Chapter 19 Quinn
I made a pot of coffee in the shared kitchen and then took the cups back to the apartment. After the second shower of the day, Gray had finally agreed we had to face reality. I think it helped, knowing that the others knew that we had been together before and had spent the night together.
Not in a couple way.
I understood the basic need to heal from last night and the past.
Ash hadn’t been malicious when he told me, I knew that. He hadn’t done it to hurt me, and Gray hadn’t even considered that as a possibility, which emphasized to me that they would be okay. Eventually.
When I went back into the apartment, Gray was frowning at his hand as he flexed it, and I put the coffee cups down as I watched him.
“Hurt?”
“Yeah,” he said with a wry smile. “Tried to fix your door.” He jerked his head to the side, and I looked at the bathroom door.
“Why?” I exclaimed as I hurried over. “You idiot, you’re going to damage yourself, permanently!”
“It’s just a few breaks and a sprain. It’s fine.”
“You need to play the last few games,” I admonished him as I gingerly took his hand. “What if you’ve damaged it even more? It isn’t worth it.”
Gray pulled me to him with his other hand. “And if I disagree?”
“Yeah, well, tell your brother, your captain, that you fucked your hand because you were . . .” I flushed and looked away from his knowing look.
“Fucking you?” he finished. “I think he knows.”
Turning away from him, I went to sit on the couch. “Have you heard from Ash?”
“No.” Gray’s playful tone was gone, and he picked up his coffee. “I’ll speak to him face to face, not over the phone or over a text.”
“I should be with you.”
“No point,” he said as he pulled his phone out, and I saw his thumb race over the screen. “He may feel inclined to rate you higher if you’re listening.”
My jaw dropped, and I stared at him incredulously. “Rate me? How? Do you mean in bed?”
Gray looked up and then burst out laughing. “Your face!” He laughed again, and I watched him lose it as I felt my temper rise. “Fuck,” he said as he wiped his eyes. “That was classic, I can’t even tell anyone.”
“It wasn’t funny.”
“It really was.” He chuckled as he drank his coffee. “Your face.” He snickered again, and I was sure I was going to smash my coffee cup off his face.
“Who did you text?”
“Jett, who else? Told him to meet me here.”
“We’re doing this now?” I asked cautiously as I reached for my coffee.
“Yeah, may as well. He’s bringing food.” Gray sat back and looked at me appraisingly. “The sex was good, better than good.” His eyes ran over me slowly. “But it’s time to stop hiding.”
“I agree,” I said simply, “about the hiding. I’m reserving judgment on the quality of the sex.”
I smirked as his eyes narrowed on mine, and then he grinned. “I need to sleep,” he said as he leaned back on the chair, tipping his head back as he closed his eyes.
“You don’t sleep much anymore?” I asked as I studied his beautiful face.
“Had a lot on my mind,” he answered honestly as he remained in the position.
“Gray, don’t sleep,” I warned him as I drank my coffee, my feet tucked under my body. “Jett will be here soon.”
“I know, baby.”
I sighed in despair. He was already half-asleep.
He hardly ever called me baby; it was a term both he and Jett rolled their eyes at when they heard it used.
Leaning over, I took the mug out of his hand and placed it on the coffee table.
Last night, when I woke up during the night, dying of heat exhaustion because Gray Santo was spooning me in his sleep, I had slipped out of his embrace and gone to the bathroom.
On the way there, I had seen the full cup of tea, and I had burned red knowing that Jett had come back when Gray and I were having sex.
I prayed it was only Jett who might have heard us. Ash didn’t need us to rub it in his face.
Ash.
He had handled it well. I mean, I know I wouldn’t have, which made me even more deplorable in my actions toward him, I knew.
I watched Gray doze in the chair, and I thought about what Ash had said. The agency wasn’t an adoption agency. They sold the babies. They were going to sell my baby. Our baby.
No wonder they wanted me back to change my mind.
Had they already sold my baby and would have to what?
Refund the money? Did babies get sent back for a refund if the parents didn’t like them?
I felt a bubble of hysteria rise at the thought, and I clamped my hands over my mouth to stop it from bursting free.
How long had the guys known about the fact that the babies were for sale? To think they thought — that he thought — that I had signed up to that, made me sick.
“It’s such a mess,” I whispered in the quiet of the room.
“What is?” Gray’s low voice in the stillness of the room made me jump.
“I thought you were asleep,” I said as he brought his head forward and opened his eyes.
“The wheels turning in your brain were enough to keep me awake,” he joked as he sat up straighter. “I’m starving. If Jett comes in here with anything other than pizza, I swear I’ll kill him.”
“You’re not allowed pizza,” I reminded him.
“I’m starving. I’ve worked a ton of calories off. I need and I deserve pepperoni pizza.”
Sighing, I shook my head in despair. “No one deserves pepperoni pizza.” I shuddered.
“You’re right, double pepperoni, extra cheese.”
“Gray!”
“Quinn!” he mocked back as he finished his coffee and stood, striding to the window to look out. His smile faded. “Well, we have pizza coming our way,” he told me as he turned back to me.
“Okay?” I looked at him and then the window. “But?”
“More than one delivery boy,” he said as he headed to my front door.
Sounded like Jett had found Ash.
I heard the murmur of voices as Gray let them in, and then they all walked into my living room.
“Hi,” Jett greeted me as he leaned over and kissed the side of my head. “Never seen you like that before,” he said as he hugged me with one arm.
“I know, I’m sorry.”
“Nothing to be sorry for,” he told me as he kissed me again. Drawing back, he looked at me, and I saw the question in his eyes.
“I’m okay,” I assured him.
“Okay.” He stepped back and then looked at the bathroom door. “We’ll get that fixed,” he promised me.
“Okay.”
I looked at Ash, and he looked back. “Brought food.” He held up three pizza boxes, and I gave a small smile.
“Thanks.”
Gray said nothing to them, only lifted the first box off the pile and opened it. His lip curled in distaste. “This is yours.” He handed it to me without making eye contact.
Curiously, I opened it and beamed. Hawaiian pizza. Ham, pineapple, cheese on pizza dough — who could hate it? “Yum!”
Jett gagged as he handed a pizza box to his brother. “This is ours,” he said as he sat on the floor easily.
Picking up a slice, I realized I was ravenous, and I took a hearty bite. I saw Gray watching me with abhorrence, and Ash gave a small laugh.
“What?” I demanded.
“It’s pineapple . . . on pizza.” Gray took the slice his brother handed him. “How could you?” he demanded of Jett.
“Ash ordered it,” Jett said to him around a mouthful of pepperoni pizza.
Looking at Ash in surprise, I swallowed my mouthful of food. “Thanks.”
He shrugged as he ate his own slice. “Thought you may need it,” he mumbled as he avoided eye contact. His glance flicked to Gray, who was still in last night’s clothes. “So, you stayed?”
Gray was many things — some good, mostly bad, and a bit diabolical . . . but what he was and always would be, is brutally honest. “I did. In her bed, before you try to skirt around it.”
Ash said nothing, just bit into his pizza as he looked away, and Jett cleared his throat. “So, we know you two have hooked up before. I don’t know the details,” he looked at Ash who shook his head slightly, “and I don’t think we need to know.”
I took a bite of pizza to disguise the fact that I had been holding my breath.
“You were pregnant, and you didn’t tell us, any of us,” Jett said as he ate his food.
I nodded. “Well, that was the first mistake.” His tone was hard as I knew it would be.
“You were giving the baby up for adoption?” I nodded again, and I saw him place his hand on his brother’s knee to stop the shaking. “And you changed your mind?”
“Yes.” I closed my pizza box, my appetite now diminished. “I knew I was doing the wrong thing, and I knew no matter what it took, I would make it work.”
Jett nodded and kept on eating, passing a slice back to his brother, who I thought was eating mechanically now, so focused on me.
“And when you told them you’d changed your mind?”
“They started to call me all the time. I didn’t answer until I finally did, and they asked me to go to them and discuss it.”
“Who’s they?” Ash asked me.
“Dr. Newton,” I said as I looked at Jett and saw him nod. “He said if I didn’t meet with them, they would come to the school or my house. Or both.”
“Fuckers,” Gray bit out as he tossed his slice onto the open box in Jett’s lap.
“And you went to meet with them?” Jett encouraged me.
“Yes, but even when I got to the building, I knew it was wrong, and I was walking away when I heard someone call for me. Then I heard feet, like they were running.”
“What did you do?” Ash asked me.
“I ran.” I rubbed my nose before I picked up the pizza again. “I ran and I never saw the stairs, and I fell.”
“And you lost consciousness?” Jett pressed.
“That’s what the hospital said.” I tapped my hand off my head. “You saw the stitches.”
“I did.” He looked at me with sadness as we both remembered the hospital. He had stayed with me all day before they let me out. They made sure I’d passed everything naturally before giving me a final scan.
“And you took her to the cabin,” Gray spoke as he looked away from us all.
“I did. She needed to heal.”
“And you told him nothing?” Gray demanded.
“I’d just lost my baby, I needed time.”
“You lost our baby,” Gray snapped. “Didn’t I have the right to have time to heal?”
“I think it’s safe to say we all made mistakes,” Jett cut in smoothly.
Gray snorted, and Ash grunted, and I shared a look with Jett as they both focused on looking at anything but me or him.
“You need to show us where they wanted you to go,” Gray said suddenly. “We need to know when you met them, who you met with, what names you remember, all of it.”
“Gray, I—”
Fierce blue eyes met mine and held. “This isn’t just about you. We all lost something. We need to make it right.”
“Revenge?” I demanded.
“These people sell babies,” Ash reminded me. “It’s not some legitimate agency trying to give parentless couples a family. They sell innocent babies to the highest bidder; they’re monsters.”
“Are you sure?” I asked them as I looked down at my hands.
“We are.” Jett’s voice was quiet but firm.
“How?” I asked wildly, my heart racing. “How do you know?”
“Because we found a paper with your name and three names beside it, and beside each name was a price.” Gray’s voice was cold. “I knew what it was as soon as I saw it.”
“Numbers?” I questioned, averting my eyes from his glare to look at Jett.
“Their bid, Quinn,” Jett supplied. “It was the bidding sheet for your child.”
“And we have film,” Ash added, “of the girls giving birth.” He, too, dropped his food back into the box. “One of them died.”
I could feel the tears at the back of my throat. “Why haven’t you gone to the police?”
“We needed to know more,” Jett answered. “We needed to make sure that we had enough to give them.”
“And do you?” I asked them. Jett shook his head in sadness. “What else could you possibly need? You have Dr. Newton and you have the films.”
Gray caught my eye and held it. “Isn’t it obvious? We need you.”