Page 31 of Digital Desire

Dinner was a loud affair, but it was more fun than she could remember having in years. Eidolon was a family as much as Jack, Will, and Jace were actual family. Alex, she was surprised but happy to realise, was a fantastic cook, and she had told him so.

“Everyone wants the long-term missions with Alex because of his cooking,” said Liam, “but don’t get stuck with Decker. That man can burn water.”

“So how did you guys all meet?” she asked realising this may be a delicate subject and not caring. This, whatever it was needed to come, and she wasn’t above pushing it. She saw Jace glance at Jack and Will with a cautious eye. Jack went still, his fork halfway to his mouth. Will glanced at her in the silence, his face warning her not to push it.

“I met most of these men through my time in the forces. Decker, Liam, and Ambrose were recommendations from Zack who I had served with before I was fired.”

“Jack!” Jace said with a frown.

Jack cast him a look before looking to Will with accusation. “What don’t tell Aubrey how Will got me fired from my dream job in the SAS because he left evidence that pointed towards my involvement in the bank hack?” he said, his face red as he pushed back angrily from the table.

“It wasn’t like that, Jack,” Will defended quietly.

Aubrey could see the conflict on his face when she looked at him and regretted opening this up. Maybe now was not the time to force Will to show the man she knew was buried under years of guilt. A good man, a kind man, one who loved his family and friends more than he ever let on.

“Then what was it like, Will, because I would really like to know what the fuck I ever did to you to cause you to lie, and fuck me over like you did?” Jack asked as the table went silent, the energy in the room was so tense it was making her head hurt.

Aubrey stood and moved to stand behind Will, showing her support and hoping that he would speak to her after this.

“Got nothing to say?” Jack asked as he glared at his brother. “No, I didn’t think so,” he spat as he turned and strode from the room.

Aubrey felt the eyes of the men on her but couldn’t look at them, her focus solely on Will. She reached a hand out to him as the men began to murmur around them. “Will?” she asked unsure of his response.

He looked up at her with disappointment and sadness in his eyes. “It’s okay, Aubrey, it had to happen,” he responded grasping her hand and placing a kiss on her palm.

“Do you want me to go and explain this was my fault?” she asked not relishing the thought of facing Jack but willing to anyway.

He shook his head. “No, this is long overdue and my problem. I’ll go but do me a favour?”

“Of course,” she answered instantly.

“Save me some of that rice pudding Alex is pulling out of the oven,” he said as he rubbed her cheek with his thumb and stood before dropping a kiss on her head.

“Consider it done,” she said with a smile.

Aubrey watched as Will walked outside the way his brother had gone, and she prayed she hadn’t made a colossal error in judgement.

She sat at the table in Will’s seat and fought with the desire to go and fix this mess, but she knew it wasn’t hers to fix. Maybe that was half her problem, she’d spent her entire life trying to make amends for something she hadn’t done.

Her thoughts went to Mickey for the first time in years. Will reminded her of Mickey so much, she knew it was why she had pushed Will away. They had both had the same sweetness to them that was shrouded in a bad boy persona. Her mind drifted back to the night of the fire, how special she had felt with Mickey and then the look on his face when he had seen her home as it burned, taking the lives of her parents and her childish dreams with it.

“Aubrey?” She looked up as Jace said her name. “It will be okay you know. This should have happened years ago,” he said with sincerity and no sign of judgement.

“Thank you. I was just trying to help,” she replied. “Will is a good man, and I hate to see him hurting,” she offered as a way of explanation.

“You like him.” He’d said it as a statement, not a question.

“Yes, I do, a lot but he has so many secrets,” she said as she worried her hands in her lap.

“We all do, but they don’t define us as people and you’re right about one thing. Will is a good man and so is Jack, and I don’t just say that because we’re family, I say it because it’s true. Luce adores Will. You know he once flew all the way to Brazil to spend her birthday with her because she was missing her family and couldn’t get home. He took her dancing and then flew home the next day. Those are the kinds of things he does for those he cares about, and he never says a word. I don’t think Dane knows to this day that he did that for Luce.”

“Why doesn’t he tell anyone what he’s doing?” she asked sadly as more of Will’s goodness came to light.

“Because that’s not who he is and when you grow up with a father that thinks kindness is a weakness, you tend to hide that side of yourself,” Jace said through a gritted jaw.

As tempted as she was to ask about his father, she didn’t. If Will wanted to tell her he would. “Thank you for telling me, and I promise Dane won’t hear it from me.”

She realised they were the only ones left at the table and stood. “We should get to work on exonerating Will. Do you think they have a marker around here somewhere? I could really use a visual and that large glass window would make the perfect murder board.”