and set me on my feet.
“You’re not gonna be single that long,” I told him with a pout.
“Gotta say, gettin’ tired of the single life. Brothers are pairin’ up and it’s lookin’ good to me.”
“Well, if you need my help with any hairbrained schemes to get your Hlökk, you just let me know. I will absolutely let you drag me into any schemes. Any schemes at all.”
He looked at me with remorse.
I raised my hand. “I get it. I ran you through the mill with Luke. You’re off the hook this time. But, just sayin’, you pick the wrong girl to be your Mrs. Warrior Cuddle Bear and I get veto power.”
“Absofuckinglutely. I wouldn’t marry a girl unless my best girl approved of her. Love you to bits, Joelle.”
“Ditto, Brady. Let’s go get drunk.” I rounded his big frame, hopped on his back and he piggybacked me back to the table.
We got back in time to see Fork gearing up to leave. And I wasn’t surprised about it, either.
“You headin’ out?” Brady asked, doing a knee bend so I could get off his back.
“Yeah, man. Call ‘o the booty.” He wiggled his cell phone and his eyebrows and then shoved his phone into the inside pocket of his cut and gave a two-finger wave to the room at large, eyes not remotely coming close to me.
Good, because I was sure my face wasn’t hiding what I was currently feeling.
“Bye Christoff,” Ella said with venom.
“Night Lezzybelle.” He smirked and purposely walked by her so he could mess up her hair with his hand before he headed out the door.
Bile rose in my throat as Ella growled at him. I downed the rest of my Jack n’ Coke.
The band was back and launching into Stupid Me by Magic!
How poetic.
“Be back,” I said to Brady without looking at him because I could just imagine what sort of look would be on his face. I headed for the bathroom, but kept going through the alcove to go up the back stairs after tapping the security panel with my key fob.
I was done with tonight. I needed my dark room, cuddles from my cat, and to close my eyes. The back staircase was put in for emergencies after the remodel when the Wyld Jackals tried to burn most of my family to death. The upper floor got remodeled and this added staircase meant I didn’t have to walk out front and see anyone to get up to my room. I emerged from that staircase beside the smaller lounge, walked past the laundry room, past the bathrooms and got into the hall in time to see him. Christian. He’d come in the regular way, obviously, was going into his room. Alone. With a bottle of something. A big bottle of something.
He had his key ready to go into the door when he saw me. I walked down the long hall in a walk that felt something like shame and something like hope. Unless that booty call was on her way? Didn’t look like it. He was going into an empty bedroom with one bottle, zero drinking glasses. Not two. Zero. Did that maybe suggest he was going to drink his sorrows away alone? What sorrows, though?
“Christian,” I said softly as I passed him. He was still standing there with his key in the air, not quite to the lock, eyes aimed at me.
The hallway was dim, there was noise down in the bigger lounge, but not a lot of it so the place wasn’t packed up here tonight.
It felt like an important moment here in the hallway for us as I put my key into my lock and turned it. Before reaching for the doorknob, I looked at him. He still hadn’t gone into his room and his eyes were still on me. Hope flared.
A tiny blur of white bounded past me and my kitty was weaving around his ankles in figure eights, waiting to get into his room.
He looked down at her.
“I’ll get her.” I left my key in the lock and walked the six or eight feet separating our doors and squatted to lift my cat off his boot. She had plopped her little rump on it and looked at me like she didn’t want to be moved.
“You get to sleep with me, tonight, Marshie,” I told her and nuzzled her face.
“Meowww,” she said like she had a problem with it.
“Sorry, pretty baby. I feel ya.” I muttered for him more than her and