Jessica Forever After

Chapter 2

~A~

Cam frowned when the text came through. She had every right to be mad at him. He deserved that. He put his phone away and looked up to study his brothers. He was not at all happy at what he'd been hearing and what he could now observe since he wasn't looking at his phone. "Guys..." He tried once before pursing his lips to give a shrill whistle.

It worked because they fell silent for once.

"Right." He scowled at each of them. "We are going to have to figure something out. Groveling is very high on the list for you four." He pointed at Zack, Tony, Pete and Josh. "It's probably on the list for you too." He told Sam.

"But not you?" Pete scowled.

"I didn't date her." Cam said. "I'm guilty of probably lying to my best friend given that I've been here for most of the month and never bothered to seek her out." He huffed a sigh at the looks they gave him. "Yeah, I'm guilty of that. But I'm also guilty of keeping our cat a secret and for not standing up for her before she left. I should have driven her home and I certainly shouldn't have allowed any of you to say anything to her that sounded angry and that things are all her fault."

"Fair point." Sam nodded. "But what do we do?"

"We weren't lying when we told her we have to talk about things amongst ourselves." Tony said.

"True, but y'all were really angry about it and again, made it sound like she's some lying cheap no-good whore that's been playing y'all for a fool." Cam crossed his arms as there were several angry grumbles that came from his brothers. "Now sit down, shut up and let's talk about some shit." He eyed them all with a raised eyebrow until they'd sat down, crossed their arms and scowled at him like he'd done them wrong.

"Don't call her a whore." Sam glared.

Cam raised his hands in surrender. "I didn't, I said you made it sound like it." He said, calmly.

"She's still the farthest thing from it."

Josh snorted. "Yes, Pete, I'm sure she is." He eyed them.

"Knock it off." Tony said.

"Yeah, it's been five years since I met her." Zack said. "And as best I can remember none of you that dated her, slept with her." They all nodded before looking at Cam.

"I didn't sleep with her either." He was quick to clarify. "But honestly for both Sam and I, you'll need to thank Eiffel for that. She accepts salmon flavored treats as payment."

They looked puzzled. "Trust me, you can thank that cat." Sam said. "No need for us to be swapping stories tonight about it. Cam has a point. We need to talk." He nodded at Cam. "You're in the fun position of being the bestie not the ex. I'm sure that you've managed to glean information about her relationships while you lived together."

Cam nodded. "Right." He nodded, letting his eyes narrow at Zack, who frowned at the attention. "So, brothers... how many of you wanted to kick her first ex boyfriend's ass for dumping her?"

He could probably have been kinder about it but it did manage to relieve the tension in the room for a moment before they all realized they were pissed at Zack and that just lead to a cascading domino effect of the next in line blaming the next in line and so forth and so on.

Cam ran a hand down his face again, rethinking his choices as family lead for their team and wishing he'd stayed in Paris for a brief moment. He let them talk for at least an hour before he had to use the whistle again to bring focus back around. "Guys... we don't have anyone to blame but ourselves. We should have been communicating from the very first relationship. We were actually all here when Zack dated her. Remember we talked about that offer and agreement about her Prom?"