Page 10 of Better Left Unsaid

By the time I got to the door, my robe was tied in the front, and I’d fixed my hair the best I could so it didn’t look like I had just been thoroughly fucked. I kicked the clothes we left out here behind the couch and hoped it wasn’t Bianca or Allie because they would definitely notice. I could just see one of them saying, “You look freshly fucked.” Geez, they knew me so well.

Although, when I opened the door, I was surprised to see Jade standing there, her hands pulling frantically through her hair.

Was this because we’d said her name?

Note to self: don’t do that anymore. It apparently summoned her.Weird.

“Ohmigod, Maria,” she nearly yelled.That’s one hell of a greeting. Thank goodness she doesn’t work for a card company.“What took you so long? I was about ready to call the cops. I was afraid something happened to you. You really should answer the door more promptly.”Seems overly dramatic.Or responsible, depending on how you looked at it, but I was choosing to go with the former on this one.

I arched a brow and placed a hand on my hip. “What brings you by, Jade?” I asked in a no-nonsense tone. And it wasn’t just because she’d interrupted my time with Dom. It was because Jade and I were, well, we were what we were, which was not friends.

She twirled the bottom of her dark brown hair with her finger, smacking the gum in her mouth and extending her arm, a bag dangling from her wrist. “I was just at Allie’s, and she asked me to drop this off.” She wiggled the bag, and I slipped it from her wrist, not having the foggiest clue what it contained. “Said she didn’t want to put Gina in the car because she finally fell asleep, and Brady’s at work.”

“Thanks.” I eyed the bag, wondering if I should inspect its contents, but dropped it on the floor just the same. “Well, I appreciate it. Thanks for stopping by.” Now on a scale of one to ten—and I needed you to be honest with me—how obvious was it that if I could’ve turned her around and forced her to leave, I would’ve?

Although, much like the mouse Isabella stumbled upon in our house the other day, Jade didn’t seem to be leaving anytime soon. In case you were wanting a final update on the mouse front, though, I did get the rodent. It was now safely outside, where it belonged and needed to stay.

She narrowed her eyes and rolled her lips as though she was contemplating something. If it was whether she should leave, yes, yes, she should. “I think we should talk. Something’s off here,” she blurted out, clearly done thinking on it.

I scrunched my nose and furrowed my brows. “I don’t know what you—”

“I know you don’t like me,” she cut me off.Rude.

Not that it wasn’t rude what I was going to do, which was lie through my teeth, by the way. I didn’t have time to shoot the breeze with her. Especially not now. I’d been having secret relations with Dom for around three years at this point, and we’d never gotten caught. I know, I was patting myself on the back just thinking about it. Well, there was that first time when Rocco had almost caught us, but that didn’t count, right? We were newbies at sneaking around. Now we were practically professionals. Professional sex sneakers. . . had an odd ring to it. I didn’t hate it. I didn’t like it, either.

Finally, I shook my head, clearing my thoughts and getting back to Jade. “That’s not true,” I lied.

Not that she heard a word of what I said anyway, and if she did, it went in one ear and right out the other because she continued, “I get why. I really do, but I—” She cut herself off and pointed inside, angling her head. “Can I come in? This feels strange, having this conversation on your doorstep.”

This was my opportunity. I could say no. Something told me she wouldn’t take that for an answer, though. So I nodded—begrudgingly—and invited her in, closing and locking the door behind her.One unexpected visitor is enough for tonight.“It’s not that I don’t like you, Jade. Truth is, I don’t know you well enough to have feelings one way or another,” I explained, finally leaning into this whole talking business. I mean, why not? She wasn’t going to leave until we did, so I’d play along.

She moved toward the kitchen, placing her purse on the counter beside my phone and slouching into a barstool as she blew a bubble with her gum and then promptly popped it. “I know,” she said as I came around and stood opposite of her, my arms crossed as I listened to what was on her mind. “That’s why I think this is necessary, and I offered to drop off Allie’s. . . whatever’s in there. We need to remedy that. Because, believe me, I understand where you’re coming from. Really, I do.”

I scoffed. Why wasn’t I buying that? “I’m sorry, but I find that hard to believe.”

She gave me a doubtful look, narrowing her eyes. “Let’s see. You were the oldest sister. You thought that you were your mother’s firstborn child. From what I’ve gathered, your family is immensely close, so this was not only shocking for you, but it made you feel like the ground beneath you was crumbling. I don’t know you too well, but I’m pretty perceptive, and you like things just so. Surprises aren’t your friend.” She sighed. “Am I off base?”

All right, so she wasn’t wrong.

Annoying because she knew all of that about me? Yes. But wrong? No.

Not that I was about to tell her that she was right. That would only further inflate her already obviously big ego.I’m pretty perceptive. Well, congrats, Jade, truly.The only problem was that none of that changed the fact that she was a stranger. Sue me, but I didn’t welcome people into my life with open arms easily.

My last boyfriend, Pedro, for instance, had wanted to meet Isabella. We hadn’t been far enough along in our relationship, though, for me to feel comfortable with that. So I’d had to make a tough choice and ask myself if I even saw a future with him. Short answer: I had not. It’d ended as quickly as it’d started.

Because, at the end of the day, I felt it was my job to protect this family. So that was what I’d do until my last dying breath. Mom had done it. And, sure, Dad did it, but he had his own struggles (unexpectedly losing his wife) and now it was my turn to step up in more ways than one.

“Why does this mean so much to you?” I asked, drawing my brows together as I tried to figure her out. Honestly, she was one of the hardest people to read. People were complicated, that was just a fact. Jade, though. . . well, she was a whole other level of complicated. Something told me she was more complicated than most. But that was merely a hunch.

She rolled her lips, studying my expression, and scratched the skin on her exposed shoulder, courtesy of her racerback gym tank top. “Because I don’t have a family,” she replied simply, her brown brows furrowing. And just like that, my arms dropped, and I tried to see things from her point of view. “I never envied people like you with big, close families that share quite literally everything. But then I got to know you all, and I see how you guys are together.” She smiled. “I didn’t know how much I was missing until now, you know?”

I chuckled, shaking my head. “I’m not going to pretend to understand where you’re coming from, but I would like to try to understand.” I remembered what our mother had always said—family is the most important thing. And it really was. That was how I was raising Isabella. I was raising her to believe the same thing. Because at the end of the day, people came and went, and sometimes it was that way with family, but with my family I knew that even in the darkest moments, I’d make it through. They were my beacon of hope, ray of light at the end of every damn tunnel.

No matter how mad I got at my sisters, they were always—and I meanalways—there for me. They showed up. Besides them, Dom was the only other person in my life who I could depend on in more ways than one—and he wasn’t blood.Oh, shit, Dom.

Jade went to speak, but I cut her off, giving her a sheepish look as I tugged my robe tighter around my frame. “Listen, why don’t we meet up for coffee or have breakfast or something? Hmm?”

“That sounds nice,” she replied, smiling. “Truth be told, I had no idea what was going to come of this. I had no expectations. But I’m really happy I did this. And I have Allie to thank for coming here today and—”

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