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A booming laugh exploded out of him as he set his glass on the counter. “I’mkidding. God, you look like I said I wanted to have your babies. It was a joke. It’s okay to smile if you think it was funny. I’ve seen you do it on occasion.”
My lips twitched despite myself, but that caused me to wince as my bruised cheek bunched.
“Ouch.” Gavin came around the counter and stopped opposite me, his eyes trailing over the purple tinge that had started to color my skin. “That looks so much worse than it did earlier. You really got that running into a cabinet door?”
“That’s what I told you, wasn’t it?”
“Well, yeah, but?—”
“But what?”
“I just… I don’t know… It looks like you were in a fight, and I thought that maybe you’d gone after Joey even though?—”
“You told me not to?”
“Yeah.” Gavin looked conflicted, as though he wasn’t quite sure what he wanted my response to be. But deep down, I knew what he wanted to hear. He would hate knowing any kind of fight had happened over him, even if that asshole deserved it. “Sooo, a cabinet?”
“Yeah, a cabinet.” The size of Joey’s fist. And that one pathetic punch he’d landed was actually starting to show. It had been easy to keep quiet with all our friends this afternoon, but it was getting harder and harder to deny what had really gone with every hour that passed.
“You really expect me to believe that?” Gavin moved closer to get a better look at my face. “That after what I told you about Joey, you suddenly show up the next day with a black eye but tell me you got it running into a cabinet door?” He shook his head. “How stupid do you think I am?”
He wasn’t stupid. Not at all. But if I admitted to hunting Joey down and breaking his face, Gavin would go postal, and for the first time in a while, he actually seemed to be back to his normal, joking self. So I lied.
“Do you really think Joey could get the better of me in a fight?”
Gavin’s gaze narrowed as he scanned my discolored eye, then he bit down into his lip.“No, but?—”
“Exactly. So what’s with the Spanish Inquisition?”
He took in a breath then reluctantly nodded. “You’re right. You said you wouldn’t touch him, and I trust you. I’m just… Ignore me. It’s been a long day moving, and you know what? Maybe if you ice that it’ll be less noticeable tomorrow.”
Unlikely, but hey, if it made him feel better…“Sure, why not.”
Gavin grabbed an ice pack out of the freezer. “Really, D, next time, be more careful.” He gently pressed the pack to the side of my face. “You could’ve taken your eye out. And you have nice eyes.”
I closed said eye, not wanting to look into his or acknowledge his compliment, as the scent of his cologne drifted around me. Guilt twisted in my gut like a knife, because while Gavin might not buy my lame-ass cabinet door excuse, I knew I’d managed to convince him with the Joey-couldn’t-even-get-one-in angle. Even if I hadlethim get one in.
“Okay, now, you hold this here while I go make up the couch.” Gavin stepped around me and made his way to what was nowourcouch. In a pair of loose sweats and t-shirt, he looked casual and cozy, at home in his skin as he picked up the sheet and flicked it out across the leather. But when he bent down to stuff the edges, those loose sweats stretched nice and tight across his high, round ass.
Jesus, since when have I looked at Gavin likethat?Apparently since the moment our friends walked out the door tonight and the two of us were deemed “roommates.” Or maybe it was just the fact we were stuck in a space together with sheets and pillows, that I was just now noticing his really nice?—
“Daire?”
“Huh?”
“I just asked if you wanted to order any food—or I could make us an Irish coffee?”
The casual way he saidushad my dick standing up ready to answer for me. But deciding to lead with the head on my shoulders instead of the one between my legs, I headed into the kitchen to grab the bottle of whiskey instead.
“Machine broke last week, so I’ll skip the coffee and just drink the whiskey. You want one?”
“Nah, I’m good.” Gavin plumped the pillow between his hands then tossed it at the end of the couch. “You might have a bad headache in the morning, though.”
I held up the shot glass. “That’s what this is for.”
The alcohol burned a fiery path down my throat, incinerating any guilt in its way, as I looked at Gavin, who’d curled his feet up under him on the couch.
How in the hell could anyone lay a hand on him in anger or otherwise? The thought infuriated me unlike anything I’d ever experienced, and I quickly downed another shot.
