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Juice finds Jay in the kitchen, sitting at the island. He gestures impatiently. “Well?”
Jay doesn’t look up from his phone. “Well, what?”
Juice makes another impatient gesture. Jay still refuses to look at him.
“You’re in their way. You know that.” Juice snaps, tired of Jay’s stubbornness.
“I don’t want to talk about this with you anymore.” Jay says mildly, still refusing to look up from his phone.
Juice closes his eyes and counts to ten. Then he counts backwards from ten. “You fucked around and lost David for good, so I don’t even know what you’re going to do when he leaves you. Since you just can’t seem to do the right thing and bow out gracefully.”
Jay doesn’t answer him, doesn’t look up from his phone, but there’s a tense set to his shoulders that tells Juice he’s treading on thin ice.
Juice pushes on. “You know you’re not supposed to be with him. You know they’re the ones who are meant to be together. You’re just in the way.”
Jay continues to scroll on his phone, not seeing any of the Instagram posts that fly by under his fingers. He resists the urge to get up and punch Juice in the face. He’s just going to sit here and ignore him because that’s all he can do.
“Come on, Jamie, you know this isn’t right. You can hear what people are saying about you. I know you can.” Juice pushes harder, stepping over to Jay.
Jay is silent, gritting his teeth, getting more and more tense with every word Juice says.
“Just leave him and try to convince David back. Or date someone else! Someone who isn’t in a long term, committed relationship.” Juice reaches out and rests a hand on Jay’s shoulder, only for it to be immediately shrugged off.
“Look, I’m only saying this for your own good. I don’t want to see you get hurt and I know you’re going to. But you need to leave him. Okay? He’s not yours. He’s Sabin’s and that’s just how it is.” Juice says in exasperation.
Jay keeps scrolling, mindlessly tapping the screen to like a post before continuing on.
Juice really wants to snatch the phone away from Jay and throw it across the room, but he doesn’t. “I’m your best friend and I’m only saying this for your own good.”
“No, you’re not.” Jay’s voice is even and mild. He keeps scrolling.
“I’m not what?” Juice asks, confused.
“My best friend.” Jay still won’t look up.
“Of course I am. We’re been friends for years now.” Juice is still confused.
“No.” Jay turns his head and meets Juice’s eyes, his blue eyes cold and sharp.
“No?” Juice asks, tilting his head. He’s never seen Jay look at him this way and even he’s got to admit, it’s a bit intimidating.
“No. Because if you really were my best friend, then you wouldn’t constantly put down my marriage and my husband. You wouldn’t constantly tell me I need to leave him when we’re happy together. He’s not abusive to me. There’s no reason I should leave him, other than you don’t agree with the relationship. Fine. You don’t have to. But what you’re not going to keep doing is telling me I need to leave him. I’m not going to and he’s not going to leave me. I didn’t do this to you and Toni. So either respect my boundaries and stop bringing this up to me or we can’t be friends anymore.” Jay stares Juice down.
Juice raises his hands, palms out, and nods after a moment. “Okay, okay. I just think you’re setting yourself up to be hurt and I don’t wanna see that. I’m just trying to protect you.”
“I don’t need protection from my husband. And it’s not your job anyway.” Jay says, voice still level and calm. It’s a bit chilling.
Juice sighs. “Fine. I won’t mention it again.”
“See that you don’t.” Jay turns back to his phone.
Juice shakes his head and looks back into the backyard, seeing Alex and Chris messing around together, laughing and having a good time. He knows it’s just a matter of time before Alex asks Jay for a divorce, so he can marry Chris finally. Jay is too blind and stubborn to admit it, but Juice knows it’ll happen.
He just didn’t know what was going to happen to Jay when Alex did finally leave him. He had asked David if he would take Jay back again if he were to get divorced from Alex. David had made it very clear that he was not interested in fixing Jay again after Alex breaks him again.
He looks at Jay. “I hope you know what you’ve gotten yourself into.”
Jay doesn’t look up from his phone and doesn’t answer him.
Alex comes into the kitchen just then, making a beeline for Jay, glancing at Juice as he passes him. He leans to kiss Jay’s cheek, wrapping his arms around him. “Hey, baby.”
Juice watches the way the tension instantly drains from Jay’s body when Alex touches him and the way he leans into him and hopes he’s wrong about their relationship. He looks back into the backyard and finds Chris watching them from the patio, a frown on his face before he turns away. Juice shakes his head a little and looks back at Alex and Jay, finding them kissing. He hopes everything works out somehow.
He leaves the kitchen, going in search of Toni, leaving Alex and Jay to it.