Page 10 of Never You

“Thanks, buddy, but I think your newwifewon’t go for that.’’ He winks, but there’s a serious tone in his voice. We can joke about this, but the truth is, the world has expectations. My mother has expectations. My father has expectations.

But so does my girlfriend.

“I’m never going to marry.”

Bodi pulls a face. “Then you might as well break up with Emily, because she will never go for that either,” he states matter-of-factly. “Did you talk to her about it? About marriage?”

“She brought it up a few times. Especially after McGee got married.” I pause. “I kinda brushed the subject away.”

Bodi keeps his eyes fixated on me, silently asking me for more than that.

“I like Emily. My parents love her. She’s the perfect fit for my family.”

“But is she the perfect fit for you?”

Looking up at the ceiling, I let out a grunt, annoyed he always asks the questions I don’t want to answer. “How the fuck would I know, Bodi?”

“I remember you telling Hunter a couple of times how he needed to get his head out of his ass.” I hate the know-it-all look he’s keeping trained on his glass.

“Yeah,and?”

A hard gaze crashes with mine. “Andpractice what you preach, Jay.”

We stare at each other, my jaw ticking, when my phone vibrates on the bar in front of me.

A message appears on the screen, telling me Emily is sending me an image.

“Speaking of the devil,” I mumble, expecting some kind of half-naked pictures of herself from the photoshoot she was doing this afternoon, but instead, I cock my head when I look at the screen. I raise my eyebrow, not immediately knowing what I’m looking at until I recognize Rae’s pretty blonde braid on her shoulder. My hand is on her cheek, and we are standing so close, it looks like I’m an inch away from kissing her.

I survey the people around me, stunned, wondering who the fuck could have taken this picture while Bodi gives me a quizzical look.

“What is it?”

“It’s Emily,” I explain, when my phone pings again.

EMILY: I always knew you were fucking that PR trailer trash. Don’t come home. WE ARE DONE. Asshole.

Home. The word alone makes a sarcastic grin shower my face, since it’smypenthouse she’s referring to. But when I realize how this night is going to end, my annoyance level goes from zero to the moon.

“What in the hell?’’ I close my eyes and pinch the bridge of my nose, handing over my phone to Bodi.

I’m a flirt. I flirt.A lot.

I’ve been caught a little too close with some girl a whole number of times. I don’t act on it, but I like to flirt. I don’t fucking know why.

Maybe because I like challenges.

Emily knows this. She always stays.

“As long as you come home to me,”she literally once said. I have my suspicion she deep down doesn’t care as long as she can be with a Jensen. It wouldn’t even surprise me if she’d run off with my brother, if he would give her the chance.

I know this will be over in about three hours. She will fight me, slap me, forgive me, kiss me, fuck me, and all will be well in the world. We have done the circle about twenty times. But just thinking about it instantly triggers a headache, because I simply can’t be bothered to deal with it today.

“Fuck me. Is that Rae and you?” Bodi squeaks, wide-eyed.

“Yup.”

He looks closer at the picture, zooming in on the screen with his fingers, then brings his attention back to me, impressed, when he realizes this was fifteen minutes ago.

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