Jerry wasn't sure exactly why he was doing this either, but getting Sarah coffee after each job interview had become his current purpose.

"I mean, it's not that I don't appreciate it," she said, holding her styrofoam cup with both hands, "but don't you have other things to do?"

He shrugged. "I like having coffee with you."

Her smile was enough to justify every little second he spent waiting for her in front of various office buildings. But then it faltered and she leaned her elbows on the table and put her hands on her head.

"I just wish I didn't suck so much so I could come out with good news for once." She looked at the glass and steel monster she'd just come out of, one of many that lined the gravel square filled with cafes and cantinas.

Jerry found the place a little off putting, too. A tiny circle of solace in what was otherwise a busy corporate hotspot in the city.

"I guess I'm just not made for corporate life," Sarah mumbled, picking up her coffee again and taking a sip.

The way she closed her eyes and hummed after each mouthful made him want to lean over and kiss the coffee off her lips.

He never did that. After she'd showed up at his place, they hadn't kissed again. Sober Sarah wasn't pushy, but did give him a lingering hug each time they saw each other. He loved that, loved having her body so close, feeling her heat against him.

But today, it was different. Both because he'd waited a little longer than usual and because she looked so dejected. And he just felt like kissing her without any logic involved.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" she asked.

"Like what?" He pulled back a little because he'd been unconsciously leaning in too close.

She hesitated for a second, as if judging if she wanted to get into that conversation. "So cute," she finally said. Then she glanced up at the building she'd come out of and sighed again.

The finality in it broke Jerry's heart. "Why do you keep applying for office jobs if you can't stomach them?"

"They pay okay, and it's not like I can start my own practice with no money. Don't say it." She raised her hand before he could open his mouth. "Kyle wanted to loan me money too, but I can't take it. Not from him and especially not from you."

He didn't fully understand why, but he accepted her decision. "Bank loan?"

"You're really too cute," she said with a sad laugh and a pat of his cheek. "I have no collateral. How would I guarantee any loan?"

By too cute, she obviously meant a naive idiot who'd always had money and had no idea how the banking system worked.

"Couldn't you find real counseling work in other places? Like a school."

Sarah winced. "I don't want to be around children."

Her answer made his stomach uncomfortable for a reason. Maybe because not liking children was strange. Or because he was already concerned that she wouldn't want to have children of her own. And why on God's green Earth was that any of his business? It wasn't like he would be the father or anything. He flinched at his own stupid thought.

"Are you okay?" Her voice sounded so distant and he made efforts to stop being a monumental imbecile.

"Yeah, sure." He focused on the traffic, trying not to go into overanalyze mode. "I just wish I could come up with a viable solution for you."

She smiled, and this time it was honest and bright. "It's not your job to save me." Her hand rested on his cheek and turned his head to completely face her. "You're already doing so much for me."

"I know coffee is great, but I think you're exaggerating."

Her musical laughter filled his heart and the unease slipped out of him.

"Moral support means a lot more than coffee," she said, stating the obvious.

"I just wish money wasn't an issue for you."

He really did. If he were completely honest, he wished money wasn't an issue for anyone, but that was impossible. All the working ants around him proved it. They didn't all have the luxury of a dangerous secret agency job which paid a ridiculous amount of money and a NASA job he could do whenever he felt inspired.

"Money is difficult, Jerry," she said. "It owns you if you don't own it."

"I don't want money to own you. And I wish it didn't run people's lives, make them do..."

"Desperate things they later regret?" Her smile was once again heartbreakingly sad.

He'd wanted to say things they didn't like or fully believe in, but he guess that worked, too. He was so far removed from the real world, it was becoming a bit disconcerting. Sarah was so real, a beacon lighting up his vision, pulling him out if his sheltered shell. He wished he could help her so much, he literally ached.

A flash of a thought came to him, so stupid, yet so brilliant. "Could I hire you?"

She pulled back, her eyes narrowing in suspicion. "To do what?"

"Sam really needs help after the whole Christine thing. And Tom..." Tom would need a mountain of help and so would Angie, though he wasn't sure it was okay for them both to have the same therapist.

"That's a nice thought," Sarah said, obviously dismissing him. "But I couldn't see Sam. I don't think I have the necessary experience for it, and it's never a good idea to treat friends and family."

"You don't even know Sam." Hell, Sam didn't even know she existed, which he now found unbelievable. Everyone should know about her.

"I know you. And through you, I know your family. I couldn't, not when I'm--" She stopped herself and bit her lip.

It pushed every other thought out of his head, including the one about having her maybe work for the Agency. All he wanted was to lean over and kiss her. It was strange and new to want that so much.

To distract himself, he focused on the traffic again and the giant bus stopping across the street. His blood froze in his veins.

A giant advertisement for a local paper filled the side of the bus. The title drained all the heat out of the day.

The fall of Sam Grant. The bigger they are, the harder they plummet.

"Oh, shit."

"What?" Sarah turned to the bus too and her eyes widened. "Oh, no."

He stood. "I have to go." He had to go and rummage through every news stand to see just what had blown up so badly.

Sarah didn't give her input on the latest tragedy to hit his baby brother, just looked up at him with desperate eyes. "I'm so sorry, Remy."

In his flurry, the nickname got to him. He leaned over and caught her lips in a kiss. It wasn't much, it didn't last long, and he certainly didn't go beyond what they both accepted at the moment, but it cleared his head a little. Enough to throw her a fleeting smile and run off without stumbling on spindly chairs.

He already missed her, but this was a mess he didn't want to sink her into yet.

♠️

It was worse than Jerry had thought. It wasn't one, but every damn paper in the entire damn city.

Sam had stacked them in a neat pile on the kitchen table and rested his head on top of them. Tom just straddled a chair, his arms crossed on the back, looking as expressionless as the microwave behind him. It was weird for Jerry to remember there was a time when he could read Tom perfectly even with sunglasses on. But after three years of him no longer wearing any around them, he was now as discernible as a rock.

"It was bound to happen," Sam said, his voice even an neutral.

Jerry wasn't fooled. He knew his baby brother well enough to tell that was his resigned voice. Sam felt like he deserved the backlash and it wasn't fair, not on top of the whole Christine and Harry thing.

"It's still so harsh," Jerry said.

Harsh was putting it mildly. From beloved heroes, they were now the pariah of the city.

"After my fuckup, I was sure someone would finally get it," Sam continued, his voice as lifeless as his eyes. "We're not heroes. We're the reason all of this is happening. We never deserved the praise."

"Sam, we're not making this happen." Jerry whacked the newspaper he was holding on the table. "It's not our fault Snitch Gravel decided to send a gazillion goons at us. It's not even our fault that he's after us."

"Tell that to them." Tom nodded at the stack of papers and picked up the one Jerry had dropped. With an overdramatic flourish, he opened it at random. "Look what our fair citizens have to say. Who the hell made them our heroes? We don't need them!" He read the last part in a scarily accurate ghetto accent.

"Tom, stop," Sam said, covering his head with his hands.

"We should release a press statement. Ladies and gentlemen, may we have your attention please? We don't want to be your heroes."

Sam flinched and pressed his palms harder on top of his head as if that would shield him from Tom's words.

"Better yet," Tom continued, the bitterness in his voice chilling, "do yourselves a favor and save yourselves."

"They're unprepared, untrained civilians," Sam snapped. "This is not their fault."

"It's not ours either," Tom retorted, for the first time showing a tinge of pain. "We barely broke twenty, Sam. We should be figuring ourselves out, not run around saving everyone else."

At the moment, Jerry realized he wasn't actually being disdainful. He was hurt and scared just like the rest of them, but didn't want to show weakness. They needed Kyle and Jimmy. They would be so much better at handling this. Though, to be honest, Jerry didn't think they would care that much. They were heroes enough to not require any type of validation from anyone. And Jerry had never seen two people care less about what everyone else said.

"Maybe it will pass," Jerry whispered.

"Our positive fame didn't. Trust me, the negative will be even worse."

Jerry hated so much that Sam was right. People loved to get excited, but they loved to hate even more. And after three years of constant praise and only a few snarky comments, their fall would be delicious.

"I need to get shitfaced," Tom mumbled.

"No, you don't," Jerry said at once because he'd had it with drunk people. Well, drunk Sam at least.

"Yes, I do." He stood. "I wish I could handle my misery with as much dignity as you, Jerry, but I'm a much weaker man."

"That's not true--"

"Wanna come?" Tom asked, turning to Sam.

"Ugh, no. I didn't even properly recover after my last hangover and I don't want to give Herrison more feeder to put me in therapy." Sam opened another paper and disappeared behind it.

Even if Jerry hated they weren't burning the things in a bonfire in the backyard, he was glad Sam wasn't on his way to dying of alcohol poisoning.

"The backlash over our supposed heroics I get," Sam said, "but what I don't get, is this."

He put the paper down to show the display of a different story. Sam Grant and Christine Palmer call it quits.

Jerry's stomach jumped into his throat. He hadn't noticed that one.

"Sources close to the group claim they have been over for two weeks," Sam read, his voice shaky. "The blame is, however, split between the two of them, and the same sources claim it wasn't pretty. Sam Grant is borderline nonfunctional, so different from the cerebral facade he's kept up for so long." He put the paper down, his hands as shaky as his voice. "How did they know? How did they get this?"

"A source close to the group?" Tom asked in disbelief. "Who? No one knows except our parents, Harry and Herrison. And I doubt any of them decided to share."

Nausea rose to Jerry's throat and he was sure he was going to be sick. His head spun and he shut his eyes, trying to drive the obvious thought back, make it less true.

"Yeah, it makes no sense," Sam was saying. "Plus they knew a lot more damaging details if they decided to spill. Why halfass it?"

Jerry knew why. He definitely knew why and he'd been such an idiot. She'd practically confessed.

Money makes people do desperate things they later regret.

No. It couldn't be her. Not Sarah. But she was the only one outside their group who knew because he'd stupidly told her. This was on him.

"This is all my fault," he whispered.

"What?"

Sam and Tom stopped from firing unlikely theories and turned to him. Sam looked shocked, but Tom was rightfully murderous. Jerry couldn't hide it. He'd take the consequences of his stupidity. Except the consequences were not on him this time.

"I told someone," he said, his voice low.

"Who?" Sam was fortunately shocked, not ready to kill someone.

"Sarah." Which was a stupid answer since neither of them knew who Sarah was.

"Who the hell is Sarah?" Tom asked, his voice rough.

Jerry swallowed heavily. "A girl."

"No," Tom said, feigning surprise. "And I thought it was a dude."

"Are you dating someone and we don't know?" Sam asked instead.

"Um, no."

"Then why would you tell her?"

The pain in Sam's voice made Jerry want to die right there and then. It made no sense from the outside because they didn't feel the way he did, had no idea how Sarah had touched a part of him he didn't even know existed.

She made him feel powerful, perfect, worth it. She made him trust her after seeing her just one time.

His brothers were right. What was wrong with him?

"She seemed trustworthy. And I felt the need to talk to someone."

"Talk to us!" Tom threw his hands in the air. "There are literally six other people you could've talked to. Nine if you count our parents and Herrison. Why go to a total stranger?"

"Kyle trusts her," Jerry whispered. Or at least he did until now.

The affirmation silenced Tom, but it was the heartbroken look on Sam's face that hurt Jerry more than the roughness of Tom's words.

"I'm so sorry, Sam. I really never imagined something like this would happen."

"I know you didn't do this on purpose, Jerry, but..." Sam glanced at the paper and folded it. "I'm not sure I can handle this right now. I... I need to be alone."

"Okay, sure, I'll leave--"

"Not you." Sam gave him the stink eye though it was obvious he was trying his best to tone down his reaction. "I need to get out of here."

"Go to my place." Tom took his keys out of his pocket and tossed them to Sam. "It's empty as hell and there's nothing to trigger you in there."

"Thanks," Sam said with a nod. "Don't get too drunk and do something stupid. We're up shit creek without a paddle anyway."

Tom smiled bitterly. "I wish I could promise that, but I really don't want to be myself right now."

Jerry just wanted to yell that they all needed therapy, but it only reminded him of Sarah and the shame kept him quiet. He wasn't even sure what to do about her because he didn't want to call her out on it. She didn't owe him anything. He'd been the stupid one. And maybe Kyle for fixing them up.

Stop blaming other people. This is on you and your inability to read a person.

Tom had a point. Jerry didn't want to be himself right then either. Because there were some things in life that were impossible to bear. One was Tina having a crush on Kyle. Another was hurting his baby brother.

So he bit his tongue and let his brothers handle their pain the way they could. He wasn't any better at it than them.

♠️♠️♠️

I had such a nice little build up with Sarah there. I have to admit I love writing her and Jerry. But then I decided to snuff it in the bud because screw happiness in this book.

Do you think she did it? Was Jerry really stupid for not seeing this coming? And yuck, tabloids and peer pressure. But people so do love to read bad things about other people. And poor Sam and Tom (yes, I'm calling him poor Tom) are not in a place where they can shrug this stuff off right now.

So yes, the next part of this chapter is going to be... interesting to say the least. Anyway, I'm almost (almost) done breaking things. At least in a terrible, violent way. Then I'll start maybe fixing things and breaking things in non-violent ways.

Throw me a vote for support, and here's to hoping for another update soon. I know this one was fast, but I decided to take advantage of my sudden desire to write.