dark and vengeful beneath his red bandanna. The white T-shirt and indigo jeans he’d accessorized with a plethora of silver and black leather almost made it seem as if he’d planned to be a bookend to me, rocker guy to my rocker girl.
Vance released me and assumed a defensive stance, but he was too late. The incoming punch from War caught him in the center of his breadbasket. Sounding like a car tire leaking air, he doubled over.
“Clean up that piece of shit for me, would you, Bry?” War said, almost offhandedly. “I need to check on Lace.”
“My pleasure,” Bryan said, kicking Vance in the nuts.
Chad’s stepbrother toppled over with an expletive and a thud.
“Lacey.” War came closer, blocking my view of Bryan while searching my gaze. “Are you okay?”
“Yes. Thank you.” I wrapped my arms around myself, suddenly feeling cold. “But why are you here?”
“To see Chad. You called us, remember?”
“I called Bry.” I glanced at him and saw it, the guardedness in his eyes. In my panic, I’d missed it before.
Bryan was War’s wingman. He would always be War’s wingman.
And I also knew in that moment that War was the wall standing between Bryan and me. Hope couldn’t scale it. Dreams couldn’t tunnel under it. I was destined to walk alone, seeing Bryan on the side he’d chosen, but never having him. I’d never be an option for him, and he would never be a choice for me.
My gaze swung back to War.
“Forgive me, Lacey.” He stretched out his corded arm, offering me his hand. “I don’t want to be at odds with you.” His silver rings reflected the overhead light, but the copper filaments in his brown eyes flared brighter than all of that when I placed my hand in his.
“I forgive you,” I said softly. And I did. It was big, this gesture by him, but I’d never blindly trust him or anyone else but myself going forward.
I was seventeen now. It was time to grow up. Life wasn’t fair.
To War—and even to Bryan, despite his pretty words—I was little more than a side note. I didn’t measure when it came to War’s ambitions. I didn’t rank when the choice was between me and Bryan’s friendship with War.
It was up to me and me alone to make the best life for myself that I could, though the odds were stacked against me.
War
After we visited Chad together, Lace was quiet, unusually so. Down the hall, on the elevator, and out into the night, she didn’t speak a single word to break the silence. It made me uneasy.
“Where’s Bry?” she asked, and tension replaced uneasiness.
“He took care of Vance, then he took off,” I said, lifting my hand with my cell in it as part of my explanation. “He texted while we were in there talking to Chad.”
“Oh. Okay. He didn’t even wish me happy birthday.” Her expression fell, and therein lay the problem. One that had been festering from the beginning.
I wasn’t blind. My best friend was her best friend too, and he’d come between us. Though I had what I wanted right now, her back with me, I wondered what had happened between the two of them while we’d been separated. So I put it out there.
“Did something happen with you and Bry that I should know about?”
“No,” she said without hesitation.
Giving her a long side glance, I didn’t see anything that made me think her reply was a lie. “But you’re calling him Bry now.”
She shrugged. “He was there for me. For a few days, it was like we were kids again and no time was between us. But I realize now he was just being nice. Maybe he felt sorry for me.”
I highly doubted that pity was the emotion motivating my best friend when it came to her.
“I can be nice. If you need nice.”
“Sure,” she said, but she didn’t sound convinced. Tucking her cell into her pocket, she trained her gaze on the sidewalk.
I stepped in front of her and stopped. Lifting her chin, I searched her eyes. They were shadowed, troubled. “Is nice what you really want from me, babe?”
“Maybe sometimes.”
“Sometimes like this past Friday night, for example?”
She nodded. Her creamy skin sliding against my fingertips sent an electrical current surging through me. My cock lengthened just from that. It was insane how much I wanted her.
My gaze hardened. “I did what I had to, what I thought was best. For both of us. I’m not going to apologize for it again.