Chapter 17
JASPER WAS subdued the rest of the day, and Vincent gave him space, keeping close but not hovering.
Most of the time Jasper spent sprawled on the sofa texting.
Vincent couldn’t help but be curious, though he held his tongue—at least until Jasper finally heaved a sigh and tossed his phone aside, where it clattered to the coffee table.
Vincent muted the TV show he wasn’t really watching. “What’s going on?”
Jasper sat up enough to slump against the arm of the sofa with an exaggerated groan, which was at least a little comforting. If he was back to his dramatics, he likely wasn’t in shock, or worse, brooding. “Amber wants to talk to me and Noah.”
“That sounds ominous.”
He shot Vincent a wry smile, then rocked forward to crawl across the sofa and put his head in Vincent’s lap.
“Are you going to talk to her?”
“I don’t want to.”
Vincent combed fingers through Jasper’s hair with a soft hum. “Would you rather have it hanging over your head for the rest of our vacation?”
Jasper whined and pressed his face into Vincent’s leg. “That’s not fair.”
“I think it’s more than fair,” Vincent replied. “I’d rather have you fully present when we get back to the cabin, not worrying about what she might say when you get home.”
Jasper didn’t respond for a long moment. “What if she says something terrible?”
“Like what?”
He shrugged and picked at Vincent’s jeans over his knee. “Both my parents were apparently cheating whores. I guess it can’t get much worse than that.”
Vincent flexed his fingers tighter in a gentle tug. “Do you want to talk about it?”
Jasper shrugged again before rolling over.
“I don’t even remember her much,” he said, his voice muffled where he’d pressed his face into Vincent’s stomach.
“But I thought she’d been happy. I thought they were both happy and loved each other, and that he only started drinking after Mom died because he didn’t want to live without her. ”
“Those could all still be true.”
Jasper scoffed. “They were both cheating on each other.”
“That doesn’t have to be mutually exclusive to everything else.”
He pulled back enough to glare at Vincent with one eye. “Yes, it does.”
Vincent raised an eyebrow and decided Jasper could keep being stubborn for the moment. “Okay.”
“Okay.” Jasper slumped into Vincent and blew out a long breath. “Can we go back to the cabin tonight if I talk to her now?”
“Possibly.” Vincent picked up his phone to check his messages.
Initially he’d planned to return to the cabin as soon as possible, but when Jasper got absorbed in texting, he held off in the hopes of some kind of resolution.
Another day here was worth it if it meant they could properly enjoy the rest of their stay.
“They can get a flight plan for two in the morning.”
Jasper sat up and turned wide, pleading eyes on him.
“I’ll get it booked. Why don’t you call Amber, see if she and Noah can come for dinner?”
Jasper wrinkled his nose. “We’re going to cook?”
“No.” He wasn’t feeling generous enough to cook for her after everything, and he certainly didn’t want to deal with the dishes if they were leaving tonight. “Have her bring dinner.”
Jasper nodded, quickly leaning in to press a kiss to Vincent’s cheek before snatching up his phone. By the time Vincent got confirmation they could leave at two, Jasper had convinced Amber and Noah to come for dinner and bring food.
Whatever Amber had to say, Vincent could only hope it started mending things instead of causing more drama.
JASPER DIDN’T want to be here. Bad enough he was losing part of his alone time with Vincent.
Now the one place he could find any sense of peace and quiet was being invaded.
Worse, the food wasn’t even good. Amber and the others loved the pizza place they always ordered from, but Jasper was sure its best flavor was nostalgia.
Only drunk or over-caffeinated college students stressing over finals could tolerate wet-cardboard pizza crust and old grease.
Vincent had taken two pieces to his office to let them talk, and Jasper was stuck somewhere between relieved and betrayed.
He managed two bites before giving up, eyeing Noah as he ate one slice after another like he hadn’t eaten in days.
Considering how much weight he’d lost since the last time Jasper saw him, that was likely closer to the truth than Jasper wanted to think about.
Maybe he’d gotten spoiled over the last year, especially the last few months.
Ever since he met Vincent, the quality of the food he had access to was an entire galaxy better than what he’d grown up with.
But time was ticking, and Amber had only taken a few bites of her first slice, with the air of someone eating their last meal.
“What’s going on?” he finally asked, unable to keep quiet any longer.
Amber dropped her hands to her lap and glanced at Noah instead of answering. “You really won’t go see him?”
Noah didn’t look up from his pizza as his lip curled back in an impressive sneer. “He’s not my father.”
Jasper tensed and watched Noah from the corner of his eye, but Amber grunted softly, as if she’d expected that response. He narrowed his eyes at her. “You don’t seem surprised.”
“Funny,” said Noah, “neither do you.”
“I found out the same time you did.”
“Oh yeah? When was that?”
“When you called from jail,” Jasper admitted softly.
He’d nearly taken the money from his father’s wallet regardless in order to bail Noah out, but without a way to get to the jail, he’d been powerless to help.
Noah studied him a moment before shrugging and turning back to finishing off the rest of both the large pizzas by himself.
“Did you really only call us both here to beg us to go to the hospital?” Jasper demanded.
He shouldn’t have been surprised, but he’d hoped that maybe, just maybe, she’d put what he wanted over what she thought was best. She’d been there earlier.
No way could she be asking Jasper to deal with that bullshit again.
“No,” she said softly, taking a breath as she straightened. “I was hoping you’d take a DNA test.”
“To prove what? That we’re half brothers? We already know that.” Jasper sat back in his chair and crossed his arms.
“No. I want all three of us to take one.”
Jasper stared at her as he waited for her to explain, but Noah responded before she did.
“Fuck you.” Noah dropped the half-eaten crust of the last piece of pizza to his plate and sat back. “I don’t care if we’re more than cousins. Bit too late to give a shit about that, don’t you think?”
“I need to know—”
“I don’t.”
“—if he’s really my father!” Amber shouted over Noah.
“What?” She couldn’t have meant that. She was older than both of them, though not much older than Noah. No way were their parents cheating on each other even before he was born.
Noah scoffed. “Like I said, bit too late to care. What are you hoping to get out of knowing now?”
“I just want to know the truth.”
“No,” Jasper said, shoving to his feet with a scraping of chair legs across the floor. “I don’t want to know. You didn’t grow up in that hellhole. Even if he’s your biological father, it doesn’t change anything.”
Noah made a considering noise. “It could change some things.”
Jasper rounded on him with an incredulous look. “Like what?”
Noah shrugged. “If it turns out I’m actually a bastard child of Uncle Gabe’s, he’ll have to add me to the inheritance.”
“Of course you only want the money,” Jasper muttered, pushing away from the table in disgust.
“Like you have any room to talk,” Noah shot back.
“The fuck is that supposed to mean?”
Noah raised an eyebrow and waved a hand around at the dining room and rest of the house. “You’ve certainly moved up in the world.”
“It’s not like I live here.”
“Why not?”
Jasper flinched and forced in a breath around the sudden tightness in his chest. Even if he’d fantasized about moving in, he’d only been with Vincent a few months.
Didn’t he have to wait at least a year to expect that?
Even then, he wasn’t sure he could even ask.
The last thing he wanted was to become a burden or annoyance, or for Vincent to agree out of some sense of obligation, only to regret it later.
“None of your business.”
Noah rolled his eyes and turned back to Amber. “Well?” he asked. “Sure you want to risk losing or sharing your money?”
“He wouldn’t cut me off.”
“Sure about that? Doubt you could afford to keep living in your mansion if he did,” Noah taunted.
Jasper gripped the edge of the table for balance, unable to believe his ears.
Did Noah want the money or not? If he’d suspected who his father was before now, why hadn’t he done something when he got kicked out?
Or when his arm was broken? Had he known back then?
How could he have? They’d been kids. Even if he had known, what could he have done?
And why was Jasper the only one shocked to learn his mother and aunt had been cheating with each other’s husbands?
For a few moments he worried he was a by-product of incest before the logical part of his brain kicked in.
His mother and aunt were sisters and married into vastly different families.
It was still fucked-up but not as bad as it could have been, which was something he never thought he’d have to be grateful for.
Everything he thought he knew about his parents was a lie. What else was a lie? Were they even his parents, or had they found him in a box on the side of the road like an abandoned kitten? Why else would his father hate him so much?
“Jas!”
He flinched at the sudden grip of a hand on the back of his neck, then instinctively relaxed beneath it. He closed his eyes with a shuddering breath as Vincent’s thumb traced a firm line behind his ear.
“Breathe,” Vincent murmured, his other hand a warm weight on Jasper’s arm.
After a long moment of silence, Amber cleared her throat. “We should go. Enjoy the rest of your vacation,” she said, and maybe it was the shock still in his system, but she didn’t even sound grudging when she said it.
Jasper dropped into his chair and covered his face with his hands as he finally got his breathing under control. When he heard the front door close he slumped into Vincent. “Can we leave now?” he asked softly. He wanted out of the house and the city. Away from his family.
“Give me ten minutes,” Vincent said, squeezing Jasper’s neck and arm before stepping away.
Jasper slumped against the table and listened to the clinking of dishes and running water as Vincent cleaned up. The guilt that fluttered in his stomach was short-lived enough that he stayed where he was until Vincent finished.
They headed out, and Jasper settled into the passenger seat while Vincent tossed the trash in the bin, and then they were off, back to the airport. They were early enough they had a couple of hours to kill.
Vincent sat them in a booth at a table in a lounge and slid a menu in front of Jasper.
That was enough to finally draw him out of the daze he’d fallen into, and he slanted a questioning look at Vincent. “How’d you know I didn’t eat?”
“That pizza was terrible,” Vincent replied, studying his own menu. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“The pizza?” Jasper picked at the corner of his menu with a brief smile. “Not really.” If only he could forget the last two days had ever happened. “I’d rather not even think about any of it.”
“Okay. Why don’t we talk about what to do with our last week?”
Jasper leaned into Vincent as he skimmed the menu. “You mean we’re going to do something other than have sex?” He doubted an airport would have decent food, even if the lounge was fancy enough it was likely reserved for first-class passengers, so he settled on chicken tenders and fries.
“Ash is willing to do a proper photo shoot if you’re up for it.”
Jasper couldn’t stop the high sound that escaped his throat. “By proper, you mean naked.”
“You can keep your underwear on.”
He rolled his eyes and turned his head enough to gnaw on Vincent’s bicep.
“I really should start putting a muzzle on you.”
“Why would you do that? I wouldn’t be able to put my mouth on you.”
“Oh no,” Vincent replied, completely deadpan. “However would I survive?”
“You wouldn’t.”
Vincent snorted and slipped his arm around Jasper’s back, leaning in so his lips brushed his ear. “I’m sure I could find one to suit my needs.”
Jasper shivered as heat bloomed low in his gut, though he managed a quiet, “You’re such a dick, Sir.”
“You like it.” He pulled back when their food arrived.
Jasper tried not to be disappointed at the loss of contact and grabbed the ketchup. He ate his way through two chicken strips before propping his shoulder against Vincent. “We can do a photo shoot.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yeah.” He liked Zach and Ash. It would be fun to hang out with them again, even if he was half naked.
“Maybe we can do lunch again.” He glanced up to find a soft smile on Vincent’s face and suddenly found it hard to breathe.
Vincent looked good like that. Younger. Not that he was that old, no matter how much Jasper liked to tease him otherwise.
Even with the bit of scruff he’d let grow, he didn’t appear thirty.
“I’m sure I can convince Zach to have us over again.”
“Good.” Jasper stole one of Vincent’s onion rings, covered it in ketchup, and shoved the entire thing in his mouth. “Tell him I want his special mashed potatoes.”