Page 57 of My Fiancé's Brother
I lied. “I'm good.”
“How’s the wedding planning coming along?”
Another lie. “Good.”
Silence descended upon us. She looked around. “Is Matt sleeping?”
“He’s at work.” I was getting quite good at lying. Lying to myself. Lying to others.
She shook her head. “I have no idea where Matt got his work ethic from. He’s the hardest working person I know.”
“Lately, he’s been working around the clock.”
Jackson stood on the side, leaning against the counter, his long legs crossed, his arms folded.
Irene looked back between Jackson and I. “So, I obviously walked in on something here. Want to tell me what’s going on?”
Jackson cleared his throat. “Same old shit.”
“Did you and Matt fight?”
“Yep.”
“Jackson. I know for a fact that Matt wanted you to come andstay with him because he wanted to repair your relationship. Why are you making this so difficult for him? You always do this.”
Jackson didn’t answer. Shock skidded across my skin. Jackson wasn’t the difficult one in this situation. He was probably the only sane one.
She folded her arms. “Matt is trying here. Why can’t you make an effort to get along?”
He stared back at her.
She cleared her throat. “I woke up this morning to a very incoherent drunk message from Matt. Half of which I couldn’t understand. Jackson, you seemed to have upset him.”
More silence while Jackson and I processed that statement.
“It’s not your situation to fix,” Jackson finally said.
“Ever since Harry’s funeral…” her voice trailed off. “I'm asking you to fix this.”
He glanced at me. “I think cooler heads might prevail.”
She made a little noise. “So you're just going to take off again? That’s so typical. We’re trying here with you. We’ve always tried with you.”
I was shocked at how biased this woman’s view was of this situation. She was holding Jackson entirely responsible for this mess. I couldn’t reconcile that Jackson had grown up with this woman. They seemed like two strangers.
“Matt wasn’t exactly an angel in this situation,” I interjected.
Cold eyes that reminded me of Matt turned on me. “And how’s that?”
I swallowed again. “Well, Matt’s been pretty distant lately.”
“He works so hard.”
“Yes. But he hasn’t been around to try and fix stuff either.”
She sniffed and looked around the loft. She turned back to Jackson. “I'm asking you to stay. For Matt. This is obviously important to him.”
I held my breath. His face was devoid of expression, but henodded. My heart bleated with joy. I didn’t care that he was being coerced.
