CHAPTER 10.2

She glances at Jayla, still smiling softly, lost in her thoughts of Axel; then she looks at Jasmine, who has started to heal and is just now feeling something other than fear. And how could she take that away?

The silence in the room compacted even further, heavy with unsaid truths until it was almost unbearable. Jade opened her mouth to speak, words failing to materialize. She was caught, hung in a dilemma-a desire to tell them the truth, a desire to protect them from the inevitable heartbreak that would surely follow.

She couldn't do it. Not yet.

Instead, she forced a tight smile, then turned to reach for the next trivia card. "Your turn, Jayla," she said in a strained, even tone.

Jayla grinned, oblivious to the turmoil inside Jade, and plucked the card from her hand. But as the game went on, Jade was very, very far away, adrift in that knotty web of feelings she still had to untangle.

The game continued a little while longer, bursts of laughter periodically punctuating the tension, but Jade's mind kept going back to the complicated truth she still hadn't confessed. Much later, evening at last drawing to a close and they finally parting to bed, Jade lay wide awake in the dark, staring up at the ceiling as her mind whirled about with the impossibility of it all.

She had whispered to herself in the dead of night: this was a secret that, really, she could not much longer keep, but just for now, just more time. The time to untangle the knot of emotions, work out precisely how to say it without breaking the fragile balance of them all.

For the truth was coming, ready or not.

But where Jade was concerned, deadweight in the balance against her in all that silence, Jayla's teasing laughter cut through it all as she talked about how much she liked Axel. She smiled outwardly, but a tempest whirled in her brain. The more Jayla spoke about Axel, this strange feeling just would not be shaken off in her gut. Something in the way his description pulled at her felt a little too familiar.

She wasn't ready to say anything yet, since what she had in mind had too many open gaps and lots of questions not answered yet. What was the chance this person was Axel, Brock, and Alexander rolled into one? She wasn't even sure where to begin with the connecting of dots, as all she had were pieces of conversations and these vague feelings that didn't quite seem to connect yet. Mostly, she just did not want to disrupt tonight the fragile peace that lay between them. Jasmine still sat across from her, more at ease than she had been in days. There was a sparkle when she spoke of Alexander, something hopeful and hesitating at the same time. With all Jasmine had gone through, she really didn't want to bring up anything that could only complicate it further.

And poor Jayla, she was just about aglow when talking of Axel. Jade didn't want to cloud that with her own creeping doubts. Not when Jayla seemed so sure, so happy. She deserved that happiness.

Jade looked between her sisters, her heart heavy with what she could not say. She needed more time to clear cobwebs and figure out what was going on before she said a word. Perhaps she was jumping to conclusions. Maybe it was one of those coincidences. If it wasn't well, she would cross that bridge when finally something was in her hand. She had nothing but suspicion, and that hardly sufficed to break this moment.

She swallowed hard and pressed her unease further down, lying buried beneath the surface for now.

"Alright," she said, forcing lightness into her voice as she looked down at the game board in front of them. "Let's finish this round. I'm not losing to Jayla again."

Jayla leaned forward, grinning in a mock-serious expression. "Oh, you *are* losing, little sister. Prepare yourself."

The tension which had filled the air so briefly was loosened now, lightened in the room once more with sisters bantering back and forth, joining in with laughter. Jade tried to focus her attention on the game, the warmth of the evening, and the feeling of being with her sisters. In the back of her mind, though, those nagging thoughts of Axel of Brock lingered, waiting.

By the time they packed the game away, hours later, all three sisters were far more at ease than they had been in days. Jayla stretched her arms above her head and let out a pleased sigh.

"That was fun," she said softly, her voice satisfied with contentment. "We should do this more often. It's been too long."

Jasmine nodded, and a faintly introspective look crossed her features. "Yeah, it's nice to just… be here. With you guys."

 

Jade smiled through it, her brain behind the façade twisted into a thousand knots. She rose to her feet and tidied away the last of the game pieces, stacking them neatly in the corner. "I'll get some water," she said suddenly and made for the kitchen.

That strange sense of unease, just beginning to build upon her face, washed over her afresh as she filled up a glass at the sink. She leaned against the counter, staring into the water, her mind slipping back to Brock's smile, the way he'd held her hand at the gallery. Then there was Axel—Jayla's Axel. The similarity was too great to ignore. Was this really the same man?

She shook her head lightly, taking a slow breath. The obsession could come later. Without more information, without actually confronting him, it was all just speculation. And speculation wasn't enough to upset everything. Not yet.

**LATER THAT NIGHT**

So long together must have seemed an eternity when retiring to their respective rooms, the house still once more, it would have seemed, the echoes of their hilarity hanging in the stillness.

Lying in bed, Jade stared up at the ceiling as her mind was too restless to let her sleep. The evening heat and the closeness to her sisters had just been what all of them needed. But alone in the quiet of her room, the disquiet from earlier slid back in, like a storm stirring in her chest.

It was as if she just couldn't get them out of her head. Brock. Axel. Alexander. All of it was too big, too overwhelming. At the same time, all that seemed important enough not to be dismissed. There it was, tucked in some unreachable corner of her mind, nudging her each time she tried to shake it loose.

What if it were? What if they all were falling for the same man? Very nearly, her chest constricted with anxiety. She could only imagine how Jayla or Jasmine would react, were she to find this out. And in case it *wasn't*-if all of this was one huge misunderstanding-she didn't want to create any unnecessary drama or tension between them.

Her phone buzzed softly on the nightstand, and she reached for it, blinking at the screen. It was from Brock.

*"Tonight was amazing. Haven't stopped thinking about you.

Jade's heart somersaulted as she stared at the words. She chewed her lip, tongue-tied. The memory of that night they spent flitted through her brain in hand touches, his eyes lingering on hers throughout the exhibit. There was no more mistaking it: she was into him. Still, there was this nagging feeling, this feeling that something was not right.

She typed quick responses.

*"I had a blast too."

Her thumb hovered over the send icon, but she was inclined not to give into it. Back in her mind sailed that moment Jayla described Axel- his green eyes, the quiet thoughtfulness. Details do tend to lay on top of one another a wee bit too harmoniously, like two pieces of a jigsaw fitted together just a bit too seamlessly to be true.

With a heavy sigh, she finally clicked on send, knowing she couldn't avoid this forever. But tonight, she let it be. She'd let the evening with her sisters-what in itself was light-linger a little longer.

She'd think on it some more tomorrow, work at teasing out tangles that had seen fit to form in her chest. But for now, tonight, she needed to sleep-the night quiet calm of the house wrapping itself around her, if only just for a little while.