"I kind of expected you to tell me you had gone back to Australia," Jake told her and then hurried over to the living area to give it a good spray of Lysol. Joey had been doing a few casual shifts in the ER at the hospital, filling in for Riley's absence, so he probably just picked up some random bug that was going around. He folded the blanket up that he had tucked Joey up into early, who had just ended up kicking it off into a messy pile had his feet when he felt hot. Now he hugged the neatly folded blanket over in front of him and looked over at Alice, apology written all over his face. "I wouldn't blame you if you just wanted to hate me forever. I really wouldn't."

He put the blanket on one of the armchairs and sat down on the sofa. "I-It's okay, he just picked something up at work..." The hesitation in his words were obvious, because it felt wrong talking about Joey to her. Joey had admitted to him that he felt like Voldemort and was struggling to connect with any of the Greshams because they had all liked Alice. He felt like an outsider, like he was interloping on their family and didn't belong there. Jake had tried to reassure him, but it hadn't really worked. Joey was still avoiding basically anything other than Jake with red hair. Then there was the homesickness for Australia. Joey was riddled with it, and who could blame him? "I don't really know how much more I can apologise for what I did. It shouldn't have happened. I just... he means a lot to me."