“She told me she was spending the day with you,” I tell him, not really sure why.
She’d come in all pretty and pink-cheeked from the morning frost. Some idiotic thing in my head thought she was coming back to work in here with me. But that really was stupid. That day was a one off. She was hiding from Dom and needed the big bad monster to protect her.
If she really wanted to hang out, she wouldn’t come to me.
This morning, she dropped off some breakfast and said she was spending the day out in the sunshine with the circus rat.
And that just made sense. She doesn’t fit in this grubby, dark place. Matter of fact, I’m starting to think I don’t much fit in this place either.
“She did?” Lucky sits up and wraps his arms around his knees, an odd expression on his face. “Guess she changed her mind.”
“Yeah, well, at least you made the shortlist,” I mutter, resentment clogging my throat.
Lucky blinks, and his brows shoot up. I bite my tongue with another scowl and turn around, packing away my tools again.
My mouth is running on stupid today, apparently.
“Whatever. We can have just as much fun!” Lucky insists with mind-numbing brightness.
“Fuck off.”
He jumps up so he’s sitting on the workbench beside me. His ass is on my favorite rag. “Come on, you’ve got to be sick of being in here all day. Come spar with me. I’m rusty.”
I tug at the rag. “I’ll kill you.”
“You try to kill me, I try to kill you—what are friends for, anyway?”
He lifts one cheek off the rag and does some wide, pleading thing with his eyes. I yank the rag out from under him with a grunt. “We’re not friends.”
Lucky presses one hand to his chest. “Well, now you’re just being mean.”
“Move.”
“No.”
I glare at him. “Get. Out.”
He examines his nails. “Nah.”
“For fuck’s sake,” I explode. “We are not friends.”
Shoving away from the work bench, I stare around the barn, not sure what to do next. The uncomfortable ache I’ve had in my chest the past few weeks turns hot. I’ll raid the doc’s supplies later.
It’s probably heartburn.
I pull Ryan’s old pocketknife out of my side pocket, then start flipping it between my fingers—but I’ve never been able to nail the tricks the way he used to do. “You think I don’t know I’m just some guy in the same regiment that just happened to be around when it all went to shit?” I scoff. “I don’t care. You’re all slumber buddies who like to braid each other’s hair or whatever, that’s fine. Whatever gets you hard. But leave. Me. The. Fuck. Alone.”
The outburst feels good. They always do. But underneath that is a sick, gnawing feeling in my gut. There’ve been a lot of different run-ins with the guys over the years. It’s always been pretty clear I’m the ugly duck of the heroic little swan crew.
Heather was the first one who made me seriously think about leaving, but it didn’t get much better after she left. The shit the other day, realizing just what kind of person they really think I am . . . that’s got to be the end of it. I don’t belong here—and they don’t want me here. Not really.
And as for her . . . well, whatever. She’s just the latest girl around. She’ll choose one of them, and there ain’t a speck of doubt in my mind that I’m not making that shortlist either.
I realize I’m towering over Lucky. Wide eyed, he stares at me. “For the record, I braid my own hair. Beau’s the only one with any skill at all, and he pretty much always refuses to help me.”
My fists lift of their own accord and it’s fifty-fifty whether I’m going to strangle him or chuck him out on his ass.
Lucky grins, lifting his own hands defensively. “No, Jayk! Dom already took my lunch money this week!”
I grab him by his shirt and drag him off the bench.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry!” he says, laughing. “Dude, chill, I love this shirt. I’ll stop, I’ll stop!”
Huffing out a breath, I glare down at him. His dimple winks at me and, rolling my eyes to the ceiling, I let him go.
His smile changes in a way that makes me uncomfortable, and I’m just about to throw him out again when he says, “Look, just for the record? I never thought of you as just some guy who happened to be there. And I get that I drive you nuts and you’re a grouchy bastard, but I like having you around.”
He eyes my head. “And I would totally braid your hair too if you grew it out.” His gaze drops down my body, and he grimaces. “I’m not braiding it anywhere else, though. I don’t care who you are, manscaping is important.”
I shove him toward the door again. “I manscape, dickhead.”
“You manscape your dick head? Wow, you should talk to Beau about that. Pretty sure you’re not meant to have hair there.”
I pick him up and put his squirming ass over my shoulder, intending to toss him out this time, when the barn door opens. In the next two seconds, I’ve dumped Lucky and grabbed for the MK 16 strapped under the workbench. It’s only as my fingers wrap around the cold metal that I realize it’s just Jasper.
Tension brackets his mouth and lines his shoulders, and an additional crease forms between his brows as he glances between me and Lucky, who somehow managed to land neatly on his feet.
Flippy freak.
Jasper’s next look at me is nothing short of hostile, and I slap the rifle on the bench and bare my teeth. Smiling.
He’s always telling me I need to work on my body language.
When he doesn’t say anything, I cross my arms and wait. Jasper doesn’t come here without a reason—and it’s not because he’s worried I’m feeling up his boyfriend.
“Eden isn’t here.” It’s not a question, but his eyes scan the barn anyway like she might pop out of a shadow. They linger on the door at the back.
Yeah. Right. Like Miss Manners is coming anywhere near my bed before she’s due.
“I thought she was spending today with you,” Lucky mumbles.
Running his hands down the front of his shirt, he stops when he seems to realize what he’s doing. He crosses his arms, then uncrosses them. As if giving up, he shoves his hands in his back pockets and leans against the battered truck.
Idiot.
Bored, I consider the truck. I’m going to have to move that thing into the clearing beside the barn so I can dismantle this washing machine again properly. If I decide it’s worth the effort.
The lethal look on Jasper’s face eases as he watches Lucky.
“She told me she was spending the day working with Jaykob,” he murmurs, then his face sharpens again. A dark brow crooks as he addresses me, “May I assume that she told you she was spending the day with Lucien?”
That pulls me from my inspection of the truck.
Huh. So she’s a sneak.
“Wait. Wait, what?” Lucky shoves off the car. “Are you saying she lied?”
“And here I thought I was the slow one,” I mock.
Where the fuck would she have gone?
“That stupid little girl,” Jasper hisses. “She’s gone after Dominic and Beaumont.”