Page 85 of All of Us

DUSTY

You need to come over. We need to tell him our idea.

JACOB

On my way.

I needed Jacob here to help explain how we could all be a family. Relief washed through me when there was a knock at the door. When Joe opened it, room service was wheeled in.

“Finally.” He grumbled. As soon as the door closed, there was another knock.

“Did something get— Jacob? You two came together?”

“Hi,” Jacob said while still in the hall.

“You two need to leave. This is too much.” Joe pointed toward the door.

Not wanting to make this a hostile situation, I did as he asked. My stomach dropped because he seemed furious.

“Okay. We are next door.” I said quietly.

“Of course you are. Leave me alone and go home.”

His rejection was too much, and I couldn’t stop the tears. My heart ached, and as soon as I looked at Jacob, it hurt even more because he looked crushed. It felt like I was going to be sick, so I ran out the door. In our room, I dropped to my knees, unable to stop the sobbing. I couldn’t lose him—we needed him.

Joe needed his space, and we had discussed that this would likely be his response, but it didn’t make this situation any easier. We sat around our room and sulked. There were five more days in the hotel, and I was determined to make Joe understand.

“You told him that there could be another way, right?” Jacob asked.

“Yes.”

He smirked at me. “He’ll come to us. Think about the Joe we love. He is more curious than a cat, and he’ll want to know what that meant.”

Shit. He was right, Joe won’t let that go. “So we wait?”

“Yeah. We wait.”

This was going to kill me, but Jacob’s confidence helped me feel better. Neither of us felt like going out, so we ordered room service after not eating in at least twenty-four hours. My patience wore thin, and I desperately wanted to go next door and demand something from Joe, even though I wasn’t sure what to ask for.

We climbed into bed at 11:00 p.m., and Jacob was still confident that Joe would come to us. I woke up to pounding on our door. It was 1:30 a.m., and Jacob bolted upright.

“It’s him.”

Completely confident, he sprinted to the door naked and threw it open.

“What did Dusty mean by there could be another way?” Joe walked into the room and sat on the couch.

I joined them in the living room, pulling on my underwear as I went, and threw Jacob his so he didn’t have to do this naked.

The three of us sat down, and it was impossible not to feel the heat between us. There was so much chemistry, so much love in this group.

“I don’t suppose Martin told you about the eagles?” Jacob asked.

Joe looked at him like he had lost his mind. Those fucking eagles were becoming a theme for our entire relationship.

“What? Yes. When I dropped off those papers, he went on and on about the eagles and how they made a family together, even though it wasn’t what usually happened in nature. The man is obsessed with those fucking birds.”

I looked at Jacob, who didn’t take his eyes off Joe. You could see Joe processing the information about the birds, his brain trying to catch up.