Page 24 of Believe In Us

I find Sarah hunched over the stove, the savory aroma of her signature hearty beef chili filling the air around me, while Grayson is seated in a chair at the dinner table, a cold beer in her hand as she scowls at something she’s reading before her. The rest of the kids under their care are nowhere to be found but being Saturdayand all that isn’t very strange. Sarah hears me come in as I drop my bag on the bench by the hallway leading to the front door before moving to grab a seat beside Grayson.

“I’d offer my help Sarah, but it smells too good to go to waste if I were to stick my hands where they definitely don’t belong.” Grayson chuckles beside me, clearly remembering the day I almost set the foster house on fire with the exact same pot of chili brewing on the stove. It was the fourth of July if I’m not mistaken, Grayson was going to barbecue some burgers and hot dogs in the yard, and Sarah made some chili to accompany them. I was starving and Sarah said we couldn’t start eating until the chili was done. So I figured I'd speed up the cooking process a bit.

“How you managed to get that entire pot of chili into the oven, let alone get the oven turned on is beyond me,” Sarah says, bringing me a glass of water and setting it down on the place setting before me. I glance over at the beer in Grayson’s hand, the beer I’d much rather be drinking but she’s quick to quirk her eyebrows at me in warning. Right, pregnancy equals no alcohol. For nine fucking months. I sigh loudly, grabbing the glass of cold water and bringing it to my lips gulping it down in one drink.

“I was already fifteen. I knew how to read and the oven button said start,” I respond, answering Sarah’s rhetorical question.

“Yet you weren’t old enough to figure out a pot doesn’t go in the oven?” Sarah asks, once again not really expecting a response.

“A pot can go in the oven by the way,” I say, “I researched after, it’s totally possible.”

“The problem wasn’t the pot darling, it was the rubber handles,” Grayson says, not able to contain her laughter any longer. I roll my eyes at her just as Sarah moves back into the kitchen ladling a few scoops of the delicious chili into two bowls and bringing them over to us.

“Well this one is edible, unlike the pot we had to throw out that night,” Sarah says, setting my bowl down on the table in front of me. My stomach starts rumbling with a ravishing hunger as Iinhale the savory and spicy aroma that suddenly turns to an overbearing scent of cumin and chili powder.

“I’m going to be sick,” I yell out before rushing over to the nearest trash can and puking whatever remained of my lunch into it. I hack into the bin for a few moments before straightening up and turning back to face their eyes are wide with worrisome yet sympathetic looks. “Is it always like this?” I ask, wiping my mouth with the back of my sleeve. I guess I have to change once again before heading out or I’ll smell like vomit at the party tonight.

“You’re asking the wrong people sweetheart,” Sarah says, nervously running her fingers through her dark brown hair, and it’s not until then that I realize how insensitive my question was. Neither Sarah nor Grayson were ever able to conceive any children of their own, which is why they chose to foster kids.

“Right, sorry, I didn’t mean…”

“Don’t worry Jade, I didn’t mean anything by it,” Sarah adds, “My sister has three kids so I’ve been around a pregnant woman before to know a few things. Her nausea and vomiting only lasted a couple weeks with her first two, but with her last she was sick all nine months.” Great, that’s what I have to look forward to.

“Well I guess that’s a no on the chili for me, I’ll just swing by and grab some soup when I get back home tonight,” I say, moving over to stand at the doorway.

“You still think it’s best for you to go back there?” Sarah asks, her hands nervously stuffed into the pockets of her flower printed apron.

“I have no other choice. I have to finish school, I have nowhere else to go, and now, well I have to come up with a plan as to what I’m going to do after graduation.”

“You’ll always have a home here Jade, you know that right,” Grayson says, standing and walking over to stand beside her wife, her bright red curls bouncing as she does.

I nod my head looking around at the place before me, the yellow flowered curtains and pale robin's egg walls I helped painttwo summers ago, wishing I could in fact stay here longer. “Yeah well, I may have some unfinished business I need to take care of, loads of it actually,” I shrug my shoulders nonchalantly, the thought of what I’m going to do when I get to Sebastian’s house threatening to make bile rise up in me once more. And this time it has nothing to do with the little monster inside of me.

“Are you going to tell him?” Sarah asks.

“Eventually,” I mumble almost inaudibly. “But first I have to deal with Scarlett, not to mention the whole Roman issue. At least my father’s dead, one less thing I have to worry about,” I say it jokingly, a hint of dark humor escaping me, but neither one of them laughs. I have to make jokes about the shit storm my life has recently become. If not, how else am I supposed to manage to stay sane?

“I’ll drive you back then,” Grayson states rather than asking, so I simply nod, not having a legit reason to decline her offer, but it’s not home I'll be going to, not yet anyway.

“I need you to drop me off at the Silver’s Estate,” I say, stunning them both. “I have a party to stop by first.”

Chapter

Twelve

BASS

Two fucking weeks. That’s how long I’ve gone without sleeping a fucking wink. For two weeks I’ve been in this sour as fuck mood because she ran from me without letting me explain a goddamn thing. Two long ass weeks since I’ve seen or heard from her. Which only means my excruciating need for her, my insurmountable craving, my ravenous hunger she can only satiate, has gone and turned me into a savage beast. Well more than I already was, because my wild Little Wolf brings out the worst in me.

She makes me feel things when I’ve spent my whole life convincing myselffeelingsaren’t real. My father has always saidemotionsare a weakness, an illusion of monumental proportions that make us believe we are at all in control of them. Emotions change our perception of reality, and in order to always stay in control and not fall victim to their intoxicating trickery, we must obliterate them. So that’s what I did.

Out of mind, out of sight.

Until now.

The first week was agonizing having absolutely no fucking clue as to where she could have gone. When Scarlett finally calmed down after going haywire at her sister's disappearance and dealing with all the other bullshit she had just been through i.e. the fire that killed her mother, father, and Wesley not to mentioned nearly took her and Ace down with it, she realized there was only one place Jade would go, her foster home. My girl ran to the only family she had left who in her eyes hadn’t betrayed her. I was ready to go get her back, tie her up and force her to listen to what I have to say before fucking her so savagely that she’d be begging me never to let her get away again.

Scarlett wouldn’t have it. She found out a week ago that Jade was in fact staying at her old house and was doing okay. Her foster mom assured her that it was best to let Jade work things out on her own and not push her into anything before she’s ready. Scar agreed to her foster mom’s terms, but the lady doesn’t fucking know me. She doesn’t know Jade the way I do, and she sure as fuck doesn’t know what I know.

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