on, “He does what he has to do. Everyone has their demons.”
“Oh really, Katie?” Vick cranked her neck so slowly she could have got the lead role in The Exorcist. Even Katie backed up a step. “Do you really think you want to justify Rome’s actions here?”
Katie’s mouth snapped shut, and I suddenly felt like I was trying to understand what large elephant was in the room. I cleared my throat. All of their heads snapped to me like three children caught with their hands in the cookie jar. “Does someone want to explain what is going on?”
After a beat of silence, Rome grumbled, “I just don’t want to see you hurt.”
“And Jax will hurt you,” Katie quickly added.
“Or maybe he won’t because he’s realized what he lost,” Vick finished.
Rome balked at that. “He shouldn’t need to realize. He should’ve known.”
With all three of them standing over me looking down with complete concern while I sat cross-legged on the couch, I really did try to contain my laughter. I mean, they all meant well. But it was silly. I even looked toward the ceiling, willing myself to hold it in. As I took in the scene one last time though, the loud cackle couldn’t be held back.
Katie threw up her hands, mumbling something along the lines of me losing it, and Rome just stared while Vick smiled.
I sucked in a breath and started to explain but it just came out in another laugh. I slid onto my side to hold my belly from laughing. I wheezed and blurted out through giggles, “It’s just a study session, guys. I didn’t say I was sleeping with him.”
Vick’s smile was full blown at that point and then she started to giggle when she added, “Can you imagine their faces if you’d told them that?”
I cracked up again. Vick joined in, falling to my side on the couch.
Katie looked on like she was totally disgusted. “How I continue hanging out with you two is completely a mystery to me.”
With that, she turned and stomped out of the apartment with me yelling after her from the couch that I love her. Who wouldn’t, right?
Rome wasn’t as easy. I just didn’t know it then. He swept in and brushed the back of his hand across my cheek. “Be careful, babe.” Then he turned to Vick and shoved her hair around on the top of her head, messing up her ponytail. “You’d better be right, Vick.”
His eyes held mine a moment longer, and in them I saw real anxiety. It hit me harder than I wanted it to.
Rome and I, we’d been a team, blocking out the world for a long time together. I was going against that, and I knew letting the world in—letting my heartbreaker back in—didn’t sit well with him.
I wanted Vick to be right as much as Rome did.
Except a part of me knew she wasn’t the one who was right that day.
Love was an addiction and overdosing on it left bad toxicology reports, destruction, and fatalities.
