Page 59 of Please Remember

"That's not true!" I exclaim and force myself to look hurt. "We were all friends."

Laughing, she shakes her blonde head, making me increasingly jealous because I know she just climbed out of bed looking like that. "No, you've always been in love with Jax, but he never gave you the time of day until Allie disappeared. And it took you five damn years to worm your way into his bed. Before that, you were just hanging around everyone, and Jax and Allie took pity on you. No one really likes you."

"Sage, that's a bit harsh, don't you think?" Allie says, surprising me by coming to my defense after looking ready to murder me.

"Trust me, being nice is what got Laura entangled in our lives to begin with. You and Jax were always far too nice to her for your own good, but I won't let Laura poison your mind because she's got an agenda. Laura always has an agenda. And I'm guessing that ties to the fact she lost the man she's wanted to be with since we were all like, what? Six?"

"You're just jealous because Allie and I were friends in spite of the rest of you," I say, standing up. "Jax and Allie are the only nice ones of the group."

Storming to the door, I drop my coffee on Sage's carpet and slam the heavy door behind me as Sage shouts, "Hey!"

"God, you've always been such a bitch, Sage," I murmur and walk back to my car, forcing a smile to the stupid cop. This did not go the way I planned. Not at all.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Allie

Itold Sage to go back to work, and I cleaned up the coffee stain. If Laura came back, I wasn't going to answer the door. I needed time to think. Time and space to sort everything out in my head. The things Laura said made me question some stuff, but I also got a sickening feeling around her. But I think that has to do with the fact that she claims to have slept with Jax recently. Like, shortly after I returned recently.

I'm sure she does have an agenda. She was supposed to marry Jax, and now she's not. There's a lot of things she could tell me that aren't true, but there's enough going on that tells me there's some truth in what she said. I just have to figure out what truth that is.

Sage dropped me off at Jax's house when she got off work, and she offered to stay until I was ready to come back, but I told her to go. Now, though, I wish she'd stayed with me as I stand on the porch of his house. Sighing, I ring the bell.

Jax answers quickly, a smile on his face when he sees me standing there. "Hey."

"Hi," I say, taken aback by his excitement. "Can we talk?"

"Come in," he says, stepping back. "You don't have to ring the bell. You can just walk in. You live here, remember?"

Remember? Seriously?

"I wanted to go to Sage's house and get you every single day. Multiple times a day. But I wanted to give you space like you asked. God, Allie, I miss you. Being away from you feels like having an itch I can't scratch."

"Jax—"

"Look, I'm so sorry for how inconsiderate I was that night. It'll never happen again, baby. I promise."

"Did you fuck Laura at her house after I was home?" I blurt out.

His face pales, and I feel sick. If she wasn't lying about that, she might not be lying about the videos, either.

"Where did you hear that?" he asks.

"That would be a yes, then?" I choke out, unable to look at him, my hand on my stomach as I feel like I might vomit.

"It's a kind of."

Shaking my head, I lean against the doorframe of the kitchen. "Kind of?"

He licks his lips and sighs. "Okay, here's the thing. When you returned home, it threw me for a loop. The detectives took you to look for that house, and I went to talk to Laura like she asked. She was wearing... basically nothing. She kind of attacked me, and it was a reaction. But I stopped it before it went too far. My senses came back and reminded me that she wasn't you."

The thought of them together in any intimate way makes me crazy. Want-to-claw-out-her-eyes crazy. "She says you filmed the two of you together like you did us."

"Never!" he exclaims.

He admitted to the portion of what Laura said that was the truth, but he'd have a reason to hide this. "This is the only chance you have to come clean without me losing my shit, Jax."

"I never, ever would have filmed Laura and I. I barely stomached being with her. She was a willing body, that's it."

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