“It worked out. I should have trusted you. I’m sorry.” Jace winced. “I’ll try to be better about that from now on.”
Nolan touched a faint scar on Jace’s cheek, brushing his thumb over it. “I know how Laurel got mixed up with Draven’s trafficking, but…what about you? What happened? Who let you down?”
“My parents, I guess. Dad bailed before I was in kindergarten, not that anyone made me go to school much anyway. My mom shopped around for a replacement with a chain of guys, anyone she thought had enough money to get us by. When I was ten, she found someone who wanted her, but not her baggage. She moved in with him and I wasn’t invited. Came home one day to the apartment empty of her shit and the landlady asking for rent.”
“Son of a bitch!” Nolan growled, wishing he could rewind time.
Jace shrugged. “It wasn’t so bad. I fended for myself on the street, living in parks in the summer and surfing couches when the weather got cold. I wasn’t a teenager for long before I realized I could earn enough to feed myself and get a room somewhere on the coldest nights by charging for BJs I would have given for free in the park bathrooms anyway. Or for letting some of the creepy older guys jerk me off. It was easy money.”
“No. No, it wasn’t.” Nolan opened his arms and let Jace decide if contact would be helpful or harmful right then.
Their hearts beat against each other when he snuggled up to Nolan gingerly and sighed. “It was better than when I got a little older and started getting beat up and stiffed instead of paid. Or when guys a lot bigger than me wanted more than oral and decided just to take it. So when one of Draven’s guys decked a jerk, got me my cash, and promised to cover my ass for a cut… Well, I was stupid and took him up on it. And when he convinced me to go to a party where I could work somewhere clean and fancy as fuck instead of next to a toilet that hadn’t been cleaned in three months, I signed up for that too. I just didn’t realize it was a one-way ticket.”
Nolan rocked them as Jace painted a picture that made him wish he could kill Draven all over again.
“I like to tell myself it was worth it because I found Laurel. Whether either of us likes to admit it, she needed me same as I needed her. I wouldn’t have survived those years without her.” Jace closed his eyes briefly.
Nolan smoothed the lines in his brows until he blinked his eyes open again.
It surprised him when the mattress dipped behind him and Laurel rotated to fit herself to him, stretching. Their talking must have roused her. She kissed his shoulder softly, whispering his name. The spirals she rubbed along his spine with her fingertips eased his discomfort.
“I was ready to give up before you appeared and made us a team.” Laurel reached across Nolan and cupped Jace’s cheek.
“But you didn’t. You’re a fighter.” Jace turned his face to kiss her palm. “And so is Nolan. I love that about both of you, even when I don’t deserve you. I’ll do my best not to let my scars fuck me up so badly that I can’t fully put my faith in both of you now. I do, it’s just…in that moment, when things started to unfold…panic overtook logic. I’m sorry.”
“I understand.” Nolan leaned in and kissed Jace. “You’ve only ever been betrayed before, except by Laurel. You expected the worst from me, but I swear to you that if you’ll let me, I’ll spend the rest of my life proving that I’m not like every other man who’s ever been a part of yours.”
Nolan took a deep breath, then put his heart on the line. It beat faster than when he’d leapt in front of Draven’s bullet. “I don’t want to be just another hookup you can keep at arm’s length because you’re afraid of being betrayed or disappointed. If you let me, I’d like to love you—both of you—and hope that I never let you down.”
He rotated his head as far as his sore muscles would allow so that he could peer up at Laurel too. A tear spilled from the corner of her eye, sailed down her cheek, and splashed onto his shoulder.
Nolan rolled to his back so he could clasp one of each of their hands as they bracketed him in bed. “I mean, unless I’ve done my part by bringing you two together. If that’s what my purpose was, I understand and I’m grateful I could do it.”
“You’re trying to get out of this?” Jace raised a brow, nearly falling back into old habits. “Nah. You’re not. You’re scared. You dumbass, don’t you understand?”
Laurel swatted Jace’s shoulder over Nolan. “Don’t call him names. He’s hurt. And this is partially my fault. You two spent so much of your energy making me comfortable…”
“I’ve enjoyed every minute of the past weeks.” Nolan stopped her from going down that road. “If you got something out of it, then I’m happy, even if it means that you’re ready to go out on your own with Jace now.”
“That’s what I’m trying to tell you. There is no us without you. There never was and there wouldn’t be now.” Jace looked toward Laurel, who nodded. “Being around you, feeling comfortable, having someone to bridge the gaps between us and push us when we both get stuck... That’s what finally made this possible. It only works because of you.”
Jace cleared his throat when his voice turned ultra-raspy. “So don’t be leaving us now. Not because you’re nervous and definitely not because you let some piece of shit like Draven put a hole in something vital.”
“Does me being part of the Shields freak you out?” Nolan felt exhaustion creeping over him like a heavy blanket. They had so many hurdles in their path.
“Upset? No. More like impresses the hell out of me.” Jace frowned. “Although I’m torn up for Teddy’s family, and will probably lose my shit every time you’re away from us, I wish I was half as capable as your team. If I had been, maybe I wouldn’t have ended up where I did.”
Suddenly Jace’s fierce independence and his scrapper nature made so much more sense. Good thing Nolan never had been deterred by those rough edges.
“On a personal level, I love spending time with them, especially Sola and Kennedy.” Laurel grinned. “I could learn a thing or two from women as strong as them. And the guys too. Including James, of course.”
“You do? Yeah, you do.” Nolan’s head hurt as he tried to consider the possibilities, but he couldn’t deny that Jace and Laurel had already melded into his network of friends.
“Don’t overthink this.” Laurel rubbed his back.
“Okay.” He turned off the destructive voice reciting the reasons it couldn’t work. “In that case, do you guys want to move in with me when my place is ready? You could hang out with James and…the rest of the team. And…you know, me. All the time. When I’m gone, you’ll have other people around, which will help me overcome my guilt for leaving. Plus, they’ll look after you, too. I mean, not that you need it, but I would be less anxious knowing you were covered.”
Jace laughed, damaging Nolan’s heart a bit. Was it so ridiculous?
“Did you think you could get rid of us?” Jace leaned in and kissed Nolan while Laurel kept caressing his tensed shoulders.
“I don’t like to make assumptions…” Nolan held his breath as he looked to Laurel.