Braydon by Nicole Edwards

face Brendon again.
    “No fucking clue,” he snapped. “God damn it!”
    Jessie had no idea what to say to him then. She felt the heat of his aggravation directed at her, and she knew he was looking for someone to blame. Hell, she was looking for someone to blame, too.
    “You need to go,” Brendon finally said, and his words were like a slap in her face.
    Jessie stared at him, her feet suddenly feeling too heavy to move as she nodded her head in agreement. She did need to leave. She knew it as well as Brendon did, but . . . Oh, God.
    She knew that the moment she stepped out the door, life as she’d known it since the night she met Braydon and Brendon would come to a screeching halt.
    But that’s exactly what she did.
    And that was exactly what had happened. Aside from the Sunday dinners she was invited to by Lorrie and Curtis, Jessie hadn’t had much contact with Brendon for the last three months. Brendon wasn’t going out of his way to talk to her, and she wasn’t making an effort to talk to him, either.
    And the fact that Braydon was still gone was slowly killing her.
    “Have you tried calling him?” Kylie asked.
    Knowing Kylie was back on the subject of Braydon, Jessie frowned at her sister, who stopped Jessie’s spoon midspin.
    “Well? Have you?”
    “No,” she bit out. “Not this week. Not last week. Not the week before that . . .” Jessie had given up on trying to get a hold of Braydon four painfully long weeks ago. She’d become pathetic with her repeated voice messages and her frequent texts to a man who she had mistakenly thought had cared about her. And in return, the only thing she got was complete radio silence from Braydon.
    Kylie sighed heavily as she dropped into her chair.
    “Enough about me. I didn’t come all the way out here to chat about Braydon. How are you doing?” Jessie asked, desperate to change the subject.
    “Tired,” Kylie admitted, a gleam in her eye.
    “Don’t even go there. I don’t want to know how those boys are keeping you up all hours of the night,” Jessie exclaimed. Staring disbelievingly at her sister, she added, “Are they still keeping you up all hours of the night?”
    Okay, so she did want to know. After all, the highlight of her days was generally living vicariously through her sister’s many stories of love and happiness.
    “Of course not,” Kylie said, laughing as she nodded her head affirmatively. “Yes. Yes, they are. They’re insatiable, Jess. I just don’t know what I’m going to do with them.”
    Jessie laughed. “Right. Insatiable. That’s such a horrible characteristic for your men to have.”
    “Insatiable, huh?” Gage’s deep voice echoed in the small kitchen, and Jessie nearly leapt out of her chair. He’d come in the back way rather than through the swinging door, where she would’ve expected him. He was too damn stealthy for his own good.
    Kylie blushed. She actually blushed. The woman who was married to two men actually had the decency to turn a pretty shade of crimson when her husband teased her.
    “Among other things,” Kylie finally said after sipping her coffee a little longer than necessary.
    After pouring a cup for himself, Gage moved around the table, coming right up behind Kylie and leaning down for a kiss. Jessie watched, a twinge of envy echoing in her chest.
    She’d had that. Once.
    Kind of.
    Not really though.
    But at one point she did have something that bordered on a relationship with Brendon and Braydon. It had actually been the perfect setup, allowing her the freedom to not get tied down, even if it had been a total surprise to her when she’d found out that the Walker twins were into sharing their women. Neither brother copped to having girlfriends, but they were quite open about the fact that if a woman was going to be with one of them, she was going to be with both of them.
    Jessie had realized just how true that statement was early on. And she had enjoyed it immensely.
    For whatever reason, Brendon