the workout area and stands next to Dev, looking up at him. “Really?” she asks. “Why am I just hearing about this now?” She looks at me and smiles, wiggling her eyebrows suggestively. “What happened?”
I frown at both of them. “Nothing happened.” My voice comes out sharper than I mean for it to. It makes me sound guilty, and we all know it. I try to soften my tone. “Nothing happened at all. I don’t really know what he did. I got piss-drunk and took a cab home.” I lift my chin at them, moving for a re-direct of the conversation. “What’d you guys do? I didn’t see you there.”
“We couldn’t make it,” Jenny says.
“Yeah,” Dev adds, “the kids had a sleepover planned, and we had to pop popcorn and supervise.”
The two lovebirds smile at each other.
I force a smile to be polite. “A sleepover? Sounds like fun.” Not.
Jenny is no dummy; if I keep talking, she’s going to figure out that something’s up, so I walk toward the stairs. Jenny’s one of those girls who’s always in matchmaker mode, and the last thing I need is to be matched with a guy who tangles me up inside the way Lucky is doing right now. When I finally do settle down with someone, he’ll be boring. He won’t get me riled up; he’ll calm me down.
“I’m just going to head on up,” I say casually. “I have some papers to organize.” My messenger bag is over my shoulder, but there’s really nothing inside it other than a legal pad, a pen, and a switchblade.
“We’ll be up in a couple minutes,” Dev says. “I just need to whip her butt with a few more sets.”
Jenny snorts. “You can try.” I look back to see her lifting her upper arm to flex her biceps. A tiny lump pops up, standing out against her lean arm.
Dev leans over and squeezes it between his first finger and thumb. His hands are huge in comparison to her petite frame. “Nice,” he says. “All my hard work is finally paying off.”
“Your hard work?” She shakes her head and walks toward the gym equipment. “Come on. I need to school you some more.”
He chuckles, falling in behind her. He smacks her on the ass and she fake-screams, running away.
I open the door to the upstairs and walk in, glad to be alone again. Their games make my heart ache. Maybe it’s the super-potent happiness that hurts.
In the past six months, I’ve seen two of my brothers-in-arms fall in love with girls who I never would have suspected they’d even like. But what do I know about love? I’ve only ever let myself totally fall for one person, and I ended up killing that guy. I’m checking out of the love game forever. I don’t want to kill anybody else, and men who break my heart sure do tempt me.
I walk through the room filled with Dev’s toys—mostly swords—to get to our kitchen and meeting area. Taking my seat at the table, I drop my bag next to me.
There are no new texts on the screen of my cell phone. A little piece of me was hoping there’d be something there from Lucky. My fingers hover over the keyboard. Should I? Just one little message?
I throw my broken phone down on the table, hissing out a sigh of annoyance. It’s like I’m in junior high all over again. We didn’t have cell phones back then, but if we had, I probably would’ve done stupid shit with mine. I probably would’ve texted a guy who didn’t deserve to hear from me.
My mind wanders. I think about junior high on that day Lucky kissed me. It was at a school dance that he and my brother had teased me into attending. I told them dances weren’t my thing, but they didn’t care. I think they were hoping they’d catch me on the dance floor, but there’s no way in hell that would’ve happened.
Lucky caught me trying to sneak out. He begged me to come back and dance with him, but I refused. That’s when he grabbed me and kissed me. I didn’t resist for a second or two. Maybe I should have, but I’d been staring into that beautiful face for too many years to put up a fight.
He went from being my brother’s best friend and a quasi-member of the family to being my lifelong crush in that moment. I knew it was a mistake, but the heart wants