Chapter 5
Five
DIMITRI
My foot keeps bouncing. I want to know what Hope is saying in that room. I want to know if she’s talking about us. I want to know what she’s saying about her father. What if she’s just sitting there silently? What if she’s being stubborn and rebelling in a new way?
“How long is this going to take?” I demand.
“Be patient,” Knox orders.
I narrow my eyes at him. As if he hasn’t done enough. He fucked our girl without Jax and I knowing. He got to have her in a way that we haven’t. Now, after all this, maybe she won’t ever want us. There was no mention of it. No mention of it being a possibility before everything happened.
Knox got to fuck her. Jaxon’s the one who gets to sleep with her. I’m just the chef. And I know it’s wrong to think like that, but fuck. It’s messing with my mind.
Before I can say anything, we hear a door open. Jax turns immediately, getting up and focusing intensely on the hallway.
Hope looks confused, bothered, flustered. She keeps picking at her shirt, not looking at anyone. Her shoulders don’t curl in like they have been, but she doesn’t look any happier. The therapist hands Hope a piece of paper, then looks at Knox, Jax, and me in turn as we move closer.
“See you next time, Hope,” Dr. Grant notes.
I know she needs this, she needs a place to be heard and get the opportunity to heal. I stare at Hope’s chest, knowing what lies under the fabric of her clothes. Our initials.
We can’t erase all we’ve done. I blink away my stare and walk out, almost running into some blonde guy with a mean looking scar running through his eyebrow. “Sorry,” I mutter and get the car started.
I wait by the car while it warms up. It doesn’t take long for the others to follow. Knox keeps rubbing Hope’s lower back while Jax stands closer, eyeing the world around them like there’s a threat somewhere. A happy threesome without me.
Then Hope meets my eyes. She takes a few steps towards me when she gets to the car and exhales softly. “I… I’m really hungry, Dimitri.”
I blink at her. It’s the closest she’s gotten to wanting my attention. Besides that time I kissed her. But that feels like nothing now.
“I’ve looked up a few recipes based on the meal plans you recommended,” I say slowly.
“I’ll help,” she whispers, stuffing the slip of paper into her purse. When I let my eyes linger, she shakes her head. “I don’t know if I’m ready for that step, but I’m ready to eat.”
“An entire plate, or I won’t cook for you again. You’re only going to get fast food,” I threaten.
Her face twists in disgust for a second, but I see the threat of a smile on her lips. Knox gets in the passenger seat and Jaxon insists on Hope getting in the car.
“Anything you want to tell us?” I ask as I drive off.
“I don’t know if I like her,” Hope answers.
Jaxon turns her chin. “Why? What did she say?”
Hope trembles ever so slightly. “She asked why I didn’t seek help for what was happening.”
Jaxon’s face goes from calm to a dangerous shade of red. I run through a yellow light so we can’t turn back around. I don’t trust his temper.
“I told her that no one believed me, they only believed him, but then she just wrote something down and told me to continue. Then she tells me to get on medication. Medication like this normally requires time off work to adjust and she didn’t mention that. I’m okay with medication. I am… but…”
“But,” Knox echoes. “Jax, let her go.”
Jaxon doesn’t. He unbuckles her and pulls her into his arms. He mumbles something into her hair and she just sits there with his arms tight around her. I take a breath and focus on the road ahead. That’s all that matters. Getting us home.
And that’s exactly what I do. I get us home, work in the kitchen with Hope. She corrects some ingredients, but she stays focused. She’s not as talkative as normal, but when I manhandle her out of the way, she doesn’t panic.
I don’t know what the guys are doing. I assume Jaxon’s working out to ebb his frustration. Knox is on his computer doing something, but I’m getting time with Hope and that’s all I care about.
“Are you sure that—”
“I’ve been cooking for you plenty, sweetheart. Trust me,” I snort.
“Let me help.” She swats at my hand.
I catch hers, twist her in my arms, and hold her there while I continue working. She squirms and grumbles about me cheating to get my way, but I like seeing her bite back. It means she’s doing better.
“Now, take a bite,” I say, then feed her. She hesitates and I arch an eyebrow. “I can tickle you, pinch you, or hold your nose.”
“How do I know you cooked it all the way through?”
“Because I wouldn’t give you anything that would hurt you,” I argue. “So the easy way or the hard way.”
She opens her mouth slowly and pushes the spoon in. She blinks a few times, her eyes widening, then she slurps the rest of the food off the spoon.
“Are you going to eat tonight?” I ask.
“Yes. Definitely yes. This is a big upgrade from ham sandwiches,” she answers.
I’m tempted to lean in and kiss her, but I don’t want to push the limits.
I have plenty to make up for even if we don’t talk about it.
There’s too much between us to rush things even if I want to kiss her, sweep her up into my arms, and show her exactly how much I want her, all the ways I can cherish her, all the ways I can please her.
It’s harder to be patient than I want to admit.
But when we sit down to eat, I notice Jaxon is missing. I sigh. “Want to text him?”
Knox looks up, realizes there’s food, and shrugs. “He’s an adult. He can do what he wants.”
Hope doesn’t seem upset, so I shrug it off, sure we’re just expecting the worst.
HOPE
While I get ready for bed, I keep replaying the last part of the counseling session.
“Why didn’t you try to tell anyone? Why didn’t you seek help, leave, anything to escape the situation?” Jo asks.
I stare at her as anger boils in my stomach.
Confusion swirls in my head. I can’t believe that she normally asks people this.
My mouth opens and closes, then I give the only answer I can.
“I went to the police. I told teachers. They all believed my dad. He said I was making it up. That I was a slut.”
The last sentence isn’t supposed to slip out, but it does.
She looks at me for a long time, writes some things down, then asks about Knox, Jax, and Dimitri, almost like an afterthought or a way to move the session forward.
I don’t say much, just that they’re confusing me by being so gentle lately, so sweet, and it makes me feel fragile.
Shaking my head, I finish brushing my teeth, spit out the lingering bad taste from the counselor’s office, and rub my foot over the back of my calf.
It’s going to be uncomfortable and maybe I’m misreading Jo’s responses.
She has to be analytical, she has to prepare me for questions others will ask, right?
It’s like ripping off a band-aid quickly. It still hurts, but hurts less than taking extra time to do the same thing. I exhale slowly, then go to bed. I keep thinking that I should give up the bed, let the guys sleep here and take the couch.
Or I should go to a different apartment and sleep alone so they actually get some sleep. I don’t want to be the reason they fail while they’re on the field, or get hurt, or look utterly exhausted. Maybe I’m making things worse. Maybe they feel guilty whenever they look at me.
Maybe I’m already paranoid and anxious because it’s easier to feel that than to go back to feeling helpless. I nibble my constantly raw bottom lip and think about the videos the guys mentioned. I wonder how many other people have seen them. I wonder if anyone downloaded them.
Would there be any way to know?
I hear the guys talking in the living room and I tell myself to relax. I didn’t have a panic attack today and we spent more time outside of the house. That’s a win. I was actually hungry and cooked with Dimitri. That’s another win. Now, I might be able to get more than a few hours of sleep.
I cross my fingers.
A little bit better every day. It’s the same way that I rebuilt my life when I left my dad. I did it once. I can do it again.
KNOX
Jaxon just shrugs as he looks at us. There’s a stack of papers on the table in front of us. He motions to it and sits down, twisting off a cap on his own beer bottle. “It was worth missing dinner to get.”
“This can’t actually be the files from the therapist office,” Dimitri says as he refuses to touch the pages.
“It is. Specifically, Hope’s file. I was careful. She’s the only one I want to know more about,” Jaxon says casually.
I gape at him, my mind in turmoil. This man… “You broke into the counseling office, then you went through patient files, copied all of Hope’s, and walked out with it?” I list out.
He shrugs and takes a sip of his beer. “I didn’t have to copy shit. It was all on the tablet. The tablet wasn’t even password protected. All I had to do was start up the printer.” He takes another long swallow. “They should better protect patient records. It should be harder to get information.”
“You can’t just…” I trail off, eyeing the papers again. “Breaking in and accessing someone’s personal files is more than a violation of privacy, it’s a crime, Jax. A big one. Breaking and entering is just the start.”
“I didn’t break anything. The door was open,” he huffs.
Dimitri and I look at him for a long time, but my frustration demands more than a glare. “Really? The door wasn’t locked?”
“Not after I unlocked it,” he answers.
I pinch the bridge of my nose. “Breaking and entering. Stealing files… theft.”
“They won’t even know. I locked the door after I left. I turned off the printer, made sure there were no changes to the tablet. I covered my tracks,” he dismisses. “Hope doesn’t trust the woman and that’s good enough for me.”
I shake my head. “We can’t read this,” I decide.
“I don’t know what you think of my intelligence, but I can definitely read,” Jaxon argues.
“It’s a violation of her privacy. If we read it—” Dimitri starts.
“It’s like Knox reading her diary? Like us being in her home when her dad invited us?
” Jaxon defends. “This is what she chose to talk about. More importantly, it’s how the therapist chose to record it.
What if this woman doesn’t believe her? What if she tries to gaslight our girl and makes things worse? She wants to drug Hope.”
“If it helps her, then she should try medication. It’s not a forever thing, just during treatment,” Dimitri defends. When he realizes Jaxon and I are just staring at him, he straightens. “I did research on things while she was in the office.”
“We’re not reading it. She has another appointment Friday. If that doesn’t go well, we can simply take her somewhere else,” I decide. “We’ve violated her privacy enough times in enough ways. There’s being assholes and there’s being irredeemable dicks.”
Dimitri shoots me a glare. “You’d know.”
I’m just about done with his cryptic shit. He can share what the real issue is, since it can’t just be about me not shooting Coach. If it is, he doesn’t have to worry about beating me up about it. I’m willing to take hit after hit until I feel like I’ve paid my pound of flesh.
Jaxon just looks between us and shrugs. “Do what you’re going to do. I got three copies of the file.”
He picks up some papers, gets up, walks somewhere to hide his copy, then joins Hope in bed, like he does every night, leaving Dimitri and I there to stare at the papers.
“We do want to be sure she’s good for Hope,” Dimitri mumbles.
“Yeah,” I agree with a sigh. “It might be worth a read.”
Dimitri leans back in his chair. “Still, something has to be Hope’s choice. One more appointment?”
“Well,” I shrug, then slowly reach for the paperwork. “It’s not like there will be any surprises.”
“Fine,” he mumbles.
It’s a hollow dream and we both know it. While Dimitri dives in, I just stare at my copy, at the answers to the survey Hope filled out. It’s damning enough. She’s definitely not in a good place and she’s hiding plenty from us.
We’ve never let her hide, not really. But I still remember her trying to attack when I pulled her from where she was comfortable. This is a whole lot worse than that in some ways, but if someone else is going to hurt her…
That’s just a risk I can’t take.