“Why are you with Vanmussen?” Devan’s cool voice had me looking up at him. Did he think there was truth to the rumors I was sleeping with the guys’ team captain?
“He’s coming to look at an apartment with me. Throw some credibility behind my application.”
Devan made a noise in his throat, and my eyes flashed to his. We were caught in a weird stare-off until he swallowed hard, spinning around and walking back into the house. In the doorway behind him was Rigby, his face dragged down with sadness.
Devan shook his head at his friend. “Leave it. She made her choice.”
Rigby took a step forward. “Nova,” he called softly, like his heart was fucking breaking.
Just like mine was. “I’m sorry.”
I hightailed it off the front porch and back into the car, speeding out of the driveway and down the road several blocks before pulling off onto the shoulder. Then I broke down in huge, wracking sobs.
“I’m… sorry…” I said in disjointed hiccups to Clint, who rubbed my back soothingly.
“Fuck, it’s okay, Nova. Come sit on the passenger side. I need a fucking beer, and its only 9 a.m. Lucky I know just the bar for day drinking.”
And that was how we both ended up catching an Uber to the open house at eleven, half-drunk on mimosas—hold the orange juice, please—and signing the contract to my very first apartment less than an hour later. Turns out the agent was an IceCaps fan and willing to skip formalities for season tickets in the VIP seats.
Julieta chewed us both out like we were naughty teenagers when she picked us up from the real estate office after lunch, which just made me laugh. Somehow, my laughter just made her look more worried, but she told me she was happy I’d found a place, though she’d miss me.
It was one more step on the path to independence, and I hated every minute of it.
ChapterThirty-Eight
DEVAN
It had beentwo weeks since Nova left. Muss had been feeding us insider knowledge up until three days ago when Nova and Huey moved into their own apartment. He hadn’t told us her address, but thankfully Nova had. She’d trusted us with the knowledge, believing we would respect her wishes and not turn up on her doorstep at 10 p.m., begging her to come back. I was pretty sure she had too much faith in us.
Or at least in Rigby, who I’d caught every night for the last three days, standing in the foyer, staring at the door with his car keys in his hand. But eventually, he’d put them back down and retreated back to his room. He’d barely been out of it since Nova left. He trained. He slept. He ate what he was contractually obligated to eat. That was it.
He was hardly speaking to us unless Huey was here. He was pining, and it was truly a pathetic look on a man who was twenty-five and had once gotten more pussy than the other two of us combined.
I’d have told him that, if I wasn’t pining for her to come back too. But I’d never say so. I was used to rejection; this shut-down feeling was almost my default now. Instead, I threw myself into work. Twelve, sometimes fourteen-hour days, so I didn’t have to return home and hear the deathly silence that had fallen over the place. I didn’t realize how much noise one woman and a baby made until it was gone.
The silence created an echo chamber for the thoughts in my head and the pain in my chest. The one that screamed we hadn’t been worth it. Worth the fight. Worth standing together against everyone else.
Someone knocked on my door, and I swallowed the internal groan as Elise stepped through. I didn’t have the mental fortitude to deal with this shit right now.
“I’m just heading home, Mr. Mayson.”
“See you tomorrow,” I grunted out, willing her to turn and leave.
“If I may say so, sir…” She purred the wordsir,like it would do anything for me. It didn’t. “You seem really tense.”
I just stared at her, willing her to leave. But apparently, she took my silence as encouragement. She put her hands on her blouse and started unbuttoning down along the front.
I flicked the switch on my computer that set the security cameras to record. Everyone signed a contract when they first started to say that they gave permission to be recorded by security cameras. Kept things honest and safe, and protected me for situations like this. I wasn’t a fool.
“You need to go home, Miss Quigmire.”
Her fingers didn’t stop unbuttoning though, and she was wearing some kind of lingerie beneath. She’d definitely planned this. “I think we could both relieve some stress, some of this tension between us,” she cooed, slipping her blouse off. She was definitely attractive—I wasn’t blind—but she was an employee, and I had no interest inanywoman right now. Well, any woman except the one who’d been very clear she didn’t want me.
“You need to leave, or I’ll be forced to fire you. Fraternization is frowned upon.” I leaned back in my chair, staring at the ceiling.
“Consider this my two weeks’ notice then,” she said saucily, clearly thinking I was just playing hard to get.
Fuck.