Page 28 of Code Word
“And Maddox being all best friends with him and Luke talking to him and not me. That shit pissed me off.”
“Because Maddox understands. Luke’s trying to deal with who he is.”
“Iknowwho he is. I know every single thing about him.”
Except, I clearly didn’t.
Jeremy’s raised eyebrow said exactly that too.
Fuck this.
“He’s finally accepted this part of himself,” Jeremy murmured quietly. “And to do that, he needed to accept that he was in love with you and that it could ruin his entire world.”
“His entire world . . . ?”
“You, Blake. Christ, it would kill him, you know that.”
“He would never lose me over anything. But he’s the one pushing me away.”
“He just needs time.”
“He needs to talk to me. I should be having this conversation with him.”
Jeremy shook his head. “Not yet. You both need to work through shit first.”
The fuck?
“What the fuck have I gotta work through?”
The security gate buzzed and I was all set to ignore it, but Jeremy said, “That’ll be the pizza guy.”
I’d forgotten he’d ordered it, and as soon as he mentioned it, my stomach growled. I went to the monitor and sure enough, it was a pizza delivery guy holding a pizza box. I buzzed him through and went in search of my wallet to tip the guy.
Of course, I couldn’t find it. I pulled some cushions off the couch, found my phone—saw all the missed messages and calls, saw that I’d apparently texted Luke and he hadn’t evenopened it, groaned, and tossed it back onto the other couch—and finally found my wallet.
I only had fifties, so I tipped the guy one—to his surprise—and had the first slice shoved into my mouth before I got back to the kitchen.
Jeremy was texting on his phone. It was, without doubt, a text to Maddox about me. Or maybe to Steve. Probably Steve. But it was an update on me, of that I was sure.
“Want a slice?” I asked.
He shrugged and pocketed his phone. “Sure.”
I waited until he had a mouthful of pizza before I asked him straight up. “Did you give Steve the rundown on me?”
He looked mad as he chewed and swallowed. “You know, people do actually care about you. You know that, right?”
I snorted out a laugh and shoved another bite into my mouth, and Jeremy studied me.
“Blake,” he said quietly. “You do know that, right? We love you. We all do. Even Steve.”
I finished chewing and still shrugged it off. “Sure.”
I didn’t know that. And I didn’t believe it, but I wasn’t having this conversation with him.
I didn’t need to.
The last two days had shown me all I needed to see.
