Page 87 of Their Wicked Ways

“Jett.”

I looked up at Wes's soft tone and was met with a look of concern that did weird things to my stomach.

“Please come home with us,” he said softly. “We need to talk.”

“I don’t want to talk,” I said, more of my petulance coming out without my permission. “I don’t need to talk. You already said everything you need to.”

Ez held out his hand to me. “This is my fault. Please let me fix this.”

“Fix what?” I asked, uncrossing my arms and slipping my hand into his before I was even aware I was doing it.

“I’ll explain everything, I promise.” He gripped my hand tight. “Will you come home with us?”

The last of my embarrassment melted away, leaving exhaustion in its wake.

Tiredly, I nodded.

The walk to their car was silent, as was the drive to their apartment. That was probably mostly due to me staring out the window and trying to keep my mind blank so I didn’t have to think about anything.

Thinking was what got me into this mess in the first place.

When we were inside, they brought me into their living room and parked my ass in the same easy chair I’d occupied the last time I was over and settled on the couch together.

“I’m sorry,” Ez started.

“Why are you sorry?” I asked. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Yes, I did.” He raked a hand through his dark hair, his face a mask of anguish.

What the hell? Why was he so bent out of shape?

“I forgot that you don’t have the same life experience we do. And things that would be obvious to us might be confusing for you.”

My defenses instantly went up. I knew I was naive and stupid. I didn’t need them to remind me. “I understand fine. We’re friends. That’s it.”

“No, we’re not.”

My brain did a little skip at Wes’s words. “Huh?”

“We’re not just friends.” Wes looked just as torn up as Ezra.

What the hell was happening?

“You might have noticed we’ve been different lately,” Ez said, his tone gentle. “How things between us have been different.”

“They have?” My voice was barely a whisper. I hadn’t imagined things?

“Yes, but we’ve been giving you so many mixed signals it’s no wonder you’re confused.” Ez winced. “I can only imagine how hard this has been for you. I know you need to talk things out in order to understand them, and you haven’t been able to do that, right?”

I shook my head, still half in a daze. What was he saying?

“And that’s our fault,” Wes said sadly. “We asked you to keep our secret and took away your ability to process the situation. Then we left you to deal with this alone and didn’t step in to give you another outlet.”

I stared at them. What the hell was happening?

“And I didn’t realize until the other day just how…inexperienced you are,” Ez stumbled over his words a bit. “And I don’t mean that in a bad way,” he hurried on, most likely sensing that my walls were about to go back up. “I just mean that you haven’t had a chance to understand how things work in the dating world because you never got to be part of it.”

“Dating world?” I had to ask. “But we’re friends…”