Total pages in book: 135
Estimated words: 139088 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 695(@200wpm)___ 556(@250wpm)___ 464(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 139088 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 695(@200wpm)___ 556(@250wpm)___ 464(@300wpm)
He took a moment with that before he said, “Once I sort this with Cheyenne, we’ll shower and, yeah. You can see to that.”
I took a sip of coffee, eagerly anticipating this shower, and asked, “You can do the one on your leg, but not the one on your shoulder. So who’s been handling that for you?”
“Cap or Marjorie.”
I felt my brows wing up. “Marjorie?”
His shoulders went up and down. “She’s trained in first aid.”
I tried not to laugh at the thought of Knox’s wounds being wrapped by the stern, helmet-haired, sometimes positively dour office manager of NI&S, Marjorie. Fortunately, I bested this task.
I still couldn’t stop myself from giving him stick.
“I bet I was a better nursemaid,” I remarked.
“Never fought with her. Or had to take her shit. But she doesn’t have as good of an ass as you do.”
I burst out laughing.
His phone vibrated on the counter.
We both looked to it but only Knox picked it up.
“We’re agreed,” he said, not putting the slightest effort into hiding he wasn’t happy about it.
My poor baby.
It had to be said, he did fuck up with her, especially since he genuinely wasn’t into her (and I was only going to preen inwardly at having this knowledge).
But it was a boss move to reach out so he could explain and apologize.
It sucked she got caught up in our game, but they’d been together for months. She absolutely had a variety of clues thrown her way he wasn’t into it, not the least of them a guy like Knox not sleeping with her.
I honestly wasn’t sure in this situation where the bulk of the responsibility lay.
Knox was in his feels, his history was crap, and she got caught in the rebound of us, none of which was all right.
But he gave her clear signals, his red flag (to her) waving furiously, and upon contemplation, if I’d been less in my own feels, I would have noticed there always was a distance between them. If I could see that in retrospect, being in it, she had to notice it at the time.
And her response was to try to separate him from his friends and get up in his shit about her jealousy for me when she should have received the message he was sending: that being with him was not a healthy place to be.
“What’s on your mind?” Knox asked into my reverie.
He had apple butter on his lip. He noticed, so his tongue came out to lick it away.
My mind was suddenly very centered on our shower.
Knox chuckled and asked Jacques apparently, because he certainly wasn’t asking me.
“How did I get so lucky to find a woman who has sex on the brain worse than me?”
“I don’t have sex on the brain,” I refuted (otherwise known as lied).
“Were you just thinking of our shower?”
I picked up my own muffin half and bit into it wondering how committed I was to honesty in our relationship.
“Okay, letting that go, what were you thinking before?” he pressed.
“I was trying to figure out who held more responsibility for the mess between Cheyenne and you.”
He appeared perplexed. “That would be me.”
“Knox, it wasn’t like you weren’t giving signals.”
His expression softened. “Baby, don’t twist yourself up trying to exonerate me. What I did wasn’t cool.”
“Did you do it knowingly?”
“No, but that doesn’t make any difference.”
Great answer, though I wasn’t sure it was a correct one.
“You know, honey, I hope she sits with you today and hears your words and understands there are perhaps point zero zero three percent of the male population who would sit an ex down and cop to the shit they pulled, much less apologize for it. Hell, gender equality, there’s probably much that same percentage of women who’d do it. Especially considering she played her part by ignoring all the signals you were sending, and instead, trying to manipulate it to take you away from the things that she thought were taking you away from her.”
“And there you are, twisting yourself up, trying to exonerate me.”
He was intent to take all the blame?
Whatever.
It was actually pretty cool he was that kind of guy.
“I’ll drop you before I head to headquarters,” I told him. “And maybe we can arrange for Cap to pick you up, because not only do the girls need to come up with some strategy on how to deal with Cheyenne if this doesn’t go well, I have to share the goss that Byron is a good kisser, which will cause a sensation, so you’ll probably be done before we are.”
“I want to swing by my place and pack while you’re with the Angels, so I’ll sort something out with one of the guys.”
This was a good segue, so I took it.
“We need to talk about Brady.”
He shook his head.
“Knox—”
“Babe, I get why you did what you did,” he stated. “Him? A bud? Hell, even just a colleague, but he isn’t just that. He’s a friend. I don’t get it, but I do get that it’s not okay.”