Big Bad Boys A Romance Collection - Penny Wylder Page 0,93

anyone,” Evan says, his tone still sad but with an edge of accusation at the end.

I step out of Ram’s embrace. “I’m not. We’re just friends.”

Ram’s jaw tightens, but he doesn’t say anything to counter what I’ve said. We’ve never made anything official, not even close. I don’t even know how he feels about me.

“Friends don’t usually kiss like that,” Evan says.

“It’s complicated,” I say.

“I guess it is complicated, isn’t it?” Ram says. He sounds pissed, and I tense up, not liking the direction this whole thing is turning. “I mean, I have a lot a friends, but I don’t kiss them. Or fuck them, for that matter. I guess that makes us friends with benefits.”

My mouth drops open and I just stare at him. Where is this coming from, and why the hell would he say that right in front of Evan? I could slap him right now.

Evan looks like he’s about to puke. He holds his stomach and what little color he had left in his pallid skin has gone ghost-white.

“I guess I shouldn’t be surprised,” he says. “I was always afraid you would leave me for an action hero.”

I look at Evan then at Ram, who isn’t moving. In fact, I’m not sure he’s even breathing. He really does look like an action hero. The two men are polar opposite. Ram looks like a Norse god, while Evan looks like he belongs back in the shire with the rest of the Baggins clan.

“Except I didn’t leave,” I say.

“I’ll let you two love-birds hash things out,” Ram says. He starts to leave, but Evan speaks up.

“I was just going. I’m sorry, Cadie,” he says. “I fucked up.”

I don’t say anything. Neither does Ram. Neither of us says anything for an entire minute after Evan leaves. It feels like forever.

Finally, Ram says. “So that’s the guy you’ve been using me to get over?”

His lips curl with disgust, and the words come out like a curse.

He knew. Of course he knew. I’m sure that’s why some of the women he encounters want to hook up with the Bed Shaker. Like they say, the best way to get over someone is to get under someone else. But it stopped being about Evan a long time ago. Before Ram and I ever slept together.

“I didn’t sleep with you to get over Evan. It wasn’t like that.”

He puts his hands over his face. His words are muffled when he says, “Please don’t say his name around me.”

“Are you actually mad at me right now?” I say, my words laced with poison. “It’s not like we’re a couple. We just sleep together. We’re nothing.”

His expression shifts into pained grimace. “You’re the only woman I’ve ever let come into my house, yet we’re nothing? I spend all my free time with you, and you call us nothing?”

My stomach twists and I feel hollowed out. I had no idea he thought of us as something more.

“But …” I start to say. The rest of my words get caught in my throat.

“But what?” he snaps.

I startle at the harshness of his tone. I’ve hurt him. That’s not pure anger I see in his twisted expression. That’s pain.

I almost give in and tell him everything. I almost tell him I want to be more, that I’ve never felt this way about anyone, that I might … I might even love him. But then I think of that tiny bitch from my audition. I’m going to have to see her every day and know that she’s been with him too. It makes everything he and I have shared in the last few weeks feel less special. I’m just one of the many women in his little black book.

I square my shoulders. “Nothing.”

“It’s not nothing,” he demands.

I stand my ground. “It is nothing. We’re nothing.”

His shoulders sag and he looks as stricken as Evan had after witnessing our kiss. “Bullshit,” he says. “You care about me. I know you do. Something happened.” He reaches out and takes my chin, lifting it so I have no choice but to look at him. Tears start to fall despite my efforts to keep them back. He wipes them away with his thumb. The gesture is so sweet, so tender, that I begin to cry harder. His face shifts again and now he looks afraid. “Tell me what happened.”

I feel stupid for even saying anything because Ram and I are not exclusive. It’s dumb for me to even be upset, but I can’t help