As I sit at the breakfast table, I smile across at Mikey sitting opposite me as we each eat a bowl of Lucky Charms.
“I’ve missed you, Red,” he says as he swallows a mouthful of cereal.
“I’ve missed you too.”
We both look up as Liam strolls into the room. He sidles up behind me, wrapping his arms around me and planting a kiss on my neck. He’s just taken a shower and his hair is damp. I giggle like a teenage girl as he rubs it against my cheek. “Last night was incredible, baby,” he says against my ear.
“Sure was,” Mikey mumbles his agreement with a mouth full of cereal.
“It was.” I agree as I turn in Liam’s arms and kiss him softly.
“It’s a shame we have to go upstate tonight,” Mikey groans. “You’re only back one day and we have to work.”
“Tonight? You’ll be gone all night?” I pout.
“Yes, tonight,” Liam sighs as he takes a seat beside me.
“Shane thinks we don’t know it’s because he wants you all to himself,” Mikey adds with a soft chuckle as he picks up his bowl and drains the milk from the bottom.
“What?” I blink at them. “I’m not sure Shane is that bothered by my coming back.”
Mikey almost chokes on his milk as he starts laughing, and Liam places a hand on my shoulder. “You couldn’t be any more wrong about that, baby.”
I open my mouth to reply, but I’m distracted by Mikey as he looks up at the open doorway with his mouth hanging open. I spin around to see what, or who, he’s looking at and I almost fall off my stool when I see Erin walking into the room, wearing the same clothes she had on yesterday evening. The bile burns the back of my throat and I force myself to swallow it down as a wave of nausea and jealousy washes over me. She spent the night. With Shane?
“Close your mouth, Michael,” she says coolly as she walks to the refrigerator and opens it, taking out a bottle of mineral water. She holds it to her forehead briefly, before opening it and taking a long gulp, while the twins and I stare at her.
“What are you doing here, Erin?” Liam eventually asks the question we are all desperate to know the answer to.
She rolls her eyes, taking another gulp of water before she answers. “I stayed over.”
“Where the hell did you sleep?” Mikey asks with a frown.
“In Shane’s bed. Where else?” she says with a smug grin as her eyes flicker to me and she looks me up and down.
I force myself to smile back at her. “Well, I’m sure you had a comfortable sleep,” I say, when I really want to vomit on the table in front of me. I knew that Shane wasn’t my biggest fan, but this just seems unnecessarily cruel. To sleep with her on the same night that I came home. I choke down the tears and have to look down at my bowl so she won’t see me, because I feel like I’m about to cry and that is so damn ridiculous. Clearly, she is the woman that Shane wants. She is the kind of woman he belongs with.
“Well, I have a meeting to get to. Bye boys. And Jessie,” she says before she wafts out of the room.
“Ice queen!” Mikey says with a shudder as soon as she’s left the room.
Liam puts an arm around me and kisses me softly on the top of my head. “There’s no way Shane would go back there, Jessie.”
I blink away the tears and turn to him with a smile. “It’s none of my business what, or who, Shane does,” I say with a shrug.
“Don’t say that, Red,” Mikey narrows his eyes at me. “I don’t know what’s going on between you two, but you need to talk to him. Preferably, you could fuck some sense into him. Especially if he did screw Erin last night.”
“Mikey!” Liam hisses.
“What?” he frowns.
“So, tell us about Arizona,” Liam says, changing the subject.
“It was hot and sticky,” I say with a smile.
“Pretty much just like you then,” Mikey chuckles as he walks around the table and wraps his arms around my waist.
“I’m not sticky,” I arch an eyebrow at him.
“You were last night, Red,” he laughs.
“Well, so were you.”
“Hmm. And I can’t wait to get hot and sticky with you again as soon as we can,” he growls in my ear. “But, I need to take a shower. Be good while we’re gone today, won’t you?”
“Always,” I whisper before he gives me a long, sweet kiss and walks out of the kitchen.
“Why Arizona?” Liam asks when there is just the two of us remaining.
“I wanted to try somewhere hot. And it was far away. As different to New York as I could think of,” I reply with a shrug.
“Why did it need to be so different from New York?”
I look up into his deep brown eyes. “I didn’t want to be reminded of you and your brothers. Or the time I spent here.”
“Damn, Jessie!” he winces.
“Not because I didn’t miss you, Liam. Because it hurt too much to think about you all.”
“Why did you run so far, baby?” he reaches for me and brushes my hair from my face. “Conor almost lost his mind trying to find you.”
“I thought you didn’t want me here,” I whisper.
“Jessie,” he sighs as he takes my hands, pulling me from my stool until I’m standing between his strong thighs. “You’re one of us. That means from now on, you don’t get to run away when things get hard. Okay?”
“Okay,” I nod.
“Good,” he says as his hands slide over my hips and onto my ass. “Because this place wasn’t the same without you. None of us are the same without you.”
I press my face against his bare chest, inhaling his clean fresh scent. “I’m not the same without you either,” I whisper.
