Page 12 of Subtracting the Heart

“In October, the daily reports started up again, and they were about Cade and two different guys. Do you make it a habit of hooking up with two guys at a time?” Ashton smirked.

The three of them laughed. “No. Not at all. Those other two guys would be Cleveland Oakes—his mother was here earlier and made the ice cream—and Griffon Summers. They’re a couple and they’re both my friends. I live in Griff’s old apartment.” Cade slid his eyes to Ford’s and then Jax’s, his cheeks pinking up in an instant.

Ford gasped. “Wait, I went there and the old lady who opened the door said Griff didn’t live there anymore.”

Cade giggled. “That would have been Mrs. Fitzgerald. She comes over to watch their cable in the afternoons… well, her andher cat, Matilda. She didn’t have cable so Griff gave her a key to the apartment, allowing her to watch her stories on a nicer television. That cat was a damn menace, though.”

“She doesn’t live there anymore?” Jax hoped nothing happened to the woman.

“Oh, she’s still there, but her son finally sprung for a new television and signed her up for cable. Oh, and that fucking cat died. Cleve is allergic, and I think he might have done something to it, but I couldn’t prove it. Anyway, who’s been following me?” Cade crossed his arms over his chest and stared at them.

Jax found the whole thing fascinating, but what he really wanted was to go to bed, hopefully with both men he loved.

Ashton’s exasperated sigh made Jax chuckle. “Anyway, on Saturday before I had to go back to school, I picked the lock on the drawer and saw another file in there which meant he knew I’d picked the lock and found the other file. It was a report outlining information about the Clark Street Shelter in Boystown, along with the address. I wrote it down and closed and locked the drawer. After that, I started hearing more and more shit about a boarding school in England. Since I hadn’t found my passport, I couldn’t take the chance they’d force me to go, so I took off.”

Ford opened his mouth to speak before Jax pointed to the clock over the sink. “I hate to break this up, but I’ve gotta hit the hay. I’ve got practice in the morning.”

Ash smirked. “You’ve sucked lately. I’m surprised they didn’t cut you.”

Cade slapped his shoulder, but Jax only chuckled. “I thought you didn’t know who I was?”

Ash laughed. “I couldn’t let you think I was a groupie, could I? I started looking into you when I saw your name in the file, and I’ve watched a few games. What was up?”

“I guess I missed your brother too much. Who is sleeping where?” Jax asked.

Ford started to speak, but Cade stood, studying his little brother. “You can sleep in the media room in one of those fancy recliners. Don’t turn up the sound too loud, okay?”

Cade stepped forward to pull Ashton into his arms, hugging him tightly. “We’ll figure this out, okay? Don’t lose hope.” The boy nodded before going on his way.

Cade looked at Jax and Ford, causing Jax’s heart to beat faster. “He knows the score, so there’s no use hiding it. Let’s go to bed, okay? I’m fucking exhausted and I’ve got to figure out what to do about him in the morning. I need to ship his ass downtown to his mother, but until I know the whole story…” Cade trailed off.

“I’ll take him with me to the stadium tomorrow. I can get somebody to give him a tour and feed him while I practice. Hell, maybe he likes football? We played Madden NFL and he seemed to know his way around the game. Anyway, Ford’s got a party tomorrow night at the club, so I’ll watch the kid. What about Christmas? Should we plan on him as a guest? We need to get him a gift at least, don’t we?”

Cade looked worried. “I’ve committed to staying at the shelter from the night of the twenty-third until the second of January so Stan and Sam can go skiing with family. I had no idea you guys would be in my life again before I made the commitment, and I can’t change it.” Cade’s sorrowful expression touched Jax’s heart.

Jax looked at Ford and smiled. “We’ll work around it. No worries.”

How they would work around Cade’s commitment wasn’t clear in that moment, but there was no way Ford and he weren’t going to spend the holidays with Kincade Hayes… and his little brother, he guessed. It was too damn important to miss.

Jax opened his eyes to see the sky turning a pale shade of lavender through the window shutters in the primary bedroom. He was spooned around Kincade who was snuggled into Ford’s chest. Jax’s morning hard-on was resting comfortably between the two gorgeous pillows of Cade’s ass cheeks, and it was heaven. The lack of sleep wouldn’t trip him up at practice either. He was running on pure sexual endorphins.

After the discussions in the kitchen, Cade took their hands and led them up to the master bedroom. “You’ll be okay with me sleeping… Have you two been sleeping apart?”

Ford chuckled. “Define ‘sleeping’. Look, after you left, we just sort of drifted. Jax and I haven’t been together since the last time the three of us were… yeah. I guess we’ve been performing self-service. I haven’t asked and he hasn’t complained or volunteered.”

Jax chimed in. “It just felt wrong without you, okay? We couldn’t help each other get over the hurt because we didn’t see it coming. Ford explained the whole thing to me, and I thought it was a great idea but when we couldn’t find you Kincade? We didn’t know how to handle it, so we didn’t. We went back to being the guys we were before you came into our lives and then we let it get worse.

“We don’t kiss each other often. We sure as fuck don’t do anything sexual with each other. Hell, we’d probably be ready to break up by the end of the season at the rate things were deteriorating. I haven’t been back to Fairytails. We don’t doanything together…” Jax continued before Cade kissed him to shut him up.

“How? You were at such a good place.” Cade pulled away.

Ford sighed. “We only got to that good place because we had you with us, Kincade. We do love each other or we’d have thrown in the towel a long time ago. Without you? We’re lost.”

All talking stopped as the three of them undressed each other and climbed into the king-sized bed. Jax didn’t remember the last time he’d slept there with Ford. He’d taken to sleeping in the recliner in the media room, and Ford never complained. It was back to being roommates, except they’d both completely lost the desire for sex. It just wasn’t there at all.

“I’d love to be the guy who lays out all these rules about going slow and stepping back from where we were when things fell apart but I’m not that guy. I haven’t been with anyone, and I had my last round of tests in November.” Cade glanced between them.

“I dragged Ford to the doctor two weeks ago because he was just ready to give up altogether. I’m negative, and he is too. What do you have in mind, chére?”

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