Page 92 of Undeniable Love

They each hugged her on their way in and made their way to the kitchen. “We got all your favorites,” Gemma said. “I went to the bakery and got cupcakes, Ty went and picked up a ton of Chinese food with extra dumplings, and Wyatt picked up your favorite wine and…mozzarella sticks for some reason.”

“Um…because I like them,” he explained, winking at Lucy. “We thought it would be fun to have a non-Mom-and-Dad dinner and just hang out like we used to do. These last few months you were always busy and we didn’t know why, but now that we knew you’d definitely be in town, it seemed like the perfect time.”

Great, her pitiful life went back to being predictable. Awesome.

Food was unpacked, dishes were set, and drinks were poured. When she sat down, she realized that this was the perfect thing for her right now. Having her bestie and her brothers here was exactly what her weary soul needed.

It took only five minutes of casual conversation before Tyler brought up Jax.

“So, are we going to talk about what really happened in Wichita?” he asked.

Shrugging, she picked up a dumpling. “I don’t know what you mean.”

He chuckled, pointing a chopstick at her. “Oh, I think you do. Something obviously happened and you’re going to be stubborn and not talk about it because you’re afraid I’m going to say ‘I told you so’ or something.”

Tossing her fork down, she nodded. “Okay. So if I told you that Jax wanted us to take a break because he needed to put all his time and energy into football right now, what would your response be?” Her tone was heavy on the sarcasm and it was almost comical how Gemma and Wyatt seemed to eat in slow motion.

“Well, I’d day that it makes sense because the Warriors have a great shot at going to the Super Bowl this year,” Tyler responded. “But then I would also say that I don’t see why you can’t still go and see him. It seems a little dramatic for him to put an end to things, especially after all that sappy ‘My Girl’ stuff on his social media pages.”

“Dude, that was a little snarky,” Wyatt murmured.

“Since I’m obviously in the know on all of this,” Gemma cautiously began, “I get that your mom threw out the whole Blake comparison and you mentioned that Jax did too, but…you know that’s not the case, right?”

“Of course I do!” she cried with frustration. “With Blake, I was trying to run away from my life! I used that relationship like an escape. All I saw was how it was going to immediately change things for me. I never thought about what things would look like when it actually happened. But when I force myself to think about it, I would have been miserable with him.”

“That guy was a douche,” Wyatt said, popping another mozzarella stick into his mouth.

“And with Jax?” Gemma prompted.

Sighing, she shook her head. “With Jax, leaving everything here wasn’t an escape. It was running toward the person I wanted to be with because I love him. I don’t care where we live—and I already know that with the camp, that’s going to be here in South Creek at least part of the time—I just want to be with him. That’s it. No agenda, no ulterior motives, just him.”

Saying it out loud like that hit her harder than she thought. Tears stung her eyes and rather than acknowledge them, she picked up a dumpling and ate it.

“Can someone pass the lo mein?” Ty asked.

That was it? No one was going to say anything about her big admission? Was that the end of the discussion? Seriously?

“Did you eat all the mozzarella sticks?” Gemma asked Wyatt. “I was hoping to grab at least one.”

“Yeah, sure.” He held it out to her and then pulled it back. “Although…you kind of made fun of the fact that I got them, so…maybe I should keep them all for myself.”

“Don’t be a doofus,” Gemma said before snagging the stick from him. “It seemed weird, but who doesn’t love a good mozzarella stick? I don’t want the marinara sauce, but I’ll totally dip it in the sweet and sour sauce.”

“They didn’t put any hot mustard packets in the bag,” Ty huffed. “Dammit.”

Clearing her throat loudly, Lucy asked, “Um, excuse me? Are none of you going to acknowledge anything I said? I mean, I kind of poured my heart out and all you can talk about is food!”

Three pairs of wide eyes stared back at her, but ultimately Ty was the one who responded.

“We just wanted to come here and make sure you’re okay, Luce. I doubt that you want to sit here rehashing everything that went wrong or have a Jax bashing session. The goal was just to come and hang out and distract you, that’s all.”

“Oh.”

With that out of the way, she let herself relax and enjoy the meal. They talked about everything and nothing, just like they always had. She heard about the jobs her brothers were working on and some of the animal antics Gemma dealt with at the vet this week. When they were done with dinner, they took the box of cupcakes to the living room and sat down on the sofa.

“Would it be weird if we watched the game?” Wyatt asked.

“Dude! What the hell?” Ty snapped. “That’s a little insensitive.”

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