I found I could endure whatever pain I needed to, to get her close.
“Good talk with your dad?”
“Yeah. I apologized for acting crazy and bitchy. He forgave me. Then he told me not to wait to hear what my boss had to say but quit and follow my dreams and write the stories I want to write. He also told me not to waste your money moving my furniture here. One, because your house is—”
“Our house,” I reminded her.
“Our house,” she corrected and smiled. “Is already furnished and because my stuff isn’t good quality and wouldn’t fit with yours.”
“If you want your furniture, we’ll move it in and move mine out.”
“Yours is way nicer.”
“Don’t give a shit. If you like your stuff, move it in. As long as your couch is comfortable I don’t care what it looks like. Though, we're not switching out beds unless you have a California king and just to say, it was a bitch getting that mattress to the third floor so you’d need to convince me yours is heaven in mattress form.”
“My bed is a queen and sucks,” she told me.
“Then chuck it or switch it for one of the guest bedrooms.”
There was a long stretch of silence and during this stretch, Evette’s body went solid.
“Babe?”
“You’re serious.”
“About what?”
“You don’t care all your stuff is better. Save the mattress, you’d let me move all my stuff here.”
“Can’t let you do anything when the home you’re talking about is yours. What you need to understand is, while you think I’ve already given you everything, you’ve given me more. I had this big house that didn’t mean a whole lot to me but today it does. Just by you being in it you’ve given me a home. Fill it with whatever you wanna fill it with. All I care about is you being here with me.”
“Now who’s being sweet?” she whispered.
The cushion two down from where I was sitting depressed, indicating my alone time with my woman was cut short.
This irritated me.
“So,” Owen drawled. “How’s it hanging?”
Evette giggled.
I did not.
“Leave.”
“Leave? Am I interrupting?” he continued, knowing damn good and well he was.
“You’ve made your point. So now you’re just pissing me off on purpose.”
“Me? You think I’d do that?”
“You know you would and you are,” Natasha joined. “Get up and leave them be.”
Owen didn’t get up. He reached out, grabbed Nat’s hand, and pulled her into his lap. Which jostled the couch and Evette. Pain ricocheted through my chest.
“Jesus,” I grunted. “Broken ribs, remember?”
“Crybaby,” Cooper jabbed as he joined the huddle.
“Fuck off.”
“Tsk. Tsk. Such bad language in front of beautiful women,” Coop continued.
“You know,” I started and looked at Owen. “You’re on to something. One day, when I pay Coop back I’m gonna make it oh-so-painful.”
“I’m sure we can play taser tag again, see if he can beat Myles’ time.”
“You mean laser tag?” Evette asked.
Natasha started to chuckle and she shook her head. “No, he means taser. Like a taser gun. Apparently, Gabe likes to play a little rough.”
“I never would’ve guessed that,” Evette quipped.
Try as I might I couldn’t stop the laughter. I regretted every painful second of it until I saw Evette’s beautiful brown eyes dancing with humor.
“Y’all are a vicious bunch. I’m rethinking my employment options.” Cooper shifted from foot to foot. “Here I thought I only had to worry about butthole torture and since I don’t plan to piss off Nat I figured I was safe. Now I gotta worry about Gabe ambushing me with a taser.”
“I’m never gonna live that down,” Nat grumbled.
“No one is ever safe when Gabe’s around,” Owen put in.
“I beg to differ,” Evette defended.
“He’s not lying, honey. If I get my shot I’m tasering Coop’s ass. Literally. I’m aiming for his ass.”
“You must have a butt fetish,” Evette mumbled. “As long as you don’t turn that my way it’s all good.”
She had no idea I would be turning my ass fetish her way and she’d be damn pleased when I did. Though I would not be bringing that up with our current company.
“Zane looks relaxed,” Coop noted.
My gaze went across the room where Zane was holding a squirming Eric while talking to Joe and Jenn.
“That’s because he got to threaten bodily harm and in doing so he got to get explicit in how he was going to remove Aviv Abrams’ spleen with his field knife before he cut his intestines out,” I told Coop.
“He didn’t really do that, did he?” Evette inquired.