did

I frowned at the bright blond head of hair reflecting the light of the afternoon sun as its owner sat on my porch's steps, his head bowed in his hands. I had spent the whole day with Trey and the twins, except when Trey disappeared for a while to take a call, and it was late by the time they all took me home.

I sure as h-e-double-hockey sticks wasn't expecting Jax to be sitting on my steps. And it looked like he had been there for a while.

"Hey! It's that blond kid from Rex's match!" Denton's head immediately popped up at my side as he shoved his large athletic body between the driver's and passenger seat. He sounded way too excited for his own good. "You think he'll admit if that color's real or not?"

"It's real." I heard myself say before I hopped quickly out of the car. Jax's head lifted out of his hands when we pulled into the driveway, and the small smile on his lips disappeared when Trey cut the engine to the SUV. I wasn't sure what I expected the boys to do, but I wouldn't let them hurt him if that's what they were thinking.

"Hey Bae." Jax's voice was gentle enough, but his bright blue eyes were hard as they flickered towards the three guys following me.

"Hey Jax, what are you doing here?"

He shifted uneasily on the steps before standing slowly to his feet, his back cracking as he did. I guess he had been there for a while. "I kept calling, but you weren't answering your phone." Those bright eyes flickered uneasily to the wall of testosterone at my back. "I got worried."

Those dark vicious thoughts from before started to circle in the back of my skull, and I couldn't keep my mouth shut for long. "I thought you didn't want me around anymore." That blue gaze snapped down to mine and narrowed.

"That's not true Rosalyn and you know it."

"Who are you?" Denton pipped up from behind me, and for once Brett didn't slap him on the back of the head. Jax's gaze flickered to the boys, but that hard look on his face didn't ease.

"I'm her brother. Who the fuck are you?"

"Alright, enough, go inside." I stepped quickly onto the bottom step and pushed lightly on Jax's chest until he finally turned around. He didn't cuss a lot since I didn't like it. So, when he did let a word slip, I knew what came next was not going to be fun.

"Thanks for today guys!" I called over my shoulder as I kept pushing on Jax's back until he started up the steps. "I had a lot of fun! I'll see you guys tomorrow!"

"Wait, Rose, I don't think you should—" Trey started behind me, and I could hear the worried uncertainty in his tone, but I refused to turn around and acknowledge it.

"See you later, bye!" I shot them a beaming smile when I was finally able to push Jax into the house, waved goodbye at their stunned faces and shut the door behind us. I had a feeling they would be camping out on my porch for a while.

"You cannot be mean to them." I grumbled the minute I turned to face the angry blond in front of me.

Jax's gaze was glancing over the entirety of the house, taking in every room, hall, nick and cranny he could see from the foyer. I forgot he had never been here before. Even after I begged him to come live with us. Dad was going to let him too, but Jax refused.

"They were trying to protect you from me. From me." His voice wasn't hard anymore, but he wouldn't look at me either.

"They don't know you, and they've had to help me out a lot. They have a reason to be worried."

He grunted but finally stopped analyzing my house to turn and face me. "And where's that grumpy fuck? Figured he would be with the rest of them. Ready to punch my face in."

"I wouldn't let him do that." I wrung my hands together nervously, unhappy with the icy tension between us. "And he's at some job thing in Boston."

Jax let out another grunt and looked away. "They are your... friends?"

"Yeah, and they're really nice and you'll have a lot of fun with them."

"You haven't told them about me."

I dropped my gaze nervously to the floor. "I haven't told them about anything."

"Anything? You haven't told them anything?"

I shook my head and wrapped my arms tightly around myself at his incredulous tone. Unease began to build in my stomach. Saying it out loud felt—bad. Like I was lying to Rex, lying to them all. That I was just one big, fat, desperate lie.

Jax let out a heavy sigh and scrubbed his hand down his face. "Alright, what do they know then?"

"Um, they know that I have panic attacks sometimes, and that I attract trouble, and, um, the curiosity thing. A-nd that's it."

"That's all? You haven't told them about the kidnapping or the homes?" I shook my head and squeezed my arms tighter around myself in any form of reassurance I could find. "Oh, Rosie." My eyes widened in surprise when his arms suddenly wrapped around me and squeezed my body tightly to his chest. But then I sighed into him. This was Jax, my Jax. The one that could hug every bad thing in the world away—when the bad things weren't after him at least.

"You have to let people in, Bae. You can't live like that forever."

"I don't want... I don't want them to leave me." Because if they knew, they would. All of them. Even Rex. I couldn't lose him. I refused to.

His quiet laugh was so out of place and confusing it made me frown. "I really don't think those three freaks still glaring at us through your front door plan on leaving you any time soon."

"Rex—"

"Don't even get me started on that lover boy." I pulled away in time to see those bright blue eyes roll to the ceiling. "You realize we almost got into an honest-to-goodness fight that day, right? That's not the actions of someone you can get rid of easily."

"No, Jax, you don't understand—"

"He's in it for the long haul, Rose. Even if I don't like it."

"Still," I finally interjected, even though I didn't believe him. "Please don't tell any of them. I don't want them to know." Our eyes locked and stayed glued together in a death match before he finally conceded. Ha, I always won those.

"Fine." He said in exasperation and threw his hands up in surrender. "Fine, I won't say anything, but the longer you hold it in the worse it grows in your head. And you know I'm right. Now let those morons in, they keep glaring at me."

I was so right about Jax getting along with the boys. Just saying.

It took a while, don't get me wrong, but after an awkward hour of everyone trying to watch TV in my living room, things relaxed. I liked to think it was my genius idea of ordering pizza for everyone, and the power of cheese and pepperoni bonded the group together, but in reality, I think it was Denton's nonstop talking.

I watched Jax watch them, and every time Denton said or did something silly, Jax would try to hide an amused smile. By the end of the night they were laughing together and talking about dumb football jokes. I didn't even know there was such a thing. We bypassed Jax's whole 'I'm her brother thing' by saying we were close growing up and the whole middle school thing I had told Rex—which was still true!

"Rose says the color's real, but I'm not sure I believe her." Denton said in awe when Jax finally let him touch his hair. He lowered his head enough for the silly twin to reach up and pat his head, like he was a dog.

Jax let out a quiet laugh. "Yeah, it's real. I'm almost one hundred percent Norwegian. My parents migrated to New England right after I was born."

"Oh," Denton said, still in awe, "I thought Rex said something about you being in the foster system." Den was the only one that didn't notice the uneasy tension that suddenly streamed off Jax.

"I wasn't always."

As Jax pulled away from Denton's invasive hair patting, Brett reached over and smacked the back of his twin's head. "Ow! What the actual fuck, Brett!" Denton shouted and rubbed the back of his head with a pout.

"Stop being a fucking moron, and I'll stop hitting you." And with that simple sentence, the tension died away and Jax was back to smiling at the others. I jumped off the cushion I had been sitting on and went to grab an ice pack. I didn't think Brett ever hit his twin really hard, but after a while I'm sure his skull was sore.

"It's getting pretty late." Trey said on a yawn and stretched his big body on my couch when I came back in a moment later. I handed the ice to a still grumpy looking Denton, but then he beamed up at me, with those blue eyes sparking in complete adoration. "We should get going. You need a ride home?" Trey asked Jax who showed up without a car. I knew he had taken the bus and walked, it's what I always did when I used to sneak out to see him.

"Uh..." Those bright blue eyes flickered to mine in question before glancing back at Trey. "I'm going to hang out with Rose a while longer, we still have stuff to talk about. Thanks though."

Trey's green gaze glanced between us uneasily, but he didn't say anything against it as he nodded and turned for the door. "Alright, well, I live right down the street if you need a ride later. I don't mind."

"Cool, thanks man."

With one last hesitant look my way, Trey walked out the door and into the night air, the twins following shortly after him. "Hey, bye! It was good, like, actually meeting you, and thanks for letting me touch your hair, and we should definitely get together and play football sometime—" Brett shoved Denton out the door before the poor guy could finish his sentence, with the ice pack still pressed to the back of his head.

"See you later, kid. Make sure you tell Rex about tonight, yeah?" I didn't miss the pointed look in Brett's eyes, and I nodded quickly as he left. Jax wasn't a secret. I even wanted him and Rex to be friends one day. The door shut quietly behind them, and the sudden silence was deafening.

"I like them." Jax admitted softly once the boys left the porch and hopped into the SUV still parked in my driveway.

"See? I told you, they're pretty great."

"That Rex kid isn't going to be happy about tonight, is he?"

I shrugged, even though I was pretty worried about that. He was already upset about last night and I wasn't sure how he would take Jax. "I don't know, but he knows you're important to me so he's going to have to get used to."

"So, I'm still welcomed?"

"Of course you are." I said on a heavy sigh and sat at the far end of the couch, Jax was on the floor on the other side of the coffee table, ruffling his blond hair that Denton had messed up.

"I'm sorry I... I'm sorry I haven't been around a lot." He spoke on a quiet breath a moment later, the noise from the TV a dull sound in the background. "I just—things are still so dark, Rose. I want to get away from them, but they drag me down. I don't want them to drag you down too."

"It's not like I'm all apple pies and unicorns either." I grumbled into my knees as I brought them to my chest and wrapped my arms tightly around them.

"I know but—but you have help. You have family and friends, and your dad has access to everything you could ever possibly need. I have me."

"And me."

He let out a heavy sigh and leaned his head back against the couch, those blue eyes blinking up at the ceiling. "You know I'm here for you." I said softly, not okay with that depressed look in his eyes. Jax and I had been through so much together, ever since the beginning, but we handled it very differently. I had panic attacks and major freak outs while Jax gets... Jax gets scary sometimes. Dark scary. "Just like you are for me. Forever, you promised."

"I know... I know."

I was about to say something else when my phone rang, and I wasn't sure if I was relieved at the distraction or not. I glanced down and my heart instantly fluttered in my chest. I answered immediately.

"Hey."

"Hey you." Rex said on a yawn, and I could almost see him run that hand of his through his dark hair.

"Are you all done for the day?" I asked and curled my legs underneath me on the couch.

"Yeah, thank God, I'm exhausted."

"What exactly are you doing?" I thought he was just checking the job position out? Learning what he would be doing and what not, though he wouldn't tell me what that was really.

"Just learning everything. It's a lot of information and pretty damn tiring."

"Oh, do you want me to let you go—"

"No." He answered hurriedly and tried to stifle another yawn. "No, I miss you. Don't leave me." I couldn't keep that silly giddy smile from my lips. In the back of my mind I could feel Jax's eyes on me, but I didn't really care.

"Did you have a good day?" Rex asked with some soft shuffling on his end like he was rolling over in a bed.

"Yeah, it was a lot of fun."

"You were at the twins house, right?"

"Yeah."

There was a slight pause before Rex said on a rather strained voice. "They didn't take you out on the golf carts, did they?"

For a moment, one brief moment, I actually thought about lying to him. Brett had basically begged me not to tell Rex, and he just started meeting my eyes again. I didn't want to ruin that—But then I remembered the rest of existence was an entire lie and this I could keep truthful. "Y-Yeah, but I had a seatbelt on and—"

"I'll kill them. I fucking swear I will run them over with Trey's SUV—"

"I'm fine! I promise! I don't even have one bruise on me." Though the angry breathing on his end didn't ease. Even Jax raised an eyebrow, which I ignored. "Well, if you're already mad, I might as well tell you the rest." I grumbled into the phone, though I really wasn't excited about the explosion that was bound to happen.

"Oh God, what?"

"Um, uh—Jax is here. He hung out with us all afternoon and he's still, um, here." They say a couple should never go to bed angry at each other, not that I was angry, and we weren't necessarily a couple, or together, but yeah. I had a feeling he was going to go to bed very mad.

"Why would that... make me angry?" But his words were hard, clipped, and his tone was far from soft.

"He's my friend."

"I know."

"My best friend."

"I know."

An uneasy, awkward silence fell over us before Rex let out a hard, painful sigh. "Is he... spending the night there?"

"Uh," I glanced over at Jax, who lost interested watching me, and was channel surfing on the TV. "I'm not sure, but I'm not going to kick him out if he wants to."

"Are you fucking—" I only caught the briefest sound of his voice before silence filled the space, like he ripped the phone away from his mouth. I bit harshly at my bottom lip and tried to make the pizza settle down in my stomach. I really hated making him upset.

"Rosie." I glanced over at Jax who had set the remote down and was stretching his long arms. "I wasn't planning on spending the night anyway. I'll have that Trey guy take me home. Don't worry."

"No, Jax, it's okay—"

"Seriously, I'm fine." His smile was small, but genuine all the same. "I'll see you around soon, okay?" Jax spoke softly as he stood to his feet with a yawn. "I promise we will hang out more. I'll even deal with grumpy puss if it makes you happy." He nodded towards the phone, and the laughter shining in his eyes eased my stomach a little.

"Are you sure?"

He shrugged and checked his pockets for his phone. "Abso-friggen-lutely. I got a brand-new bed, in a brand new place and I'm eager to test it out. Call me tomorrow!" He called over his shoulder as he headed for the front door. I stood from the couch, still aware that Rex was on the phone and probably listening into the whole conversation. At least, that's what I assumed was happening since he still hadn't said a word.

"Be careful, please." I murmured to the blond as he stepped onto the porch.

Jax shot me a beaming smile. "Always am. Get some sleep, you need it." Then he bounced down the steps, stuck his hands in his jacket's pockets and headed for Trey's house. Whistling the entire way. At least that dark depressed look from before was gone.

I closed the door quietly and locked the dead bolt. "He left?" Rex finally spoke into the receiver, and the fact that his voice wasn't angry or happy made no difference to me.

"Yeah. He left."

I was suddenly very aware of how big and empty the house was. Very away of how quiet, and dark, everything was. I was alone. I pressed my forehead against the cool hardwood of the door and forced down the tears that clogged my throat.

"I wasn't... I wasn't trying to have you make him leave." Rex sounded hesitant like he could feel how upset I was through the phone.

"I know." But the words were harder to get out than I would have liked. The silence in the house was deafening, and I knew the minute he hung up it would take over. "I don't—I don't like being alone." I whispered into the mic and wiped viciously at the tears that escaped my eyes.

"Oh Roza, I never meant—I didn't want you to be alone. Tell him to come back, I'm okay really."

"No, it's fine." I turned around and pressed my back against the door before sliding down until my butt hit the hardwood floor. "I'm fine."

"I'll stay on the phone with you until you go to sleep, alright?"

I pulled the thing away from my face so he wouldn't hear the shaky breath leave my lips, before bringing it back to my ear. "No, it's okay. You've had a long day and need to get some sleep. I promise I'm good."

He hesitated, like he didn't believe me, but his soft sigh a moment later let me know he wasn't going to push it. "I'll be back soon, okay? One, two more days, tops."

"Okay."

"Get some sleep, Roza."

"Yeah, you too T'."