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As much as he wanted to curse Rae for shouting the truth to the world, he understood why she’d done it. It wasn’t like there was a whole lot of choice. He’d just hoped to tell the guys on his own terms after they got home, when he wasn’t stuck with them on a boat, then a plane.
Avoiding them was completely impossible.
They’d made him sit down with them on a couple of bench seats out on the deck while Domi dragged Rae into the interior with Avery and Iris trailing behind them. The interior had huge windows so the occupants could see out, which meant everyone could see in, too. So, he knew Rae wasn’t doing any better with her friends.
However, it didn’t look like Avery and Iris were talking much. Iris was still too jubilant about being right—which would have been hilarious under other circumstances—and Avery was listening quietly while Domi did all the grilling.
Unlike his friends, who were taking it in turns. The only ones who didn’t care what was going on were Kincaid and Zach, who were having what looked like their own terse conversation at the stern of the boat.
“All week and you didn’t tell us.” Mitch huffed, crossing his arms over his chest. “I can’t believe you kept it a secret.”
Brian shot him a look. “Really? You can’t?”
As Mitch huffed again, Nick raised his hand like he was in class.
“I still don’t understand. Why did you keep it a secret? I mean, not the sleeping together. I understand why you didn’t want to tell all the nosy Nellys, but why did you keep what happened to her bathroom a secret? I mean, obviously, if you’d told us, we’d all have offered her a place to stay…” His voice trailed off, obviously figuring it out.
“Because then he wouldn’t have had the excuse to sleep with her,” Law said. He sighed. “I can’t believe Iris was right, dammit. Do you know how long I’m going to have to hear about this?”
“Hopefully, at least as long as me,” Brian muttered unsympathetically. He cleared his throat and shook his head. “It wasn’t about trying to sleep with her. That just… happened.” He looked at Mitch. “This week was about you and Domi. It was supposed to be relaxing and enjoyable. You weren’t supposed to have to worry about a thing, so we didn’t want you to know because we wanted it to be entirely stress free.”
“That is a load of bullshit,” Mitch stated. He leaned back against the bench he was seated on. “We would not have been that stressed.”
“Well, we didn’t want you to be stressed at all. Rae knew Domi would want her in the villas near us. She didn’t want to interrupt any of the couples or end up being a third wheel, and obviously, then we’d have to tell someone else. I just happened to be there when everything happened, so I said she could stay with me, and that way, she didn’t have to bother anyone. She was still in the same grouping of villas as us, and you and Domi got to have your vacation stress free.” He crossed his arms over his chest, glaring back at Mitch. “You’re welcome.”
“Oh, yes, having sex with Rae was about doing me a favor.” Mitch shook his head, the corners of his mouth quirking up. “Dude, you are the Simone Biles of mental gymnastics right now.”
“Yeah, you could have just slept on the couch,” Nick pointed out. “But it sounds like you spent the week actually sleeping with her. I didn’t think you two really got along.”
“We don’t,” he said, but Mitch was already talking over him, explaining. At least explaining based on his own point of view.
“They’ve got a ‘will they, won’t they’ thing going on,” Mitch said, focusing on Nick and ignoring Brian’s glare. “As in, they both want each other, but they stay away from each other for stupid reasons.”
“It’s not stupid reasons,” Brian snapped. Mitch was finally starting to get under his skin. “I’m a Daddy Dom. Rae doesn’t want a Daddy Dom. It’s that simple.”
“No, Rae doesn’t want a Dom she has to call Daddy. She needs a Daddy Dom.” Mitch arched an eyebrow at him as if daring him to disagree.
“I’m confused,” Nick said, looking back and forth between them.
“Rae won’t call Brian ‘Daddy,’ so Brian refuses to even try anything with her,” Law explained.
Brian opened his mouth to protest, but Mitch was already talking.
“Also, Brian handles rejection really poorly, and Rae’s done that, like, twice now.” He shook his head again. “I can’t believe you set yourself up for another rejection from her. You rarely even give anyone a second chance, much less a third.”
“I wasn’t setting myself up! We agreed it would only be for this week. She couldn’t reject me because we had a mutually agreed upon end date.” As the words came out of his mouth, he slapped his palm against his face. Yeah. Now that it was out there, said out loud… “Yeah, I hear it. Just… shut up.”
There was silence for a long moment.
“So, who’s going to inform the pool?” Law asked.
“The pool?” Poor Nick. He was the newest to the scene and the club, and since he was often working on the weekends as Marquis’ executive chef, he tended to be at the very end of the gossip train.
“The betting pool on whether Brian and Rae are ever going to get their heads out of their asses and get together.” Mitch stroked his chin, looking up thoughtfully. “Hm. Yeah, I might need to change my day. The question is, is this going to move things along faster or push them back?”
“I hate you all.” Brian dropped his head into his hands. Theoretically, he’d known about the pool. People were way too up in each other’s business at the clubs. It was all in good fun, but sometimes…
“I think I’m going to move mine up,” Mitch mused. “Y’all are getting worse at keeping away from each other.”
