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He needs to keep his voice down or we can go ahead and add “kicked out of my building” to the long list of shit piling up today. I open each of the six inside locks and swing the door open. Rhett and Jack fall into my apartment.
“What the fuck?”
“What happened with Casey last night?” Jack says, making himself at home. He looks around. “Nice place you got here, bud.”
“I’d give you the tour, but I’m a little busy. Charles is missing.”
“Oh, shit. That’s probably why my phone’s been popping off in my pocket.” He pulls it out. “Yep, Meyer family group chat’s going nuts. But we’ll deal with that in a second. What happened between you and Casey last night?”
Jack doesn’t know? Casey tells him everything. If Jack doesn’t know, he doesn’t want Jack to know.
“The usual,” I say. “A stupid fight. No, scratch that, a bunch of stupid fights. It’s us. It’s not new.” That part’s not a lie.
“That’s what he said, but I know there’s more.”
“Even if there was, you won’t be getting it from me. Besides not wanting to air our dirty laundry all over the place, if I tell you something he doesn’t want me to, I’ll be the one in shit. Not happening.”
He exhales a heavy gust of air. “Fair.”
“You two couldn’t have called instead of banging down my door?”
“Don’t look at me,” Rhett says. “I’m just the driver.”
“Phone calls aren’t nearly as effective as in-person lectures,” Jack says, crossing his big arms.
Rhett shrugs. “He’s good at them. He helped me with Logan.”
“Where is your husband right now? I have a bone to pick with him,” I say.
“Lo and Mercy run a mechanic shop during the summer. It’s a long story. He’s doing that for another few hours.”
“Logan’s a mechanic? But he’s so … pretty.”
“Pretty as he is, you should see him with a wrench in his hand, sporting a pair of coveralls … grease on his face.” Rhett goes away in his mind, probably thinking about what he wants to do to the hot mechanic version of his husband.
I groan and cover my face with my hands. “Sorry, I asked. Wait, where’s the baby?” I know there’s a baby in the mix somehow.
“Don’t worry, I left him with the cats.” Jack rolls his eyes. “I like how everyone believes that as if I don’t know how to look after my own son. Stanley’s with Rachel. He’s fine. Stop taking the heat off you. You’re not getting out of this. I don’t know what happened between you two, but something did. I also know that my best friend can be a stubborn shithead sometimes. I love himto death, but he is. Please don’t give up on him. He just wants someone to fight for him, that’s all.”
Know what? I don’t think Jack’s too far off the mark. He might not know exactly what’s going on, but it tracks. He likes to push me away to see how far he can, and if I’ll break. He wants to see if there’s a “too far” to push me where I won’t come back.
“Who said I was giving up on him?”
“I know you two were supposed to travel to Boston together. Now he’s flying with his team.”
Part of me wants to take another shot at badgering Jack for the answers to the mystery that is Casey, but Jack was right before, I’d rather figure him out myself. On the surface, Casey’s a fun-loving guy who uses humor to keep things light. But there’s so much more to him. He’s got deep thoughts. He lost his mom too soon and it’s given him wisdom you can’t begin to see until you get up close.
“And? You’re better off getting used to the way we do things, Jack.” Casey and I fight, we make up and or come to a mild truce, and then we fuck it out. We’re happy for five minutes until the next cage match.
Even I’ll admit this is a little more than a bickering match, but it’s not going to be the end of us.
Jack’s not appeased. “This is your fault.”
“My fault? You don’t even know what happened.”
“Oh, but I do. You didn’t make a huge declaration, and now you reap what you sow.”
“That doesn’t make any sense.” This guy. Fuck. I’m gonna pull out my hair.
