“I’m just a guy like any other.”
“Not to us.” He squeezed his arms. “And we did what we needed to. And I’m still thankful every single day for it. For having you in my life. The only stupid thing we did back then was not moving us all out of the state. But Snow had his job and Lucas had too many business interests here, and I guess we were too fucking cocky. We never expected Jagger to agree as easily as he did. Never expected he’d just let you walk.”
“Cocky. Guess you guys were that. But it isn’t a big enough word to describe Jagger. I wasn’t his first boy and as we’ve learned, I certainly wasn’t the last. Most of his kids get sold or walk and as you know, end up working for him. He tricks you into believing you love him.”
Rowe frowned. “You certainly didn’t love him when we met you.”
“No, but for a little while, when I was sixteen, I thought I did. But I saw his true colors and after that, I wasn’t isolated from the…parties. Before what happened at White Rock, I didn’t know about the other kids and even after that, a lot of the kids at those parties were rent boys—so I didn’t truly know everything. I think that as long as his boys don’t piss him off too badly, they don’t get exposed to a lot of his life.”
“We should never have just walked away from Jagger,” Snow muttered, the hand on his good arm flexing into a fist.
“And what the hell were we supposed to do?” Lucas dropped back into his chair and threw out his arms as if he were waiting for Snow to supply him with the key to their past.
Rowe released Ian and moved closer to Lucas and Snow as if he were expecting to need to separate them physically. “Whoa, everyone calm down here.”
Snow and Ian started yelling at the same time then. Hollis’s gaze first met Jude’s, then Noah’s and then Andrei’s. They were all still sitting as the four friends hollered at each other around the table. Hollis’s lips quirked because really, this was too damn funny. Even Lucas was getting into it now, standing again, his voice raised—but Hollis could see it, the panic he wasn’t able to hide in his expression. It was on the other two faces as well. They loved the hell out of Ian Pierce and it showed so strongly, Hollis couldn’t imagine anything on this earth messing with the unique friendship between these four men. He knew Ian wasn’t really all that mad about them paying Jagger, too. He just wanted to give them shit.
Andrei tilted his head toward the living room and the four of them quietly got up and left them to their arguing. The Romanian refreshed their glasses and sat in one of the chairs at the end of the couch. “We might as well get comfortable and let them get it all out of their systems.”
Noah sat on the couch and jumped when Sergeant leaped into his lap and began kneading his thighs. He winced and carefully patted the cat on the head. Someone shouted again from the dining room and the cat jerked, then crawled between Noah and the arm of the couch, wedging his body in the tight space. Noah gasped. “Holy shit, this thing has lethal little weapons.”
“Do you know how cats keep law and order?” Hollis asked, unable to keep from grinning. “Claw enforcement.”
Groaning, Andrei reached out and snatched Hollis’s glass.
“Hey,” he complained.
“You don’t deserve the top shelf stuff after that.” Andrei frowned then rolled his eyes and handed the drink back.
Hollis settled into another chair, noticing that the shouting in the other room had lowered to fierce murmurs. He relaxed, feeling less like an outsider because nobody was bothering to try and be on their best behavior with him there. It was cool.
“What’s a cat’s favorite song?” Jude settled in next to Noah and Sergeant scampered out of his hiding place to curl up in Jude’s lap. The paramedic stroked the gray fur and the animal closed its eyes and stretched in pleasure.
Andrei growled. “No, we are not doing this.”
Jude merely stared and kept a straight face as he replied. “Three Blind Mice.”
Hollis laughed because it was a bad one. “What’s a cat’s favorite color?”
Noah snorted. “I know this one! Purrrrrple.”
“You all suck.” Andrei stood and walked to the bar. He came back with the whole bottle of bourbon and plunked it down on the coffee table. “I can tell they’re going to be awhile and we’re going to need more of this.”
“What’s wrong, Andrei?” Noah said with a wide grin. “Cat got your tongue?”
“This is a catastrophe,” Jude murmured.
“Hey Andrei,” Hollis drawled. “Knock, knock.”
“Fuck you.”###
Hollis poked around in Lucas’s refrigerator, but there really wasn’t much there. Even with Ian’s compulsive cooking to fight his anxiety, eight guys under one roof could seriously pack away a lot of food, removing the chances of yummy leftovers. He needed to hit the fucking gym. Spending a week eating Ian’s amazing cooking had left his pants fitting a little too tight around the waist. How the hell did his friends stay so fit with Ian’s cooking? They had to live in the damn gym.