“You’ll have to ask him about it. At the moment, I’m not amused.”
“Of course you’re not.” Raine struggled to sit up, then peered across the house and out the back doors. Liam and Hammer were still sitting outside, enjoying the temperate evening. She scooted closer. “Okay, they’re not looking. Listen. I know you’re upset or you wouldn’t have shown up in tears.”
“You’re supposed to be resting, and I’m sorry to burden you with my problems. Normally, I wouldn’t and—”
“Sweetie, we’re friends.” She took her hand. “I’m here for you. And as it happens, I know a few things about juggling two men.”
Heavenly shook her head. “But Liam and Hammer are happy in the relationship. There’s no squabbling or strife or—”
Raine burst out laughing. “Oh, my god. Is that what you think?”
“Are you saying they fight?”
“Not so much now, but a few months ago? All-out war. All day, every day. Ugly, ugly, ugly.”
“Seriously?” Her jaw dropped. “But they’re best friends.”
“They were even then…until they weren’t. And I was the reason everything changed. They stopped speaking unless it was to call one another names or threaten. One morning, Liam picked me up, carried me out the door, and disappeared for two days, leaving Hammer to wonder where we were and if I was all right.”
She gaped at Raine. “Hammer must have been angry.”
“Livid. It didn’t get any better when Liam asked me to be, um…his while Hammer was away. So when he came back and I was off-limits, that didn’t go over well. Of course, Liam also thought Hammer had gotten me pregnant by then. Long story. I’m rambling. But trust me, they fought. Dirty, underhanded, punching each other bloody…yeah.”
If anything, Heavenly felt her eyes widen even more. She would never have guessed there’d been anything but harmony in their unusual relationship. “But that morning we met in the hospital—”
“They put it all aside because I needed them.”
Because they loved her; that much was clear to Heavenly. The more time she spent around these three, the more obvious it seemed that they belonged together.
Heavenly was happy for her friend, but she wasn’t in Raine’s situation. “And they need you.”
“I think Seth and Beck need you, too.” Raine’s face softened. “I’ve known Beck a long, long time. He’s always been the big, bad…um, smartass. With you, he’s really different. He’s tender—and I would never have thought him capable of that. You’re good for him. I don’t know Seth as well, but he always seemed…I don’t know, distant. I mean, he’s there, but not really involved. Like he was always trying to stay slightly removed. But not with you. I saw that kiss he gave you at Hammer’s party. He was all-in, and not just physically. When I first met him, he was so terrified of earthquakes that he didn’t want to be here at all. Now he doesn’t want to leave, and I have to think you’re the reason why.”
“I appreciate the perspective.” Heavenly did, truly. “It’s not that I think they don’t care. When I’m alone with them, they make me feel special.” Not to mention beautiful, sexy, womanly—all the things she’d never had the chance to be. “But I have to stop letting myself be so fascinated by them that I forget to be realistic. I don’t have anything to offer them, not even time. And now it seems they’re far too interested in playing pranks on one another to focus on anything else, so…”
Across the room, the clearing of a man’s throat caught her attention. She and Raine both zipped their stares to the back door. Liam and Hammer stood there, arms crossed, brows raised.
Instantly, Raine scrambled to her back and plopped her feet on the stack of throw pillows. Her smile looked a bit too chipper. “Hi, guys.”
“Aren’t your feet supposed to stay up, lovely?” Liam said the words sweetly enough, but Heavenly heard the steel behind them.
Maybe he was angry. And that was her cue.
“I’m sorry. It’s my fault,” Heavenly said, rising. “I came to speak to Raine because…” What the heck could she say? The last thing she wanted to do was spill the details of her last two alternately wonderful and humiliating dates to Liam and Hammer. “It’s been a pretty awful day. I think I’ll just go.”
“Because Beck and Seth are being dumbasses?” Hammer asked.
Heavenly blinked at him and nearly choked. “How much did you hear?”
“Oh, we didn’t have to hear much to guess they did something stupid.” Liam shook his head.
“Wait until you hear what those brainiacs did this time…” Raine began to fill her men in.
Heavenly felt herself turning twenty shades of red. “You don’t have to—”
“Yeah, I do. They need to hear this,” Raine assured. “Besides, rule number one around this house is we don’t keep secrets.”
And without waiting for a reply, the woman carried on. The men both grinned when Raine recounted the police looking for a dead body, but when she got to Zelda and Clovis, they burst out laughing.
“And I’m guessing these pranks interrupted something…important,” Hammer said more than asked, his voice thick with innuendo.
Heavenly couldn’t stop her face from turning even redder and wishing she had a hole to hide in. “The point is, it was supposed to be our time together, and they both promised me the space to date the other until I could make a choice. They didn’t respect that. Not that—”
“I think you misunderstand, little one. Can I offer you the male perspective?” Liam sauntered into the living room and sat on the sofa beside Heavenly’s chair, lifting Raine’s feet into his lap.
Could this get any more mortifying? “Thank you, but I’m not sure it matters.”
“Do they matter to you?” Hammer took the other end of the sofa and lifted Raine’s head in his lap, stroking her hair. “If they don’t, then you’re right and feel free to blow them off. But if they do, then there’s another point of view here, and we’re willing to share.”
A dozen thoughts zoomed through her
