funny. Our rebel still thought she was a little fish in a big pond, and no one would recognize her. Or maybe she was just that desperate to get away from us. I scrubbed my hands down my face.
“She’s going back to Los Angeles.” I was so exhausted emotionally and physically that I could barely form the words.
“We can cut her off if you’d get the fuck up,” Jericho snapped.
“And then what?” I muttered, still staring at the ceiling.
“I’ll explain,” he naïvely offered. You’d think we would have learned our lesson about how tightly Braxton held her grudges.
“Tried that.”
“We know. We heard,” the eavesdropping shits confirmed. I knew if we weren’t all secretly losing our shit over Braxton, they’d be snickering like little girls right now.
“So you want me to race a thousand miles across two states to strike out a second time in one day? Pass.” Flipping them both off, I rolled onto my stomach, hoping the ache would go away.
“What the hell did you expect, Lo? You wait until your back is against the wall to tell her how you feel, and then you do it over the phone? It was weak.”
I was off the bed and in Rich’s face, slamming his back against the wall before either of them could blink. He could easily shove me off, but he didn’t because he knew this shit was on him.
“Say that again?” I had two inches on him, but at the moment, it felt like two feet.
Apparently feeling the same, Jericho shoved me off, and I cracked my fist across his nose, returning the favor and making him bleed.
Houston stood a couple of feet away, texting as if we weren’t two seconds from tearing this house apart. It wouldn’t be anything new, so I understood the indifference. Jericho was the only one who acted like the world’s fate depended on us getting along every second of the day.
“It’s my fault,” Rich said as he used his hand to staunch the bleeding. “Now let me make it right.”
“She’s not going to make it easy,” I mumbled, defeated as I stared at the ground. Just getting her to listen, we’d have to wage war—not a battle, war.
Houston’s head shot up from his phone as if remembering only now that we were here. The look he gave me was a perplexed one as he slipped his phone into his pocket. I guess he’d struck out too.
“Since when has Braxton ever?”
“This is bullshit,” I muttered, keeping my voice low in case Braxton heard me. Next to me, Rich continued to bang on the door that looked like it would fall off the hinges at any moment.
That would just make my fucking day, to be honest.
We knew she was here. We watched the cab driver help her carry her luggage inside twenty minutes ago. Houston had suggested hanging back so she wouldn’t turn us away on the street, and now here we were. One of her neighbors had already opened the door to openly display his irritation at the noise we were causing like we gave a damn.
Some people.
“If you don’t leave now, I’m calling the cops!” the neighbor yelled from down the hall in his ratty, plaid bathrobe.
They must have been the magic words. Braxton’s apartment door swung open abruptly, and I could have run to hug and kiss the man whose apartment smelled like fermented cheese and dirty gym socks.
When I saw it was just the insanely hot blonde with green eyes that Braxton had brought to our first two shows, my excitement died a quick but still brutally painful death.
“Hey,” I forced myself to greet. “Grendel, right?”
“Griffin.”
Whatever. “Nice to see you again,” I lied. “Can you get Braxton?” I wasn’t about to pretend I didn’t know she was here.
Gryffindor crossed her arms as she leaned her shoulder against the jamb. “If she wanted to talk, I wouldn’t be answering the door, would I?”
“You would if you were practicing to be a doorman, but I don’t know your life. Braxton?”
“Unavailable.”
“Can you please just give her a message?” Rich inquired politely.
The way Greta skewered him with her gaze despite his pleasant tone, I knew Braxton had given her friend at least the gist of what he—we’d done. “Sure. The approved words for your message are—piece, shit, married, lying, a, of, I’m.” Giving Rich an accommodating smile, she cocked her head to the side, making her blonde hair fall in waves over her shoulder. “Feel free to use them in any order you’d like.”