I groaned. "She and Nyla seem to be two peas in a bloody pod. When did they become mates?"
"They must have become friends at my house after the other night." Bridge mumbled under his breath. "Fucking Emma."
As much as I loved Emma, this time, I had to agree. Because she was the reason I was now in the doghouse.
No, you twat. You are the reason you're in the doghouse. You didn't tell her. How would you have felt?
That singular question. How would I have felt? If Nyla had hidden something from me, I'd have felt betrayed. Like she was keeping secrets. Hell, I'd spent several weeks trying to destroy her because I thought she had betrayed me. Because we hadn't communicated. Fuuuuuck. I was an arsehole.
Drew's gaze searched mine. And then he started to laugh. "Ah, mates, he just came around to the idea that he’s the dick. It's quite entertaining to watch the realization happening.”
I grabbed my scotch and frowned as soon as I saw how empty my glass was.
Drew shrugged. "Emma did that."
“Is she even old enough to drink?”
Bridge sighed. “I didn’t like seeing her drinking either."
Ben shrugged. "You both recognize that she's twenty-three, right?"
I ignored him. "Secondly, why didn't one of you tell me I was fucking up so badly?"
Ben laughed. "Ah, we tried to tell you. We tried and tried and tried, but you don't listen."
"Goddamn it. I need to go talk to her."
Ben clamped a hand on my shoulder. "You know what mate, why don't you leave it for a bit and have another drink? She's going to need some cooling off time. The girls will talk her down after an hour or so, and maybe then you can sort all of this."
Christ, I fucking hoped so. After that taste in the back room, I wanted more of her. All the time. In my fucking bed. So I needed to get my shit together. If I kept pushing her away, not letting her in, I’d lose the fight. I'd lose her. And after not having her, I'd already vowed that I wasn't going back to that place. It had to be one way or another. Nyla and I were going to have a come-to-Jesus talk.
Chapter Four Nyla
"So, you banged him?" Livy asked.
I shoved myself further into the corner of East's plush couch then nodded sheepishly. "Admittedly not my finest moment, but I don't really know what happened. We were fighting, and I was mad. I was really, really mad. And then, next thing I knew, we were shagging in the back room of the pub."
Emma chortled as she popped a piece of Manchego into her mouth. "Oh my God, you should have seen them when they came out. East was so ruffled. Hair in disarray, clothes askew. I know Ben is the self-proclaimed pretty boy of the group, but East likes his clothes, and he likes them just so. Clearly, Nyla did something to him."
I flushed. "Oh my God, I was going to ask if anyone knew what was going on."
Emma howled with laughter. "Are you kidding me? The lads were all doing their best to keep it together and not say anything in front of you. I'd bet you the moment we left they gave him an earful."
"Ugh, great. Fantastic. They knew what we did."
Telly shrugged. "So what? You just needed to get some. Look, admit it… You two are in love."
"That's debatable," I muttered under my breath. We had only just recovered from what happened before he shot me. Was this love? It was all too new.
She waved her hand dismissively. "No, come on. You're mad at him. And well, he did”—she glanced over her shoulder looking for Hazel and whispered—“shoot you.” In a more normal voice she added, “So we're all mad at him for you, but you love each other. We all know that for a fact. It’s just taking the two of you a minute to sort yourselves. Sometimes you bang. That's a given. It’s just what happens. Even when you're still mad. And you're perfectly within your rights to still be mad."
"God, he's just so irritating."
Hazel came in from the kitchen with a fresh bottle of wine. "Well, I mean it could be worse. He could actually be a bad guy. You know, hurting people and things. But he's not, right?"
Livy pinched me so hard that I almost yelped, but I knew better. Amelia just coughed and downed her glass of wine. Telly looked around and grinned wide, but she knew better than to spill the beans. Hazel had been an unforeseen interruption in our girls' night. She'd come by to ‘check on me.’ Presumably because Denning asked her to, but then she saw that we were hanging out and did that thing where people didn't want to interrupt, but then they totally did and became part of the hang session. Even so, the girls were nice to her.
Emma, however, was suspicious. "Nope, no bad guys here. He's just overprotective.”
Things would have been a lot easier without Hazel being there. As it was, we had to tiptoe around what we said lest we clue her in on all the happenings. After all, she was engaged to the enemy.
She nodded and poured herself a liberal glass of rosé before taking a huge gulp. "Okay, so if he's not an actual bad guy, what's he done that's so bad? Being a little overprotective isn’t so bad, right?"
I sat up straighter, careful not to slosh my wine over my hand. East would kill me if I stained his couch.
"That's not it. He's very overprotective. He thinks that I shouldn't do my, uh…" I glanced around, trying to think of the best phrase for it.
Amelia, ever helpful, jumped in. "He thinks Nyla shouldn't do her job, what she's been trained to do. He thinks that she should, uh, do desk
