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)
She lifted her hands in a Don’t Shoot! gesture. “Don’t ask me.”
“He shouldn’t be flirting with Clarice if he’s married,” Harlow pouted. “And that might have sounded like bickering, but every single one of us knew it was not.”
Indeed, every single one of us knew that.
“He ditched his wife.”
When Shanti said this, we all homed in on her again.
“What?” Willow asked.
“He and his wife have been separated for about six months. Not long after we hit him up about the Trev/Kev thing,” she said. “It’s irreconcilable. They’re just waiting it out for the divorce to be final.”
Interesting.
“That means Clarice really screwed the pooch by wasting a perfectly good sashay, not to mention those sexy booties, when Jayden couldn’t even see them,” Gemma stated truth.
“I kind of like this,” Shanti mused. “He’s always been super confident. He knows he’s gorgeous. Women always fall at his feet. Clarice will give him a run for his money.”
We all sat and ruminated on this.
While I was doing it, my phone in my bag buzzed.
I pulled it out and read the text from Knox.
Didn’t go well. With Cap heading to my place. See you soon.
“Well, shit,” I mumbled.
“Knox?” Raye asked.
I nodded. “He says it didn’t go well.”
“Expected, no?” Joey asked.
“Yes. But I still hoped.”
“Sorry, babe,” Jessie said.
I was too.
Not for me.
For Knox.
But at least he did what he felt he had to do.
And we were moving forward.
With no missions, we probably should have broken up, but Gemma mentioned the dill pickle pizza from Starving Artist.
As the cupboards got more and more bare, Knox and I had had crackers lashed with the last of my homemade pimento cheese (mental note since I always had some on hand and Knox loved it: buy the ingredients when we went to the store), so I was peckish and therefore stayed while they ordered that and some loaded baked potato dip.
We gossed. We noshed. I reveled in being back in the bosom of my besties. I texted Knox I was on my way home. I left.
When I made it up to my apartment and let myself in, I found my guy, ass to the couch, legs stretched in front of him, stocking feet on the coffee table, beer in hand, a tub of ranch dip on the table by his feet, a bag of Ruffles sitting next to it, some game on TV.
The beer, Ruffles and dip meant Knox and Cap did a run to a store, which was disappointing since I was looking forward to doing that with him.
“Hey,” I greeted.
“Hey,” he grunted.
Oh dear.
I went to one of my chairs and sat on the arm. “Wanna talk about it?”
He did because he replied immediately.
“To say she’s furious you and me are back together is an understatement.”
Oh dear again.
“She screamed, at least I didn’t fuck her, so I didn’t walk all over her pussy like I walked all over her heart.”
I flinched.
“The manager kicked us out.”
God.
“It’s good I get my coffee from Tex at SC, because I’m pretty sure the entire Starbucks corporation has a picture of her and me by now and we’re banned from all five million shops worldwide.”
“Shanti asked Jayden to come talk to us,” I informed him. “He says we need to log all of this stuff.”
He nodded and threw back a pull of beer.
“Do you think she’s so mad, she’ll move on?” I asked hopefully.
“I think she’s right now Googling how to build a bomb,” he answered disturbingly.
Not good.
“We’re not supposed to engage her, Knox.”
“Trust me, gorgeous, that will be the last time I speak to her.”
“This means the Angels can’t do anything either.”
He had no reply to that.
Instead, he announced, “Cap told me about the homicide in Tucson.”
I stretched out my mouth and turned it down.
He watched me do that and frowned.
“Have anything to share about that?” I asked.
“It was Rocco, because of Gypsy.”
“Would your sister—?”
“Fuck no,” he said forcefully. “But I’ve no doubt she was beyond upset one of their boys drilled holes into me. And Rocco is all in with her. As sick as it makes me to say this, she’s to him what Alexis is to Jacob, what you are to me. She hurts, he hurts who made her hurt.”
“Well, at least she has someone who gives a shit.”
“Reaching,” he muttered.
I knew I was.
“But appreciated, baby,” he kept muttering.
I tried to cheer him up. “My mom always says, ‘this too will pass.’”
I didn’t know if I succeeded, considering his response was, “I moved in.”
I tipped my head to the side. “Sorry?”
“I moved in.”
“I knew you were bringing stuff over,” I pointed out.
“Yeah. And I shifted your stuff so I could put my stuff away and not live out of a suitcase.”
My skin started crawling at this information, and I realized, too late, I should have told him it would be me wedging his stuff with my stuff.