Echoes of Us (7 page)

“Oh yeah. I think she was trying to get pregnant on purpose,” he said. “To force me into marrying her.”

At least I never had to worry about that shit. As far as I knew, dudes couldn’t get pregnant.

“She’s not pregnant, right?” I asked.

“No, I stayed the fuck away from her after I caught her dumping her birth control pills in the toilet,” Jade said. “It pissed her off.”

“It would piss me off too,” I said.

“What?”

“The not having sex part,” I clarified.

“Oh,” he said. “Right.”

He didn’t sound convinced, but maybe they had a terrible sex life. It wasn’t like I was going to ask him to explain. I could care less what he and Daria got up to in the bedroom. I heard enough of hetero sexcapades from Maggie when she was knee-deep in a relationship.

“When we broke up, I felt like a massive weight lifted off my chest. She was stifling,” Jade said.

I didn’t know what to say. He didn’t seem like he needed comforting. In fact, it didn’t feel like he actually liked the girl. It was safer to change the subject. “How do you know Jeff?” I asked. It was a risky question, because I had no idea if Jeff’s friends knew anything about me.

“His girlfriend and my ex are good friends. I don’t know him all that well, but he seems like a good guy. Although, when he told me he was getting married, he didn’t seem all that excited.”

I was glad he didn’t ask my opinion of Jeff.

He flipped the blinker and turned into a parking lot. At the far end, I could see a dark-haired woman sitting on the steps, surrounded by boxes and several garbage bags. She frowned when I got out of the car. Jade ignored her and didn’t bother to introduce us. I had no desire to meet her anyway.

“Can I talk to you for a second?” she asked Jade when we were loading the last of the boxes into his car.

“Why?” Jade asked. “It’s over. What could we possibly have to discuss?”

His voice was cold and it made me shudder, even though it wasn’t directed at me.

Daria’s eyes widened and filled with tears that soon streamed down her face. She sniffed and gave him a pathetic look that would have forced me to talk to her. I was a total wimp when people cried.

“Not going to work, Daria,” Jade said. “Have a nice life.”

He jumped into the car, revved the engine, and we took off before she could wipe the snot that dripped from her nose. She flipped us off and stomped back into the apartment building. Jade didn’t even look back at her, but he seemed to visibly relax once we were about two blocks away.

“Thanks for coming with me,” Jade said. “It’s great to get my stuff back. Of course, it could be busted up, but it’s still my stuff. I really didn’t think she’d give it back to me.”

“You’re welcome,” I answered and yawned widely. It was hard to hide how tired I was.

Jade turned the radio up, and I leaned back in the seat, closing my eyes. Before I knew it, Jade was shaking me, telling me we were home.

“Sorry,” I muttered.

“I know you’re tired,” he said. “We don’t have to unload this stuff right now. It can wait until morning.”

“It is morning,” I mumbled. “Might as well take a couple boxes when we go inside.”

He nodded and we loaded our arms and made our way inside as quietly as possible. I set the boxes I carried in the corner of his room. The bed was in a different place, and he had clothes strewn around the room. The desk and the dresser had switched places. I collapsed on the bed and watched Jade carefully open a few of the boxes and dig through them until he pulled out a pile of CD’s and a few notebooks.

He was murmuring happily about being reunited with his stuff. The last thing I remember was feeling the bed dip and hearing pages of a notebook being turned, until the sun shining in my eyes woke me up. For a moment, I thought it was Jeff snuggling into my side, but when my eyes finally focused, it was Jade’s hair that was tickling my nose.

I rubbed my eyes and saw Maggie leaning in the doorway, holding back a smile, and shaking her head.

Jade moved closer to me. My eyes almost popped out of my head when I felt his hand brush against my thigh. Maggie chewed on her lip and snorted. I was incredibly thankful I was still wearing jeans.

He groaned, opened his eyes, and stared at me with big brown eyes. If I was a guy who fell in love, it could have happened right there. He blinked, grinning at me.

“You passed out in my bed,” Jade said.

“Yeah, sorry about that,” I mumbled and sat up, making sure I kept the blankets pooled around my waist. There was no need to show off my morning wood to anyone. Maggie was now snickering into her hand.

“Good morning, boys,” Maggie said and disappeared before I could throw anything at her.

Jade rolled out of bed and headed into the bathroom. He was so quick I didn’t get a good look at his naked back. The idea that he had been shirtless, sleeping next to me, was stimulating. Something I didn’t need to think about if I wanted to get rid of my erection, which was painfully pressing against the zipper of my jeans.

Since Jade was in the bathroom and Maggie was in the kitchen, I took the opportunity to jump out of bed and race to my room. I dressed in workout clothes, deciding I needed to take a run.

Maggie was busy cursing us for hiding the food. Her voice was muffled, so I peeked around the corner. Half her body was inside one of the cupboards, and two bags of chips sat by her knees. Her cleaning supplies were on the chair. It was time for me to disappear unless I wanted to find myself wearing yellow rubber gloves and hauling around a spray bottle of something that made things sparkle and smell sterile. I backed up and banged into something solid.

“Are you going for a run?” Jade asked.

“Shhh,” I whispered, pointing at Maggie, who was now mumbling about how could anyone not know that cereal did not belong in the drawer with the bread.

Jade nodded, and we both tiptoed to the front door.

“I heard you,” Maggie yelled.

“We’re going for a run,” I shouted and shoved Jade out the door before Maggie could holler at us to get in the kitchen and help her. “Sorry about that, but she’s on the warpath. We messed up her kitchen.”

“It’s okay,” Jade said. “I was going to ask if you wanted to go for a run.”

It was then I noticed he was wearing running shorts and tennis shoes.

“Good morning, boys,” Mrs. Morgan shouted. “I see I get two for one this morning.”

I nodded at her, and Jade laughed. “She’s funny.”

“Never a dull moment with Mrs. Morgan around. She really likes it when I wash the car. Sets up a lawn chair and sips on a drink.”

His gaze swept down my body. “Maybe I’ll join her next time,” he murmured, or at least that’s what I thought he said.

Usually I ran with headphones on, but today I listened to Jade talk. We had a lot in common. We both ditched our hometowns and families the minute we graduated from high school, and moved to the big city.

“My mom was never a very caring person,” Jade said, choosing his words carefully.

“My mom doesn’t like me,” I said.

“Why would you say that?” Jade asked, slowing to a walk. “Mind if we walk the rest of the way home? I’m a little out of shape.”

“Uh, she, well….” I stumbled over a few words and ended up laughing, because he was far from out of shape.

He shoved me and told me to shut up. We teased each other, bumping shoulders as we walked, forgetting about our family discussion. I didn’t really want to get into my personal life.

Mrs. Morgan was still messing around in her garden when we got back to the house. She waved and winked at me. I shook my head and rolled my eyes.

Jade headed for the shower, but I stopped in the kitchen to get some water. Maggie’s ass was still sticking out one of the cupboards, so I gave her a quick slap.

“Ouch!” she shrieked and banged her head on the cupboard. “Were you guys drunk when you put the groceries away?”

“No. I was exhausted, though.”

She dismissed my comment with an exaggerated eye roll. “So, what do you think? He’s really nice, isn’t he?”

It would have been easy to lie, but why bother. She could read me like an open book. “Yeah, he is,” I agreed.

“You look much better,” Maggie said. She handed me a bottle of water.

“I actually slept well last night.” She snickered and I shook my head. “He’s straight, Maggie.”

“Right, I always sleep snuggled up to someone I barely know.”

“You snuggle with me.”

“Because it’s you.”

“You did it on the first night we met. You didn’t have a clue I wasn’t straight,” I reminded her.

Her cheeks stained red. “I was hoping you were straight.”

I poked her in the ribs, and she laughed. “I went with him last night to pick up the rest of his things from his ex-girlfriend’s place. Notice the girl part.”

“Well, it sure didn’t look like it when I was watching you two sleep this morning.” She poked at her phone and shoved the screen in front of my face. Jade’s face was buried in my neck, and my nose was buried in his hair.

“Erase that,” I said.

“No!” she shrieked again and snatched the phone out of my hand.

“Maggie,” I warned.

“Rylan,” she said and stuck her tongue out at me.

“Um, hey,” Jade said. “What are you guys doing?”

Maggie shoved the phone in her pocket and tossed a dirty cleaning rag at Jade’s head. He snagged it out of the air and frowned at her.

“Don’t worry,” Maggie said. “I’m done cleaning. I was telling Rylan he should do my laundry since I had to clean up the mess in the kitchen.”

Jade shrugged. “I can do that. Get your stuff together and show me where you keep the washing machine.”

“Oh my God, we are so keeping you,” Maggie said and pinched Jade’s cheek. She skipped out of the room, singing about the best roommate ever.

“Are you nuts?” I asked.

“Doing laundry doesn’t bother me,” Jade said. “In fact, it’s therapeutic.”

I walked out of the room, returned with a basket of dirty clothes, and dropped them at his feet.

“Only doing my part to make you feel at home.” I smirked at him, and he threw a dirty towel in my face. He raced out of the kitchen with me in hot pursuit. I caught him around the waist and tackled him on the couch. I thought I had the upper hand, but he flipped me over and we tumbled to the floor, laughing and trying to better each other. Jade was surprisingly strong, and I could feel his muscles flexing when I grabbed his biceps. I couldn’t control my body’s reaction.

The feeling intensified when he pushed his hips forward. It was too much, and I needed to get him off me before he felt something he shouldn’t feel. I started to panic, so I did the thing Maggie totally hated. I licked his wrist. He yelped and rolled off me.

“Rylan cheated, didn’t he,” Maggie said, shaking her head.

“Yeah, he licked me,” Jade said, staring at his wrist.

“He does it to me all the time,” she said, offering her hand to Jade. He leaped to his feet and grabbed the basket out of her hand, leaving me on the floor and Maggie staring after him.

I sat up and raised my knee, hoping to hide my half-hard dick. “I needed to get him off me. Fuck, he’s probably pissed at me, but….”

Maggie ruffled my hair. “It’s okay, Rylan. He’s fucking hot, and if he was ever on top of me like that….” She raised her eyebrows and bit her lip. I chased the image out of my head.

“Stop it,” I said weakly.

“Good idea,” she said and pulled me to my feet.

“I should finish unpacking.”

She nodded and let me go without an argument. Shit, Jade probably thought I was a raging lunatic, but what the fuck would he have thought if he felt the growing bulge in my pants? Straight boys usually didn’t like to feel another man’s junk rubbing against their thigh.

Even though I hadn’t been up long, the recent activities had worn me out. Instead of putting things away, I shoved my partially unpacked suitcase on the floor and climbed into bed.

When I woke up, I was disoriented and didn’t exactly know where I was. There was a pile of clean clothes folded neatly on my chair. Jade must have really done my laundry, because Maggie was shit at folding. I crept out of my room, finding the house eerily quiet. There was a note in the kitchen propped up against a clean bowl, spoon, and a box of my favorite cereal, telling me they had headed over to the campus.

Halfway through my second bowl of cereal, my phone rang and Maggie’s smiling face showed on my screen. I kept eating and let it go to voice mail. After the third call, I picked it up. Maggie shouted at me for not answering, calling me rude.

“I was eating,” I shouted into my phone. “What do you want?”

She didn’t want anything except to tell me she and Jade were picking up some books for her class and some art supplies for Jade. Apparently, he was an art major, or maybe it was graphic design. I needed to ask him myself.

“Can you check if my writing class has a book assigned?”

She agreed, and I gave her my class information. Before she hung up, she informed me I owed them both dinner. They would be home around five thirty and I was to have food on the table.

Although it was nice to have the house to myself, I was also a tiny bit jealous Maggie was spending the day with Jade. The good thing was she might find out some more information about the guy.

After I finished my cereal, I decided to unpack and put all my clean clothes away. I stared at my journals for a few minutes, but I really didn’t have time to lose myself in writing; plus, the writing thing had sucked lately. I stacked the books on my desk and headed for the shower.

With that out of the way, I went to the kitchen and found chicken breasts sitting in the fridge with a detailed note attached to them. Maggie had provided the menu for tonight’s meal and the location of all the ingredients.

Dinner was almost finished when I heard car doors slamming, followed by loud laughter and the rustling of plastic bags.

“I’m starving,” Maggie shouted.

“Dinner awaits,” I yelled back.

She bounded into the kitchen, grinning when she saw the table was set and her salad was waiting. The oven timer binged, and I opened the door, filling the kitchen with the smell of seasoned chicken breasts.