I stop at the entrance to their lane – a lane built for one – and cross my ankles while I wait. I have nothing to discuss with them, no news to share, no questions about Checkmate or the guys. But I also have nothing better to do right now, and if I spend another second thinking about Abigail, I might send myself insane.
Leave her alone, she’s off-limits. Or run to her, and bring her back to my bed until I no longer want her so bad that it makes me sick.
I don’t know the right answer. All I know is that she barely weighs a hundred pounds, she’s way too skinny for her own good, her freckles make me wanna pat her head, but her fire and her eyes make me want to hear her cry while I fuck her.
This has been the single most frustrating week of my life while I battle through what my body so clearly craves, and what my brain saysfuck noto. And because my brain swears, even when it’s just an internal thought, I circle back around to thinking about my non-swearing, virginal church girl who wears too many clothes and refuses to show her body even when in the tub and coming on my hand.
My life has taken a fan-fucking-tastic turn.
When Jay and Soph’s shots slow, and then stop completely, they turn to me with wide smiles and zero surprise to find me here. I wasn’t noisy when I approached, but these guys are trained in the world of fight or flight, so they would have known I was here before I even crossed my ankles.
“Spencer.” Soph studies me with her pretty eyes, and makes me smile despite the fact I don’t want to. “You snuck out last night.”
I shrug and lower my eyes to study my boots. “Had business to attend to.”
“Hmm.” Jay removes the spent magazine from his gun and pushes in a brand new lot. “Business to see to. Does your business have fire for hair, and cool eyes that I wanna stare into to make sure the colors don’t swap back and forth?”
“Don’t stare at her eyes, fucker.” I push up straight when the couple move past me and out of the booth. Those lanes are made for one person at a time, but we have three bodies in there, and only one of them is small. “I had to go find her.”
“Did you apologize for scaring her away?” Soph makes herself at home as she crosses the room and pulls out a chair at the fold-out table we often play cards at.
As men, as military men, we should be playing poker, but seeing as most of those men are whipped little bitches, and their girls don’t know how to play poker, we play Go Fish and pretend we still have balls in our pants.
“I know you made that girl cry, jerkoff. I could see it in hercooleyes.”
I scrape my chair along the concrete floor and pull it out. Dropping down opposite Soph, I fold my arms again, which only reminds me of Abigail and how she covers herself up when she’s feeling vulnerable.
“I went to find her. I told her I was sorry.”
“Did she accept your apology?” she scowls. “Because there’s a difference between telling someone you’re sorry, and actually getting that message across so they believe you.”
Mad about something I don’t know about, Jay throws his hands into the air. “I said I was sorry, okay! A guy fucks up one time, and he has to grovel for six years before she stops bitching about it.”
“Right, because calling itbitchingand rolling your eyes is the perfect way to earn forgiveness.”
“What did you do?” My eyes flicker from Soph to Jay. Back and forth between her sour expression and his exasperation. “What did you do to your sweet ballerina, Bishop?”
“Sweet?” He scoffs, but quickly locks it up again when Soph glares. “She’s a tyrant, man.” He leans across the table and practically pleads. “Save me.”
“Jay thought it would be clever to make a copy of Jess and Kane’s marriage certificate.”
I narrow my eyes. “Okay…”
“He then proceeded to mark their names out and add ours.”
My lips twitch. Of course he did. “Okay.”
“He thinks asking me to sign a photocopy of a scribbled-on certificate is the same thing as getting married.”
“We got married, Sugar Plum! No take backs.”
“We didnotget married, dummy. You shoved a wrinkled piece of paper in my face and demanded I sign. When I said no, you signed for both of us. That’s not marriage, that’s delusion.”
“You said ‘I do’!”
“You asked if I’d like a fresh drink from the bar. I saidI do.”
“That’s ‘I do’! Those are the magic words, Sophia!”