Ink Enduring (Montgomery Ink #5)(14)

“Shit is about right.”

“Where would you go if you left here right now?” Jake asked, his voice low.

“I’ll find a motel.”

“Fuck that. I’ve got a guest room. No use you paying for some shitty place where they don’t wash the sheets.”

“So I should stay here where I don’t know what’s on your sheets.” He said the last part with a smile, and Jake flipped him off. Of course, he did it as he smiled, so Border figured everything would be okay for now.

“You’re an idiot,” Jake said, and Border knew that was for more than just the sheets comment.

“Yeah, I am.” Border cracked his knuckles. “Would Holly be okay with me here?”

Jake looked at him before shaking his head. “She doesn’t live here, so, yeah. Plus…well, she doesn’t know how I know you.”

Border swallowed hard. He didn’t deserve to be a memory Jake shared with others. He knew that. “I thought you were going to ask Holly to marry you?”

“I said I was thinking about it,” Jake spat before holding up his hand. “I’m tired and don’t want to have to deal with all of this crap right now. So why don’t I show you to your room and we can call it a night? Because I…well, I just can’t right now.”

Border nodded and followed the man he’d loved at one point in his life toward the back of the house. He’d left to protect Jake and to find who he could be without a drunk of a father riding his ass.

He hadn’t liked the man he was becoming without a purpose, but by the time he’d found some semblance of himself, he’d been too late. He couldn’t have Jake the way he had at one point, but maybe if fate smiled down on him for even a moment, he could have Jake in his life somehow.

And wasn’t that the hell of it all? He’d come back to Denver to find a home, and now he would be begging for scraps. Not to mention he still wanted to know who Maya was.

Coming back wasn’t what he had expected it to be, but really, he shouldn’t have expected anything at all. He never had before.





Chapter Four


Waking up with the man he’d once loved under his roof made for one weird-ass morning, but Jake was used to strange. He was a Gallagher, who happened to be an honorary Montgomery, after all. Weird was sort of how he lived and breathed.

Not only had he woken up with a headache from tossing and turning all night, he also had a hard-on from hell. He wouldn’t rub one off, though, because he knew if he did, he wouldn’t be thinking of Holly.

That killed him.

He wasn’t a cheater, wasn’t an * that thought of someone else when he came. Holly was his girlfriend, therefore, the only person who would make him come. There was something insanely wrong with him that he was even having this conversation in his head.

Instead of jerking himself off, he would take a cold shower and pray that whatever the hell was wrong with him—as well as his hard-on from hell—would go away. He sighed and shuffled his way to the bathroom, knowing that today was going to suck ass.

By the time he made it to the kitchen, coffee had already been made, and there was a note by the multi-serve pot. Jake wasn’t sure if he wanted to read the damn thing, not after the night he’d had.

Jake –

I headed over early to get my truck and a couple of things. I’ll be back tonight, but if you don’t want me to stay longer than the one night, it’s no worries.

See you.

—B

Jake didn’t crumple up the paper, but it was close. Damn that man. Damn the memories. Damn every f*cking thing that kept throwing Jake for a loop. Border wasn’t supposed to be here. He was supposed to be on whatever path the man had taken all those years ago, leaving Jake and all they’d had behind.

Not that he and Border had truly had anything, of course. They’d only had the promise of what could be, rather than what either of them had needed. They’d f*cked because the girls they were with had liked to watch. They’d gotten each other off with the premise that it was for someone else, not themselves. It was all a lie, of course. He’d known it from the start, as had Border. But they’d been too scared to figure out what they wanted, and by the time Jake had found the courage to do something for himself, Border had left.

He’d lost his best friend and the man he’d fallen for in one fell swoop.

The fact that it had happened again only a couple of years later with Maya, had only brought home the fact that Jake never truly knew what he was doing. He was always one moment behind, one step in the wrong direction.

And now he had Holly. He’d done right by her, and would continue to do so, because no matter what he might have once felt for Border and Maya, Holly was now, and the others were in the past.

Jake ran a hand over his face and did his best to push those kinds of thoughts out of his mind. He had work to do today, a few projects that were coming up on deadlines soon, and paperwork that wouldn’t do itself on his desk. He’d worry about what to do with Border after he cleared his head. Of course, as soon as he thought that, Maya popped into his brain and he cursed himself.

Of course, she would.

That damn woman always filled his mind when he didn’t need her to.

He let out a breath and poured himself a cup of coffee, grateful that Border had already made some. When he took a sip, he winced. Yeah, apparently, Border still liked the stuff damn strong. Jake would just have to keep drinking and get over it. It’s what he did for so many things now.