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Author: Billie Patsy
last update publish date: 2026-10-02 21:45:35

JAKE

Clara’s text came through while I was spotting a client, phone face-down on the bench beside me. I glanced at it when I stepped away, wiped sweat from my forehead, and read it slow like I might have misread.

“Mia said yes. She’s coming by the house just to talk about a schedule. You should be here if you can. I don’t want to plan it wrong.”

I read it twice.

Mia had not told me. Had not mentioned a call, a meeting, a plan — nothing. She’d slept in my bed, heard me say I loved her, woken up
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Comments (3)
goodnovel comment avatar
Lala Lopez
She says she doesn’t want him to lose anything, who’s to say Ryan isn’t all talk??
goodnovel comment avatar
Lala Lopez
Mia is so stupid sometimes. So it makes it better for her to stay at Clara’s? Is she now afraid that Ryan can drop the bb if she and Jake to Clara at any time??
goodnovel comment avatar
Lala Lopez
Great update. Can we please get some open and honest conversations between Jake and Mia?? Why is Jake keeping Clara around still??
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  • My Husband’s Brother, My Filthy Trainer   138

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  • My Husband’s Brother, My Filthy Trainer   137

    MIA Clara’s phone rang sharp from the kitchen counter, cutting through the quiet. She glanced at the screen, already pushing herself up from the sofa. “Sorry — it’s the clinic,” she said, hurrying toward the hallway. “Give me two minutes. I promise.” Her footsteps faded down the hall. A door clicked shut behind her. Then it was just the soft glow of the lamp, the quiet hum of the fridge, and Jake’s knee pressed close enough to mine that I could feel the heat through both our clothes. He didn’t lean in. Didn’t reach for me. Just turned his head and looked at my mouth like he was waiting for me to stop lying — to him, to myself. “Did you mean it?” he asked, his voice so quiet it wouldn’t travel past the couch cushions. “Mean what?” “Stay away from me.” His gaze held steady on mine. “Because every time I sit this close, your breath changes. Your hands tighten. Your body doesn’t know how to lie even when your mouth tries.” Heat crawled up my neck, hot and guilty and impossible to

  • My Husband’s Brother, My Filthy Trainer   136

    MIA Clara’s heels hit the tile before I could move. She pushed the glass door open with her shoulder, bag on one arm, phone still in her hand. The clinic was half-dark. Jake was still at the desk. I was still behind it. For a second nobody spoke. Clara looked at him. Then at me. Then at the empty waiting room. “You’re both still here,” she said. “Closing up,” I said too fast. “Charts. The system glitched on the last two.” Jake didn’t help. He just stood there with his hands off the counter now, like that fixed anything. Clara set her bag down on a chair. “I thought you left an hour ago.” “I did,” Jake said. “Came back.” “For what?” I answered before he could. “Insurance question. One of the afternoon patients. I texted him because I couldn’t reach the file.” It was thin. Clara’s eyes said she knew it was thin. She didn’t call it a lie. She only smiled the careful smile she used with difficult patients. “Well. You’re both upright. That’s something.” She glanced at the dark

  • My Husband’s Brother, My Filthy Trainer   135

    MIA The clinic lights were already dimmed, only the hallway lamp glowing soft and low. I’d filed the last patient chart, locked the medicine cabinet exactly the way Clara had shown me, straightened the magazines on the coffee table until they were perfectly aligned. The waiting room was empty. The only sound left was the low hum of the staff fridge down the hall. My shift had ended an hour ago. My room was twenty steps away — a bed, a door that locked, silence. I could have gone there. Instead I sat at the front desk, clicking through empty screens, closing windows I’d already closed, because busy hands felt safer than lying awake in that quiet room. The bell above the door chimed. I looked up. My heart gave a sharp, painful lurch. Jake. He didn’t step all the way inside. Didn’t glance down the hall toward where I slept. He stopped right at the counter, hands in his jacket pockets, like he was just another patient who’d arrived after hours. His hair was damp at the edges,

  • My Husband’s Brother, My Filthy Trainer   134

    MIA The front desk phone rang once and cut off before I could reach it, the sound sharp and too loud in the quiet space. I sat back, fingers hovering over the keyboard, and breathed slow through the tightness in my chest. I was still learning the system — appointment codes, insurance fields, which boxes were mandatory and which ones could wait. Clara had walked me through it twice, patient and steady, but my hands moved slower than the cursor, my brain stalling on every new screen. The small room down the hall was mine, though — clean, bright, no one breathing down my neck — and for a few hours that morning, I’d let myself believe this might actually work. That I could build something small and safe. Then the bell above the door chimed. A woman stepped up to the counter. I looked up. My blood turned cold. Lena. She stood there like she owned the place — dress soft and tailored, falling exactly right over her stomach, hair sleek and perfect, that same smile landing the second

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