Until Lexi

5

LEXI

Knock. Knock. Knock.

Everyone freezes.

My heart skips a beat, knowing who’s rapping on our front door.

I glance at my sisters, waiting for one of them to get up and let Jake inside.

No one moves an inch.

“You’ve met him, Lex. You get the door,” Riley insists.

“He’s here for you,” I argue, but I’m already getting out of my seat.

My hands tremble as I smooth out the non-existent wrinkles in my shirt. Letting out a slow breath, I run my fingers through my hair as I move down the hall. The sound of Riley and Penny snickering follows me to the door. Grinding my teeth, I roll my eyes and reach for the knob. Their teasing laughter doesn’t stop.

They can’t see me, but I turn around anyway and hiss, “Shut the hell up!” through clenched teeth.

Penny snorts, the laughter dies, and silence fills the house.

Now that they’ve found their maturity—at least temporarily—I take another deep breath to steady my nerves. I’ve never been nervous around a guy before, and I’m not sure what the hell my deal is now. In fact, it kinda irritates me that I feel so unsteady when it comes to Jake.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

Silently cursing myself, I push it all down, put on my mask, and open the door.

“Hey, Jake,” I say with a smile, pushing open the storm door. “Come on in.”

“Lexi.”

That deep rumble affects me in ways I’m not sure I’ll ever understand, and as he moves past me into the house, I breathe in a sudden burst of amber, leather, and lemon. The fresh fragrance is somehow both masculine and sweet, and it sends my hormones spiraling.

Damn, what this man does to me.

It’s the Jake Effect.

Mentally shaking it off, I close the door and head back toward the living room where everyone is waiting. “Follow me.”

I feel the intensity of his stare, but I don’t dare turn around.

Entering the living room, I begin introductions.

“Jake, this is Penny,” I tell him, pointing to her as I say her name. I do the same for the rest of the girls in the room. “Hope, Mercy… and Riley.”

Jake’s expression changes when he looks at Mercy, something indecipherable flashes in his eyes. Before I can figure out what caused it, he turns to Riley, and it’s gone.

“Riley,” he says in that low rumble, moving toward her and extending his hand. “You have no idea how good it is to finally meet you.”

Riley stands, a bit of tension easing in her shoulders as she shakes his hand.

“I’m sure I don’t.”

“Would you like something to drink, Jake?” Penny asks, standing from her seat.

He offers her a smile, but politely declines.

Penny returns his smile but doesn’t sit back down. Instead, she moves toward Mercy and quietly ushers her from the room. We decided it would be easier to talk without the chance of Mercy interrupting or hearing something she shouldn’t. Penny volunteered to stay back with her while the rest of us talk. It should be Hope, but… that’s not how it works around here, especially lately.

Jake’s gaze follows the two of them until they’re out of sight.

“Have a seat anywhere,” I say, drawing his attention back to me.

Riley takes her place back on the loveseat and I return to the spot on the couch where I was sitting before he arrived. Jake sits down next to me, angled to face both of us. Hope is still in the room, planted in her normal spot in the recliner, but no one pays her much mind. I think she prefers it that way.

Silence reigns for a minute, making the tension in the room feel damn near suffocating.

Jake is the one to finally break it.

“Thanks for agreeing to sit down and hear me out, Riley,” he starts, lips tipping at the corners when all she offers is a nod. “You’re a difficult person to find.”

“But you found me.”

“I got lucky, to be honest. I’ve been looking for over a year. Hell, until the other day, I had no idea if you were a man or a woman. All I had to go on was a name.”

“You might have had an easier time if Riley was my given name.”

Jake looks curious, but Riley isn’t about to offer him an explanation. He realizes quickly that she isn’t an open book and moves on without asking any questions.

“I guess I should start at the beginning,” he says, looking between the two of us before focusing on Riley. “I met Adam a long time ago. After his mom killed herself when he was seventeen, Adam and his sister were taken in by his best friend’s family. When his sister went missing and the police couldn’t help, he hired me to find her, and I did—on several occasions. Last year, when he finally went through his mother’s belongings, he came across a bunch of documents, including his birth certificate. It wouldn’t have been a big deal, but the name listed as his father wasn’t the name of the man he knew as his father. With his mom dead and his ‘father’ nowhere to be found after bailing on them when he was a kid, Adam was left with a ton of questions and no one to give him answers. Knowing I could help, he called me.”

Riley and I listen with rapt attention as Jake continues his story. Even Hope is listening silently from across the room.

Jake explains how it was easy for him to find the information on Adam’s biological father. Turns out the guy was a real piece of shit, and Adam was better off not knowing him. His search uncovered police reports for domestic abuse. Jake also uncovered bits and pieces of information that led him to believe Adam had half-siblings out there in the world, so Adam asked him to keep searching. After losing his mom to suicide, and more recently losing his sister to an overdose, Adam was desperate for information about any family he might have.

“Damn,” Riley says, and I silently agree. We’ve all been through it, but Adam hasn’t had it easy either. “Am I the only one you’ve found?”

“No, there are others. Two brothers. One was living in the same town Adam recently moved to, and another showed up out of the blue while I was hunting down information about you.”

“Small world?” I ask, jokingly.

“Something like that,” Jake says, locking eyes with me as he continues his tale. “I don’t know all the details, but from what I’ve gathered… Adam’s best friend and his sister, Elena, were a thing for a long time. They had a little girl together, but eventually Adam and his friend, Ryan, forced Elena out of the picture when she kept choosing bad habits over her daughter. Ryan eventually decided to move to the small town in North Carolina where their parents were raised, the same town where Adam was apparently born. Adam followed Ryan to Blackwood to stay close to his niece.”

“If their parents were from that town, it makes sense that he’d find siblings there,” Riley muses.

“Exactly.”

“Tell me about them. You said one showed up out of the blue. How did they know they were related?”

“Felix,” Jake says, scratching his jaw as he chuckles. “Adam owns a tattoo shop. Two, actually. It’s a small world, because Adam was hiring, and Felix was one of the applicants. Everyone was shocked when he showed up for his interview. They were expecting some random person, and a mirror image of Adam walked through the door.”

“Twins?” I ask, wanting to be sure I’m understanding him correctly.

“Yeah. Felix was adopted as a baby. Without Adam’s mom being alive to give them answers, they’ve had to run on assumptions. They figure she kept one and gave one up for adoption. They’ll never know why, but they’ve made peace with it.”

“That’s fucking insane,” Riley says, astonished.

Jake and I both look at her. Him, out of curiosity. Me, trying to gauge how she’s taking all of this. It’s hard to tell, but I know she wants to know everything.

“What about the other brother?” I ask, my own curiosity getting the better of me.

“Noah,” Jake says.

From across the room, Hope’s breath hitches, causing the three of us to turn in her direction. I’d almost forgotten she was in the room.

“What’s his last name?” she asks in the softest of whispers.

Jake’s brows furrow, but he doesn’t hesitate to answer, “Vaughn.”

Penny walks back into the room, gasping at the name. Hope bursts into gut-wrenching sobs, confusing the hell out of all of us.

What the hell just happened?

Everyone in the room is immediately on edge. Jake sits in stony silence while Riley, Penny, and I rush toward Hope.

She won’t accept any comfort, immediately pushing us away. Hope pulls her legs to her chest, wrapping her arms around her knees as she cries, rocking herself back and forth. I have no idea what the fuck is going on, and Riley seems as clueless as me. I look at Penny, hoping she can shed some light on the situation. When I see the expression on her face, I know that whatever it is… it’s bad.

Surrounding Hope, we sit helplessly on the floor as she struggles to pull herself together. I spare a glance back at Jake. He sits motionless where we left him, watching the scene play out with a scrutinizing gaze. I can almost see his investigative brain trying to put together the pieces. I hope he has better luck than me, because I can’t even begin to guess what’s happening.

Minutes later, Hope’s tears slow to a trickle and her breathing begins to even out. Wiping her face on her sleeve, she sucks in a deep breath of air and blows it out slowly.

“I’m sorry.”

Her voice is scratchy, her words barely audible.

“You don’t need to apologize,” Riley says softly, “just… tell us what’s going on.”

Hope looks at the three of us, and then at Jake. Penny reaches over and takes Hope’s hand, giving it a gentle squeeze. Hope’s gaze moves toward the hallway leading to Mercy’s room for a split second before settling on the view out the window.

“I know Noah,” she explains, her voice cracking when she says his name. “We dated in college. It wasn’t serious… well, for me it wasn’t. Noah was in love with me, but I didn’t feel the same. We met at a bar one night and instantly hit it off. He was good looking, and super sweet. He wasn’t my usual type, and I was never as into him as he was into me… but… he was good to me, and I didn’t want to be alone anymore.”

Penny pulls her hand from Hope’s and crosses her arms over her chest. She pulls her bottom lip between her teeth and stares at the floor, refusing to meet anyone’s eye. Hope doesn’t seem to notice, or if she does, she doesn’t really care. She continues like nothing happened.

“There’s a chance…” she starts, hesitating. “Noah might be Mercy’s father.”

I bite back my reaction, hoping she’ll give us something more. I hear Jake shuffle behind us, but no one else moves, no one says a word. Penny seems to be the only one not taken aback by Hope’s admission, but she is angry. I can see it all over her face.

“Noah left college when he found out his mom was sick. Even though I knew our relationship should have ended when he left, I visited him a few times when I couldn’t take the loneliness anymore. On my last visit—” She gets choked up and takes a second to regain her composure. “On my last visit, Noah had to work and left me alone at his house. His dad stopped by. I’d met him before and he was always nice, so I let him in…”

Her eyes well with tears and I hold my breath, fearing what’s coming. Hope hasn’t turned her gaze from the window since she started talking. She won’t look at us now.

“He raped me,” she chokes out.