Twisted Up (Taking Chances #1) - Erin Nicholas Page 0,74

more people to help, more amazing things to do, but there was more to it.

Helping strangers was easier than helping his hometown. Because it didn’t always work out. It sucked when that happened and he had to deal with a certain level of anger and guilt, but it wasn’t like it would be if it didn’t work out for someone he personally knew and cared for.

“Maybe I am fixing things for her,” Jake said. He really needed that to be true.

Whether he liked it or not, he was very personally involved this time in Chance. And not just with the cleanup. He could have fixed it if there was a hole in Avery’s roof or the tree in her front yard had been uprooted. But no, her house hadn’t had a single shingle out of place.

All her damage went a lot deeper.

“Oh?” Max raised an eyebrow again.

“We’re having dinner with my parents tomorrow night.”

Both of Dillon’s eyebrows went up. “You’re getting them back together.”

Jake had shared with the guys the whole revelation about what had happened between Avery and his mother after graduation. They knew everything about him, and they were helpful and insightful. Once in a while.

“They miss each other,” Jake said. “They need each other.”

Max looked concerned. “What if it doesn’t work out? Then there are two people for you to worry about.”

“Why wouldn’t it work out?” Jake asked, irritated because the thought had been nagging at him, too.

“I’m just saying it’s been a long time. It’s not like Avery is a poor, needy little girl anymore,” Max said.

No, she didn’t seem to be. She was, in fact, pretty kick-ass. Jake pulled his hand through his hair again.

He just could not shake the memory of talking with her in his truck at the bonfire. She’d never felt important to anyone. At least she’d never felt important enough to anyone. Including him. She’d been haunting his thoughts for a decade, but she hadn’t felt important. That damned word kept echoing in his mind.

This was why he was helping Max with the roofing project. It was physical labor that didn’t require a lot of thought and understanding. He’d been looking to work off some of his agitation and feel productive.

It had been working. Until Max started talking.

“What if being friends with my mother again isn’t enough? Is that what you mean?”

“Exactly.”

Continue to bug her until he figured out what would make her better. Then do it. Or buy it. Or be it.

The temptation to be what Avery needed was way too strong to be healthy.

“I’m hoping the hot sex will start working,” he finally said, going for glib rather than honest in this case. These guys knew him. They would worry about his desire to be everything Avery wanted and needed.

“You failed to mention there had been more hot sex,” Dillon said.

“Well, there hasn’t . . . but . . . never mind.”

Both men laughed.

“No wonder you’re worked up,” Dillon said, tossing Jake a bottle of water from the cooler they’d brought up the ladder with them.

This state of horniness wasn’t helping anything, that was for sure.

Jake rolled the cold condensation from the plastic bottle over his face.

“What about you and Bree?” Dillon asked Max. “You still wondering what that would be like?”

“I knew what being with Bree would be like back in high school,” Max said, suddenly not grinning.

“And in the ditch the other day,” Jake pointed out, watching the face of the man he knew so well.

“The ditch was . . . complicated,” Max said. Again. That seemed to be Max’s favorite word when it came to Bree.

“Funny,” Dillon said. “A lot of my patients tell me those near-death moments are the simplest—things get clear, you realize what’s important. Your words and actions in those moments are driven by the purest emotions and intentions.”

“That’s so interesting,” Max said in a tone that indicated it was definitely not interesting to him. “I didn’t think of or feel anything for either of you in those moments.”

Jake and Dillon both snorted. They weren’t too worried about whether they were important to Max or not. They were. Dillon and Max were Jake’s brothers in every sense of the word but pure biology, and they shared enough family traits for that to be a gray area at best.

“Just so you know,” Max said to Dillon, “your psychoanalysis skills do suck.”

“Or are they so good that they hit so close to home that you can’t even face all the deep, secret things I know