I wanted to tell Joss all that. Despite being incredibly secretive about her past, Joss had proven herself straightforward. I needed her to tell me if it was okay or not to play a little dirty with Adam. Honestly, I was just so tired of being the nice girl that he could just walk all over, knowing I’d still love him in the end. His actions had proven that he could be possessive of me, which meant he thought of me as “his” in some small way. Well, I wanted to show him that I wasn’t his. I wouldn’t ever be his unless he decided he wanted more than a one night stand.
All this I wanted to confide in Joss that sunny Saturday as we strolled to The Meadows but Joss was distracted by something so I decided it wasn’t a good time. I was curious whether Joss’s distraction had something to do with Braden. She’d been acting strangely around him, strangely enough for even me to notice during the aftermath of one of my headaches. We’d been book shopping with Hannah when it happened. The headache hit me out of the blue like it had been doing for the last couple of months. It was horrible and usually accompanied by tingling and numbness in my arm. When it passed I was exhausted. In fact, lately my energy levels hadn’t been great. I kept meaning to go to the doctor but every time I got this ominous churning in my gut, and I put it off, promising myself I’d make an appointment the next day.
Anyway, the headache hit and Joss was concerned—she didn’t fool me with her ‘I don’t care about people’ rubbish—and taking me to get some food in me. We bumped into Braden and Vicky. While I was pissed off that Braden had slept with her again and brought her back into our lives (and Adam’s orbit), I still noticed the tension between Joss and Braden.
Admittedly when they’d first met I’d had hopes of playing matchmaker but recent revelations had spoiled my hopes. However, Braden still asked an awful lot of questions about Joss and he stared at her (a lot), and I was beginning to suspect that, despite denials from both of them, something was going on. I didn’t know how to feel about that now that I knew Joss wasn’t keen on being in a relationship. It was difficult to pin down her true feelings about anything and I didn’t want either Braden or her to get hurt.
Deciding to bite my tongue about a lot of things I kept our conversation cheerful as we approached our friends. Braden, Adam, Jenna and Ed were already there, sitting on a large chenille blanket with two picnic hampers beside them. My eyes immediately went to Adam and then quickly moved to Braden when I discovered Adam was watching me.
I laughed as Joss teased Braden upon our arrival, something not many people outside of our family dared to do and I loved that Joss did. I think secretly my big brother did too.
Without thinking about it I flopped down onto the blanket beside Adam. His strong arm came around me instantly and he squeezed me affectionately against his side. “Nice to see you, Els.”
The whole point of the picnic was to catch up with Adam and Braden since they’d been working so hard on the new development we’d barely seen them these last few weeks. I missed them both, I did. I missed Adam, and inhaling the familiar smell of him and feeling his strength pressed against my right side, I almost forgot for a moment my earlier resolve.
Almost.
“Yeah, you too.” I gave him a half-hearted smile and pulled casually out of his embrace. I turned to Jenna and Ed to greet them properly, ignoring the sudden tension radiating from Adam. He knew me too well, and he immediately understood something was wrong.
Good.
Hearing Joss tell Braden she needed to take a rain check on the picnic, worry brought my head around to her. I gazed up at her in concern, suddenly wondering if there had been more to her distraction earlier than I’d previously thought. “Is everything okay? Do you need me to come?”
Joss shook her head, and waved her phone at me. “No, I’m okay. Rhian just really needs someone to talk to. It can’t wait. Sorry.” She was avoiding Braden’s eyes for some reason and when I glanced at my brother I found him studying Joss in a weird way. Did he not believe her? Why not? Rhian was Joss’s best friend. She stayed in London and had been having personal problems lately, so it was completely plausible that she needed to talk. “See you later.” Joss walked away, her long ponytail swaying across her back. Looking back at Braden I watched him watch her in a way that unnerved me. It wasn’t just the fact that he had that determined, focused expression he got on his face when he was going after something— usually a development and never a woman—it was the glimmer of excitement in his eyes.
I’d never seen him look at anybody that way. The romantic side of me sighed happily. The practical side of me (and believe it or not I had one) worried her lip between her teeth, thinking Joss and Braden were either the perfect match or a freaking disaster waiting to happen.
Later, after having frozen Adam out to the point of seriously pissing him off, my suspicions over Braden’s interest were confirmed when he pestered me all the way home about Joss. I knew by the time he’d dropped me off on Dublin Street that he was going after her, and I knew from having grown up with him that when Braden really wanted something he was absolutely relentless, even when he was reaching for the impossible. I could only hope Joss didn’t hurt him while he tried to reach for her.