This was, unfortunately, when Elvira entered the conversation.
“Boy, you cannot come in here, verbal guns a’blazin’, throwin’ down with Mo and Tex, and not give us a full picture.”
Elvira had a point.
Elvira also wanted to know what was going on because Elvira had a pathological need to stick her nose into everything.
Mag was tight with Elvira too. Until he’d met Lottie, Elvira was the best woman he’d ever met.
Since Elvira didn’t make one of his brothers happy by falling in love with him and treating him like gold, she’d been demoted to the second slot.
“You aren’t in this either,” he told her.
“Well, you walked right up and interrupted a convo that I was enjoyin’, seein’ as we’re connivin’ a kickass wedding gift from Mo to Lottie,” she shot back. “So, you didn’t want me in this, you should have asked for a private word.”
“Do we have an issue?”
Terrific.
Hawk and Tack had moseyed down to their huddle.
“No issue,” he grunted to his boss and swung his eyes to Mo. “You heard me. It’s done.”
“Mag’s claiming that Lottie did the dirty on him and talked trash about him to the girl she set him up with last night,” Elvira chimed in.
Mag drew a sharp breath into his nose.
Hawk and Tack leveled their eyes on him.
“I would share, personal shit on personal time,” Hawk declared. “But seein’ as Elvira dragged Tex in first thing in the morning, fired up about something for Mo’s wedding, and they ignored me earlier when I said personal shit on personal time, I’ll simply have to repeat personal shit on personal time.” His gaze swung through Elvira and Tex as he finished, “All of you.”
“You don’t sign my paycheck,” Tex stated.
“I know it would be a challenge, and I haven’t had one in a long time,” Hawk began, eyes on Tex, “so I’d look forward to it and I’d best it if I had to lock you down and kick your ass out.”
Tex straightened. “I haven’t had a challenge in a long time either, turkey.”
“Well then, looks like hump day just turned into thump day,” Elvira remarked, appearing like her Wednesday just took an upswing.
“Mag,” Mo called, and when Mag looked to him, he repeated, “What happened?”
He wanted it?
“Lottie told her I was a manwhore.”
“Oh shit,” Mo muttered.
“Uh-oh,” Elvira mumbled.
And there it was.
Fuck him.
“Right,” Mag bit off.
“Gotta say, if the shoe fits…” Tex trailed off.
Mag turned his attention to Tex.
“Tex, help me out and shut the fuck up,” Hawk said, obviously catching how Mag was staring at Tex.
“Brother,” Mo said, and Mag turned to him. “I’ll talk to her, but just sayin’, she was concerned about how you were workin’ through your issues after losin’ Nikki, but if Evan took it there, that was Evan. Lottie would never use that word talkin’ about you.”
“I got somethin’ to share about my history with a woman I’m seein’, it’s mine to share, Mo,” Mag fired back. “For fuck’s sake, you know that.”
“A woman you’re seeing?” Mo asked.
Goddamn it.
Elvira spoke up.
“Wasn’t last night your first date?”
Mag looked to her.
“Oh shit,” she whispered. “You liked her.”
Liked her?
No.
Was way fuckin’ into her the second he laid eyes on her—and damn, the woman was all kinds of pretty—and that just grew from the minute she threw him attitude, instead of crawling up his ass or tease-flirting or acting like she didn’t give a shit if he found her attractive when she totally did.
She was herself.
Take her as she came.
And in the time he spent with her—cracking her head on the counter, falling on her ass, throwing him more attitude, eating three slices of pizza, half the boneless wings, her fair share of cheesy bread, half a cannoli as well as a half slice of cheesecake to falling asleep and making cute snoring noises he knew, if she was sleeping beside him, they’d wake him up and make him want to fuck her, to being funny and sweet and open and honest and most of all, liking his eyelashes of all fucking things—he’d seen a lot of sides of Evan Gardiner.
And was way into them all.
Except the last.
“Maybe Lottie can do some damage control,” Tex suggested, unfortunately reading what Mag had been unable to hide.
Yeah.
That was how into her he was, he couldn’t even hide it.
“Unnecessary,” Mag grunted, and again looked back to Mo. “Though I’ll pass on to you, her brother is a problem. We didn’t go out because she cracked her head on the counter and she needed to ice