“How was therapy this morning?” Her seriousness causes me to sit up straighter, one of her workout tees halfway folded in my hand. She eyes the welt on my cheekbone.
I’ve already told Jack the truth: therapy feels important, but it was ineffective today. Quinn stayed silent for the entire sixty-minutes. If a professional can’t help us resolve this, I’m starting to lose hope we’ll ever reach better ground.
It’s day one. Maybe everything is still too raw from last night’s fight.
“It went well,” I say, stretching the truth…a lot.
“Really?” She sounds hopeful.
I nod and take her inhaler out of a suitcase pocket. “Yeah.”
“So maybe you don’t need me to move in after all,” Joana says.
She finally agreed to live with me because she pitied my ass after the fistfight with Quinn. And to be perfectly clear, I purposefully made myself look pitiful. Best strategy I could think of.
And it worked.
I have no guilt over the tactic. Her next plan was to couch-surf on random sofas, and I’d much rather her be safe here. Even at the cost of being down the hall from Beckett.
Jack rehashed my sister’s run-in with Beckett Cobalt at the golf course, and I considered penning Beckett a letter entitled:
Flirting Etiquette 101:
Stop Flirting with Joana Oliveira
He keeps seeking her out when she wants to be a hundred-feet away from him, so I have a big issue. But I know my sister can hold her own too.
“I need you here, Jo.” I give her a look. “And you’re already unpacked.”
“Halfway, but you’re doing a great job.” She adds, “And I’m not going anywhere.”
Good.
I’m about to return to her suitcase.
I stop and assess them on the bed and me on the floor. “You’re over there sharing music with my boyfriend while I’m folding your tops. What’s wrong with this picture?”
“You should be hanging up the tops, not folding them,” Jo quips.
I clap loudly.
She applauds herself too. “Thanks for helping me with my things, really.” Her lips rise. “I like that I get to spend more time with Jack.” She tells him, “Oscar never brought home his college boyfriend, so I never got to grill him.”
Jack looks shocked, his hand runs through his dark hair and stops on his head for a long, long beat.
Shit.
My chest tightens at his reaction and at the mention of an ex. I glance at Joana. “Like you’re grilling Jack right now? You’re closer to calling him your BFF.”
“I already knew Jack before you two started dating. It’s different. I never met Darrien.”
“Darrien?” Jack repeats.
Look at that, she gave him the name of my ex. “Yeah.” I imprison a breath, our eyes locked. Wondering what he’s thinking.
His knee bounces. “Why didn’t you bring him home? Were you scared your parents wouldn’t like—?”
“No.” I shake my head stiffly. “I just didn’t come home a lot, so I didn’t bring him to Philly when I did.”
“Oscar was married to Yale,” Joana explains. “She was the other woman stealing my brother from the family.”
Jack shifts his gaze to my sister. “College will do that.” He slips me a furtive smile like, I understand.
I can’t regret Yale, not for a single second. The experience opened my world and changed my life forever. I am who I am because I left home and discovered myself without any familial pressures attached. It was a freeing time of my life.
It’s also a personal, introspective take on the situation. If I shared this with my brother and sister, they’d be upset thinking I valued being alone over being with them.
To me, that’s not it.
I didn’t love college because I never saw them, but being on my own did help me figure out what I wanted for myself.
Jack glances anxiously at his phone, his fingers racing back through his hair. He’s still waiting for the execs to email an actual verdict.
I stand up.
“So if I’m taking the bed,” Joana says, hand on the gray comforter, “and your brother lives with you too…?” She eyes Jack. “Then, how are you both going to…?” She glances between us.
Good fucking God. My nineteen-year-old sister is asking where me and Jack are going to fuck.
Highland has his knuckles to his mouth, his smile rising. I love that not much fazes him.
“Ah, ah, ha.” I wave a finger at Jo. “That’s off-limits.”
Boundaries, I have them when it comes to my nosy family and who I date.
She throws up her hands. “It’s an honest question, Oscar. There is no door! We’re in a fucking studio.”