Always with You (WIth You Trilogy) (31 page)

I slapped his arm playfully and shook my head, hiding behind my hair.

“But then we started talking,” his face sobered somewhat and he looked at me fondly. “And you were so excited about starting uni but you were so timid at the same time. You were so cute.”

“So you didn’t hit on me because I was cute?” I scowled. “Like a puppy.”

“Like a squirrel,” Adam chuckled. He always found Jason’s nickname for me to be hilarious. “I didn’t hit on you because I liked you, Jamie.”

I raised my eyebrow at him suspiciously. I wasn’t buying it.

“I’m serious, shorty,” he chuckled. “I’d never really had a family. I didn’t know how it was meant to feel, but talking to you was the closest thing I’d ever had to a sister and that wasn’t something I was willing to miss out on.”

“Aw,” I gushed, throwing my arms around his shoulders
. “You’re so sweet.”

He scoffed but returned my hug tightly, tugging playfully on
my ponytail just like my brothers did. He sort of did feel like an extra brother. Especially when he pulled away and stuck his tongue out at me in an attempt to brush off the emotional vibe we had going on.

“So you wanted a sister and got seven brothers in the process?” I
grinned, trying to ease his discomfort.

“Eight if you count Jason,” he laughed. “Pretty sure he’s going to be around for a while.

“Yeah,” I grinned. “I hope so.” Since Jason opened up with me, everything had been so perfect between us. His mind-reading capabilities seemed stronger than ever. It was like all the insecurities between us had washed away. I was more certain than ever that I wanted the rest of my life to feature Jason. Heavily. He was so happy all the time, even when he was stressed out with his thesis, there was still laughter in his eyes.

There were no physical or emotional barriers left between us. I knew him well enough to read his emotional cues. I could tell when he was getting hungry or he had the itch to work out. I could tell when he was horny, which was
almost always, and I could tell when he wanted nothing more than to hold me in his arms for a while.

There was such joy to be found in that sort of intimacy, it was something I’d never anticipated but
would never take for granted.

Saturday
, 21st December 2013

“Hi, Rab!” I called out, letting myself into Alex’ house with Jason and Adam close behind.

“Hey, Jellybaby,” he winked back from his perch on the counter.

“Oh
God, not you as well,” I laughed, hearing him use Alex’ nickname for me for the first time.

“Alex is rubbing off on you,” Jason smirked, bumping fists with Rab.

“You mind?” He grinned at me.

“No, of course not,” I laughed. “Where is he?”

“In the bedroom freaking out,” Rab shook his head in amusement. “He won’t let me in.”

“How bad is it, on a scale fr
om one to ten?” I laughed, well versed in Alex-drama.

“Six?” He answered uncertainly.

“Best put the kettle on then,” I smiled.

I left the guys chatting happily in the kitchen before I went in search of Alex’ Mum so I could say hello.
I found Alex in his room surrounded by wrapping paper and mountains of presents.

“Oh my God, thank Spock you’re here,” he cried, leaping from the bed to hug me.

“Spock?” I giggled.

“Me and Rab are on a Star Trek kick,” he answered, running his hands through his carefully styled hair. I could tell he’d done it a few times because it was way messier than usual.

“What’s up, Alex? I got your SOS text,” I asked, settling myself on the end of his bed.

“Everything’s up!” He sighed. “And that wasn’t even a dirty joke so you can tell how bad this is.”

I stifled a smirk and reached out to grab his hand.

“Rab’s present is all wrong!” He whined, grabbing a roll of wrapping paper and tapping it against his leg restlessly.

I frowned at him. He’d dragged me and Adam round town for a solid five hours amassing a million different things that he wanted to give Rab. It was their first Christmas together and he wanted to make sure it was a good one.

“What’s wrong with it?” I frowned.

“What if I send the wrong message?” He pouted. “What if he takes it the wrong way and thinks we’re getting too serious or not serious enough?”

“Alex,” I smiled. “You are
seriously
overthinking this.”

“No, I’m not. W
hat if I spent too much money, or not enough, or-”

I cut him off by pressing my hand over his mouth gently. “Alex, shut up,” I grinned. “You know Rab, you know he’s not like that. Whatever you give him he’s going to love. He’s not materialistic. He’ll be happy just to spend the day with you.”

“But I need this to be special for us,” he whined.

“And it will be,” I reassured him. “Just stop overanalysing everything.”

He sunk down against the bed, landing on a pile of already wrapped presents. “You think?” He asked dejectedly.

“
I know,” I answered, happy to see that he seemed to be calming down a bit. “Are you all done wrapping?”

“Yeah,” he sighed. “I swear I have blisters from it all.” He held out his wonderfully soft hands to prove it, or
rather fail to prove it.

I raised my eyebrow at him but decided not to call him on it. Reaching for his hand, I pulled him up from the bed and gave him a hug.
“Come on, hot stuff. Our guys are out there waiting for us. Rab put the kettle on.”

When we returned to the kitchen, Rab and Jason were trying to teach Adam Arabic. He sounded more like he was choking on a
fur ball than forming the lyrical sounds Rab and Jason were producing. I loved watching Jason speak another language; his full lips moved around the words as if he was forming the essence of each sound with every movement.

“A
na b'hebbak,” Alex chimed in, looking up at Rab through his far too long eyelashes. Eyelashes that I was insanely jealous of.

I looked up at Alex curiously, wondering what he’d said. By the pleased look on Rab’s face and the way he repeated the words back adoringly, I figured it was a declaration of love.

“I think I’ll stick to English,” Adam screwed up his face in frustration. “Sorry for butchering your language.”

“I’ve heard worse,” Rab grinned. “
You should hear Jason try to speak it when he lifts.”

Jason fake scowled. “That’s not fair, my English is just as bad when I’m lifting.”

“Excuses, excuses,” Rab winked, pulling Alex into his side and handing him a mug.

“Damn, always the spare wheel,” Adam grumbled when Jason lifted me onto his lap.
Despite things not working out with him and Laura, he seemed to be doing okay on the girl front so I didn’t take him too seriously.

“You
weren’t complaining in those pictures,” Jason smirked, spinning his phone in one hand.

“What pictures?” I asked.

“You don’t want to see, baby,” Jason chuckled.

“When me and Jake went out with Craig,” Adam explained with a cheeky smile.

“Let’s see,” Rab gestured for Jason’s phone.

I watched Jason pull up Craig’s Facebook page and cringed as I caught sight of a mass of semi-naked women crowded round a fairly grumpy Craig.

“Ugh, too much make-up,” Alex complained, looking at the images of the women.

“Carter doesn’t look as happy as he should do,” Rab chuckled, passing the phone back.

“He was grinding his teeth all night,” Adam chuckled. “I think he wanted to murder Jake by the time he left.”

“He hated being in the spotlight even when I first met him years ago,” Jason nodded. “Outside the cage of course.”

“Well if it means being surrounded by that, he can share it with me anytime,” Adam grinned.

“Very generous of you,” I rolled my eyes at him.

“What friends are for,” he winked back.

Alex’
Mum came in and was immediately happy to see Adam, gushing over him as if he was nine rather than nineteen. Alex and I exchanged a smirk as Adam blushed furiously.

“Oh, Rab. What an angel,” she declared
when Rab handed her a fresh cup of tea in an effort to save Adam.

Rab smiled courteously and replaced his arm around Alex who immediately
snuggled closer to him. It was sweet to see them so happy but I knew it must have been hard on them when Alex’ Dad was around. He spent his Saturday afternoons playing golf so they were free from his judgmental stares for a while at least.

“Jelly, darling,” Alex’ Mum addressed me. “Will you be coming over to help us demolish the chocolate?”

Their family always hung chocolate ornaments on the tree and nobody was allowed to eat them until the day after Boxing Day. I usually dropped in to join in but I’d missed it the year before with Alex being away.

“It’d be my pleasure,” I grinned. “Would you mind if I
brought Jason?”

“The more the merrier,” she smiled but then paused and looked thoughtful. “Maybe that’s not quite true. If we invited your brothers it’d be over far too quickly.”

“Very true,” I laughed. “Most of them will already be back at work anyway.”

“Aw,” she sighed sympathetically. “Bless them, no rest for the wicked, eh?”

“Nope. Busiest time of year for the hospital and fire station.”

“What about the oldest two?”

“Karl’s off work but Ian has to go down to London for the day.”

“At least they get Christmas off though?” She smiled.

“Yeah mostly,” I nodded. “Craig is working over night on Christmas Eve but he’ll be back in time for presents and sprouts.”

We had tea and biscuits bu
t excused ourselves once Alex’ Dad got home. Rab and Alex looked equally glad to be away from him. Jason and Rab took Berty the Volvo to the gym to work out and the rest of us headed back to our house.

I uncovered one of the many tubs of biscuits and snuck them into the lounge with us. I figured if my brothers were stealing them, I might as well join in since
I was the one that baked them.

Alex was convinced he could convert Adam and I to Trekkies so we were coerced into watching the whole of ‘Voyager’. It really was hard to say no to him.

A few episodes in, Ian and Jake joined us. The general rule was that the oldest in the room got control of the remote but Ian didn’t protest when I clutched it to my chest and pouted. He just chuckled and dropped a kiss on my forehead. He helped annihilate a good portion of the biscuits but compensated by fetching cans of fizzy pop for all of us.

It seemed like a simple gesture but nothing Ian did was ever simple. Usually
, he’d just send one of us to go and get the drinks; it was a way of subtly reminding us of who was in charge. Jake hated it and it was quite often the motivation behind him kicking off and getting into trouble. When Ian handed him a can of diet coke, the gesture wasn’t lost on him. He looked almost childlike as he grinned at Ian and thanked him.

Ian, being Ian,
saw me staring and probably noticed the surprised look in my eyes. He shot me a wink before slouching back into the sofa with another handful of biscuits.

We heard the door opening and closing and then Elise and Karl shouting their helloes. Karl grinned when he saw the tub of biscuits and immediately
polished off the last of them. I could hear Elise in the kitchen and figured she was making tea and coffee so I hopped up to go and help her.

“Hey, sweetie!” She beamed. “Four days left!”

I grinned back. “I know, I can’t wait. Grace’s first Christmas!”

“Just a shame she won’t remember it,” Elise chuckled.

“We can take tonnes of pictures,” I smiled.

“True. Mind holding her for me while I make the tea?” She held up Grace for me to take.

“Like you have to ask,” I replied eagerly, already accepting my beautiful niece into my arms. She was so perfect. It felt so completely natural holding her in my arms and talking to her, telling her that she ought to learn from her Mummy and not take any of her uncles’ jip.

“
It’ll be your own baby you’ll be holding one day,” Elise smiled, watching me playing rocketship with a smiley Grace.

I sighed. “I would have liked that,” I smiled sadly. “But Jason definitely doesn’t want kids.”

She frowned. “He said that?”

I nodded dejectedly.

“Sweetie, men don’t really know what they want. That’s what they have us for.”

I chuckled at the thought.

“You have to work on them over time so that they eventually realise what they want and think they’re brilliant for coming up with it all on their own.”

I laughed. “Sounds like you’ve got this down.”

“Plenty of practice on your brothers,” she smiled kindly, squeezing my arm affectionately. “Don’t worry about it, Jelly. You’re still young, there’s plenty of time to work on him.”

“I hope so,” I smiled. “I kinda like him.”

“Only kinda?” She teased.

“Kinda, sorta, completely,” I nodded.

“You guys need a hand?” Adam chimed in, popping his head into the kitchen.

We ended up talking for so long that the tea was
over-stewed and we had to make another pot. Adam listened whilst Elise continued her pep talk about having children and he nodded his head in agreement, telling me that Jason would come round. I hoped they were right but I also had to concede that it wasn’t really something I needed to be worrying about for a good few years.

“You need me to kick his ass, Jelly?” Karl grinned at me when
the three of us came back into the lounge carrying the tea, coffee, and mugs.

“Whose?” I frowned in confusion.

“Jason’s,” Ian answered disinterestedly, his eyes on the television.

“Why?” My confusion deepened. Jason wasn’t even in the house, he was still at the gym with Rab.

“You must have broken up with him for a reason,” Karl explained with a wicked grin.

“What are you talking about? I haven’t broken up with him.”

“Not what Facebook says,” he smirked.

“What?” My eyes widened, my hand
automatically flying to my pocket to look for my phone. It wasn’t there. Of course it wasn’t there.

My eyes shot to Alex who was cringing guiltily and looking sideways at Jake, who looked far too smug.

“What have you done?” I narrowed my eyes at Jake.

“Me?” He answered, feigning innocence. “Why would you assume it was me?”

“Because it’s
always
you, Jake,” I sighed, irritated to the point that I was contemplating returning one of the many Chinese burns he’d given me over the years. “Give it back.”

He continued smirking
but tossed my phone in my direction whilst I continued to glare at him.
God, he’s such an ass.
I checked my profile and, sure enough, I was suddenly single. He’d not changed my gender, name, or any of the usual frape misdeeds so it wasn’t obvious that it wasn’t for a real. I resisted the urge to throw my phone at him, but only barely, and only because I didn’t want to break it.