Page 101 of Bad Habit
“Dude.” Nick stretched his arm across the back of the sofa. “What did she ask you to do?” He and Jade shared a heated look.
“It’s not important.” My entire body ignited with a combination of desire and shame remembering what I’d done with and to Faith.
“Let’s back up.” Jade pressed her hands into her knees. “Where did you meet?”
“At the mission on Sequoia.”
“The mission? She a nun?” Nick started laughing. When I didn’t, he leaned forward. “A nun? Seriously? What the fuck, Mac?”
Jade tried to cover her shock, then slid over top of Nick to sit closer to me. “What went wrong?”
“She a fucking nun!” Nick said. “That’s what went wrong.”
Never taking her eyes off me, Jade gave Nick the finger. “It’s okay, Mac. Tell us.”
“She’s not a nun.” My brother still looked disgusted. “She was planning to become one before we met, but—”
Nick snorted. “But then she got a taste of your sausage.”
Jade nudged him. “Don’t be crude.”
“Seriously?” Nick shot her a look, she gave him the finger again, and then they both laughed.
“Be nice.” Jade rubbed his chest. “Give Mac a chance to finish.”
I leaned back in my chair and shook my head. “There’s not much more to say.” Not without going into the details of our sin consultant arrangement and I wasn’t about to share that. I’d done enough damage to Faith. “I was stupid to think we’d work.”
“Not stupid,” Jade said. “You fell in love.”
I nodded. I had. I’d fallen hard. “But I wrecked it.”
“Listen,” my little brother said in his deep voice. “We all screw up, but if you love her, you need to find a way to fix it.” He smiled at Jade. “I did.”
“Nick’s attempts at apologies were beyond lame.” Jade kissed him on the cheek. “But eventually he wore me down. Because I love him too.”
“Yeah, but what I did was unforgivable. And that’s not even the point—”
“The point is—you’re not good enough for her,” Jade cut me off.
Hearing it from her made me angry, but she was absolutely right. All she was doing was repeating my words. Words that were true. I dropped my head.
“You’re just scared,” she said.
I raised my head to glare. I was no coward.
“I totally know what you’re going through. I had that same fear. That I didn’t deserve Nick.”
“Him?” I pointed at my brother. “You sure?”
“Fuck off,” Nick said.
“I’m serious,” Jade continued. “My whole life I’d never had anyone I could depend on but myself, and deep down I figured that was my fault. That I didn’t deserve to be treated with respect or to have anyone take care of me for a change. But with Nick… I realized I was just afraid. Afraid to expose myself to disappointment.”
Afraid? I tipped my head to the side, considering what she’d said. I’d never been afraid of anything. Not since I was a little kid, and even then I’d been brave, the one who checked for monsters under the bed I shared with Dill.
“She knows about the container.” I kept my eyes pointed toward the floor, not my brother. What happened with the Downeys was supposed to stay between the Downeys. “The drugs. All of it. She knows a lot of other stuff we’ve done, too. And she said if I ever go near her again she’ll call the cops, tell them everything she knows. About me. About us.” I glanced up at Nick.
He nodded, slowly, then shrugged. “The cops already have the stuff from the container, right?”
