Stronger with You (With You Trilogy) (45 page)

I smiled as I let him undress me. The same could be said for both of us. He couldn’t expect me to confront mine if he was avoiding his own. I felt a little surge of hope that he could achieve that as I thought about the batch of letters and emails I’d surreptitiously sent off the day before in the hope of finding the demon Jason had yet to confront.

Chapter 32

Saturday, 2nd March 2013

Craig handed me a bowl of cereal and I smiled up at him. We were all sat around the island waiting for Matt to come down. I suspected he was trying to put it off. Nobody had tried to actually talk to me yet and I assumed they were giving me space, which I appreciated.

“You need an interpreter after you went to bed last night?” Craig teased, handing Jason a cup of coffee.

“Nope,” Jason grinned.

“You talk to him?” Craig frowned at me, looking offended.

“Don’t push her, Carter,” Jason frowned, wrapping his arm around my shoulders protectively.

Craig seemed to want to argue for a second, but he looked over at me and nodded his head before an evil grin spread over his face.

“Hey, Ian,” Craig called out. “Reed gets the ice cream this time.”

“What?” Ian frowned. “You talk to Jason, Jelly?”

I nodded my head, clinging to Jason because Ian looked a little pissed.

“Doesn’t count,” he said dismissively, turning to Craig. “She has to talk to one of us.”

“Ice cream for breakfast wouldn’t be a bad birthday present, Jelly,” Matt said, coming into the kitchen and looking a little anxious.

I could understand the anxiety. He was waiting for the birthday bumps. Karl hadn’t arrived yet though so he was safe for a few more minutes.

I didn’t have any intention of keeping quiet for the whole day. I’d already realised there was no point. Ian knew what’d upset me and he hadn’t broached the issue. The only reason I hadn’t spoken to any of them yet was because I knew they’d turn it into some stupid competition and lord it over the others. It
was
Matt’s birthday, though.

“Happy Birthday,” I whispered as I gave him a hug.

“Thanks, Jelly,” he grinned. “Ice cream for breakfast it is!”

The others groaned but I was just glad Matt was happy. Calling me his sister the night before had meant the world to me and I wanted him to know that.

“Birthday boy!” Karl called from the hallway, shutting the front door behind him. “How’s it feel to be old?” He grinned as he pulled Matt into a manly hug.

“You can tell me yourself in a few months,” Matt laughed.

“I hope you two aren’t implying that thirty is old?” Ian frowned, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Of course not,” Matt grinned. “Thirty-one… now
that’s
old.”

Ian would turn thirty-one just before Karl turned thirty.

“Don’t push your luck, Matt,” Ian warned, but I saw his lips pull up a little.

Men and their fragile egos.
I grinned at them and rooted around in the freezer for some ice cream for Matt.

“Where’s my reward, Jelly?” Matt demanded.

“I can’t find any,” I frowned.

“There was half a tub left,” Ian said, moving me out of the way so he could look himself.

“Er, we can nip to the store and get some,” Rick offered.

Even I thought that was suspicious. They both looked way too shifty.

“We didn’t know Jelly was gonna have one of her little episodes,” Danny protested as Ian gave him a deadly glare. “We were hungry!”

“You’re always fucking hungry,” Karl laughed, crossing his arms across his chest. “You’ve got ten minutes.”

The twins didn’t need telling twice, they were already on their way to the door.

“Get Phish Food!” Matt yelled after them. “Clowns,” he muttered, taking a spare seat at the island.

“I’ll leave you all to it,” Jason said as he dropped his dishes by the sink. “Jamie?” He beckoned me over.

I wrapped my arms around him and squeezed him tight. I felt so much stronger and safer when Jason was around. I hated that he had to leave.

“I’ll be close by, little squirrel,” Jason said, reading my mind as usual. “I’m only a phone call away, but you don’t need to worry. Nothing will happen to you.”

“I know,” I nodded. It wasn’t that I was worried something would happen. I just didn’t want him to go. “I love you.”

“I love you too, Jamie,” he cupped my chin, brushing my cheek with his thumb. “More than I can explain.”

I nuzzled contentedly against his hand, pressing a kiss to the slightly rough skin of his palm. I loved it when Jason kissed my palms, he always did it so tenderly and it made me feel so cherished. I hoped he felt the same when I kissed him.

“Carter,” Jason called and all my brothers turned to look in his direction. “Craig,” he clarified, gesturing for Craig to come over to us.

“What’s up?” Craig nodded.

“If
anything
happens to her, I’m holding you personally responsible,” he said sternly.

“Overprotective much?” Craig raised his eyebrow.

“I’m not fucking kidding, Carter,” Jason warned.

I could feel how tense he was as he held me against him, my back to his front. I’d normally be quite enjoying it but now I just felt bad for how much worry I was causing him.

“Relax, Reed. She’ll be safe with us,” he assured Jason. “She’ll be safe with me.”

“If I see so much as a tiny bruise on her tomorrow…” Jason growled.

“I said, she’ll be safe,” Craig growled back.

They stared each other down a while longer but eventually Jason seemed happy and left me with my brothers, taking my house keys with him. He made sure to give me a delicious goodbye-kiss before he went, away from the prying eyes and protests of my brothers.

***

Seeing as my brothers were on home turf, I didn’t expect to have to queue to get in to the club that evening. I’d never been out in Derby before. I’d only been living at home for a few months after I’d turned eighteen and I don’t think it occurred to them to drag me out with them. I knew enough to know that, between them, they knew everyone they needed to know in town.

They were greeted by name as we made our way up to a fairly nice looking club. Nobody even ID’d me so I figured they knew exactly who I was as well. I spotted Ian’s friend Rob as soon as we walked in. He owned the club and had set us up with a pretty good table and enough drinks to incapacitate a rugby team, which was effectively what was going to happen.

I looked at the thirty shots lined up in front of Matt and had to shake my head in disbelief.
Nobody could drink that much and live to tell the tale
. They’d started drinking at the restaurant, all except for Craig who had been appointed to ‘Jelly Duty’ once again since he wasn’t drinking anyway.

“Sorry,” I pouted up at Craig as I followed him to the bar to fetch some juice and water.

“What for?” He grinned.

“Having to look after me for Jason
and
Ian,” I sighed, resting my head on his arm.

“It’s not a problem, Jellybean. I’ll always look after you,” he smiled a genuine smile.

“Sometimes it’d be nice if people thought I could look after myself,” I grumbled.

Craig laughed out loud and I glared at him. Once he’d laughed at me a while longer, he regained control of himself and looked at me apologetically. “It’s not that we don’t think you can look after yourself, Jellybean,” he assured me. “It’s that we think we can do it better. It helps flatter the male ego if you let us go on believing it.”

“None of your egos need flattering any more,” I grumbled.

He laughed at me again but gave me a kiss on the forehead so I let him off.

I was about to ask him about Isabella when I saw his facial expression change. He looked worried. I followed his gaze but couldn’t see what he was looking at. The club was pretty full and he seemed to be focussed on the dance floor.

Craig swore under his breath and wrapped his arm around my shoulder, guiding me back to the table.

“Where’s Ian?” He shouted over the music.

“Taking a leak,” Jake answered.

“Keep an eye on Jelly, I’ll be right back,” he nodded.

Jake motioned for me to sit down next to him and I obliged, still wondering what was up with Craig.

The number of shots in front of Matt was now down to around twenty and judging by the way Karl was swaying slightly in his seat, I figured he’d had a good few of them.

“Smithy!” A voice interrupted us. “What a coincidence.”

I turned around to see the source of the voice. I’d never heard anyone call Matt ‘Smithy’ before and judging by the look on his face, he wasn’t very keen on it.

“What the fuck do you want?” Matt scowled, addressing the group of guys behind us.

I didn’t like the look of them at all. A few of them were sort of jittery, eyes darting all over. They all stank of cheap aftershave and had that general chav-vibe that usually didn’t bode well. I was impressed they could stand with the amount of bling they were wearing but maybe fake gold didn’t weigh very much. I’d bet my student loan that they had a handful of ASBOs between them.

“Your sister owes us money. A lot of money,” the snarling, ape-like one said bluntly. His three creepy friends hovered round him.

I could tell this was about to turn nasty. My brothers obviously could as well; they were already stood at Matt’s side looking very serious.

“You need to leave. Now,” Karl said, stepping in front of the ape.

“Me and your mate have got a little business to sort out,” the ape shook his head, not intimidated by Karl at all. “I want my money, Smithy.”

“I don’t give a fuck. That’s between you and Stacey. It’s not my problem,” Matt snarled.

Their eyes were all locked on each other as the tension boiled between them. I glanced over at the ape and his back-ups. Four of them versus Matt and my four brothers, the odds were in our favour. I saw one of the twitchy goons make a move into his pocket as though he was going to grab something.

“She said you’d have the money,” Ape continued, stepping closer to Matt. “We’ve been waiting a while now. We’re starting to get impatient, mate. It’d be a shame if she got hurt.”

“I don’t give a fuck what you do. You’re not getting anything from me,” Matt snarled, stepping closer to the ape so that they were nose-to-nose.

“You need to leave,” Karl repeated, stepping to Matt’s side.

“Reckon she’d still make as much cash if she were missing a few fingers?” Ape continued. “She’d have to offer discounted handjobs,” he smirked. “Still, a whore’s a whore.”

“You need to shut the fuck up, right now!” Matt growled, giving the guy a hard shove backwards.

The goon made for his pocket again and I realised what it was he had there.
He’s got a knife
. My heart rate shot up. I hadn’t been too worried at first because, let’s be honest, my brothers were all more than capable of handling themselves in a fight. But the knife changed everything.
They could get killed
.

Ape’s goons took a step forwards as he stumbled backwards but he quickly righted himself and regained his calm and cocky composure. The same couldn’t be said for his twitchy thugs.

“We could always work summit out,” ape smirked, stepping back in front of Matt. “She could work it off in no time,” he said, reaching his hand out to brush my cheek.

I took a step back, freaking out. The way he looked at me was creepy and I didn’t like what he was implying.

“Don’t fucking touch her,” Karl growled, shoving the guy again to get past and stand in front of me.

They need to back off or they’re going to get hurt
. I needed to let Karl know that at least one of them had a knife. Their eyes were still sensibly locked on the other group of guys, but I needed them to look at me.

“How much money?” I asked. I knew it wasn’t particularly sensible to draw the attention of the ape but I needed to get the message to my brothers.

“See, she wants to help,” Ape grinned, turning to look at me.

My brothers were all glaring at me now, looking thunderous. But at least I had their attention

“No, I just wanted to know,” I shrugged, trying to keep calm whilst I made the sign for knife a few times, hoping the ape would disregard it as idle hand gestures.

“Shut up, Jelly,” Matt snarled. He never was any good at sign language.

Karl had seen me though, I think the twins might have too. I wasn’t sure whether they’d understand. Ian was the one who taught me but they’d picked up quite a lot over the years and I was suddenly very grateful.

“I’m not going to tell you again. Get the fuck out of here,” Matt warned, tearing his gaze away from me to glare at the ape.

“Not until I get my money,” Ape said, narrowing his eyes at Matt.

I took a step back as Matt launched himself at the ape and my brothers jumped on his wingmen. I saw two of the goons pull knives and felt sick to my stomach as I watched them lunge at my brothers. One went for Karl and the other went for Danny. People around us had stopped to stare. I could hear my own heart beating in my ears louder than the music.

Karl reacted quickly and disarmed the guy who attacked him effortlessly. I don’t think I’d ever been more grateful that my brother was in the military. Danny was still in danger though. He’d seen the knife and I could see the fear in his eyes. Rick shoved the guy he was fighting with off of him to help Danny.
Please don’t let them get hurt.

The knife came within centimetres of Rick’s face before a flash of colour tackled the goon to the floor. Ian held him down, crushing his wrist against the floor until he dropped the knife. Before I could blink the guy Ian was on top of was unconscious and Craig and some bouncers were holding the rest of the guys to the floor.

“Two more for your collection,” Ian smirked, picking the knife up off the floor by the end of the blade and handing it off to Rob who was observing as his bouncers pulled the group up and began dragging them off to the back of the room.

“You guys all okay?” Rob asked, scanning my brothers anxiously.

“Fine,” they nodded.