“She’s been distant since we came back to work.”
“‘Cause you seduced her with your game room and mad cooking skills and TV marathons, then let her go ahead and act like nothing at all had transpired between you.”
“I didn’t let…”
“You let,” he cut me off. “You say she’s been distant, but Kai… you’ve been skirting around her. I haven’t seen you at her desk, fiddling around with her organizer. You don’t massage her shoulders anymore. How can you accuse her of the same thing you are clearly guilty of?”
Maybe I had been giving her space.
I had convinced myself that she needed it. To get back into the swing of things. To focus on getting her life on track.
I didn’t want to pressure her when she had enough on her plate.
Hell, telling her family about Jameson alone likely took a huge toll on her. I could tell when she had done it. She had come into work on Monday looking weighted, moving a bit slower than usual. She’d likely had brunch with her mom and sister, spilling it all. Then, I imagined, she had needed to go home and tell her father as well. Her friends. It was a big deal.
“She needed to focus on telling everyone about this whole thing.”
“Sure,” he agreed, nodding. “But don’t you think that maybe the whole experience of doing so might have been a lot easier had she someone to come home to, to lean on, someone to help lift the weight off her shoulders?” he asked, raising a brow when I could find nothing to say. “Exactly. You should be ashamed of yourself, man. Letting her go home to that empty apartment full of ghosts. And, sure, Finn had cleaned the place, changed the locks, put in some better security, but you know she doesn’t feel good there. You could have been there with her.”
From what I overheard Jules telling Miller, Finn had cleaned everything from top to bottom, going so far as to shampoo all the furniture, and then removed and replace her old mattress. Because Finn was one to understand that there was no cleaning some things, there was no way to get the ick out. You had to rip it out and start again.
“What’s going on in here?” another voice joined the room, making us both look to see Gunner moving in, closing the door.
“Oh, nothing. Just telling Kai that he’s a chickenshit. Care to pile on?”
“Sounds good. I don’t have dick going on,” Gunner agreed, moving to lean back against my door, crossing his arms. “So why the fuck haven’t you made a move yet?” he asked, casually, but in that gruff way he was so well known for.
I wanted to tell them to back off, to get lost. But the thing about this particular group of guys was, if you tried to push them away, they charged closer. I was surrounded by uber alphas. I barely stood a chance.
“Nah,” Lincoln said, looking over at Gunner. “You know his M.O. He’s gonna mope and moon and then when he can’t take anymore, he’s gonna scurry on down to the woods to visit Ranger where he can daydream about Jules instead of making a move and getting that dream to be a reality.”
“I mean aren’t you sick of fucking your hand all these years?” Gunner asked, blunt as ever. “Don’t try to deny that isn’t the case. You never spend time with any women. Sure, you let everyone believe you did, but you can’t fucking fool us all for long, you know… easy, woman,” he growled when Miller shoved at the door, nearly knocking him away from it.
“Oh, is this an intervention?” she asked when Gunner moved aside to let her in. “Why wasn’t I invited? I am good with the ass-kicking. I mean who was it who got the balls to tell Kai he missed his shot when Jules got serious with Jameson? Hm? Oh, right, that was me. The one without actual balls. So how far have we gotten?”
“So far,” Lincoln went on, making me close my eyes as I took a deep breath, steadying myself for another round. Words, to be fair, were often worse than an actual ass-kicking. Especially from people close to you who knew exactly what to say. “We have covered… he’s a chickenshit and… isn’t he sick of yanking the crank when he could be getting the real thing.”
“Hmmm. What does that leave me?” Miller mused, moving to sit on the other end of my desk opposite Lincoln’s kicked-up feet. “How about… not only are you a shitty love interest, but you are a crappy friend right now too?”
“Got that,” Lincoln said, raising a finger in the air.
“Damn. You guys got all the good stuff.”
“Maybe if you weren’t so busy mooning over Quin’s new client, you would have gotten here sooner,” Gunner suggested.