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We walk inside the restaurant and Marlow rushes over to Holly and April, sending a scathing look my way.
I chuckle. I have to. Every time I went to the dark side during the night, I remembered the way she gave herself to me. The times she lowered her guard and let me in, not just physically, but in every way. We touched the sky last night and I’m not about to go down without a fight.
Sutton sends me a look of his own.
“You sure this is the way you want to handle this?” he says under his breath.
“You heard us?”
“I heard enough. And I know I can’t really give advice since I’m divorced and haven’t gone on a real date in so long I can’t remember, but something tells me the cocky bastard routine isn’t going to work in your favor.”
I run my hands through my hair. I wanted to cry when she left last night.Cry.There’s no fucking way I can go there. So, sometime during the night, I settled on this.
“Cocky bastard, huh? I was going for more of a confident swagger.”
He snorts. “I don’t think her looking like she wants to punch you in the nuts is what you’re going for, regardless of how we want to title it.”
“Fuck,” I mutter.
“You poison Marlow during thatwalkof yours last night?” Callum sidles up to the other side of me.
“Now isnotthe time for you to get talkative,” I snap.
Sutton squeezes my shoulder while Callum chuckles.
“Settle down, little brother.” Sutton leads me to a chair directly across from Marlow. I start to sit down and he blocks me, pointing to the end of the table. “Nuh-uh. This is my seat. You’re down there. Have some coffee, maybe a Bloody Mary or whatever will do the trick, and you can try out some new moves later.”
I grumble all the way to my seat and when I sit down, I glance at Marlow. She looks beautiful but exhausted and…fragile. It makes me physically ache with the need to fix it, but I’m not sure how.
The truth is, I expected her to put on the brakes sometimebeforewe had sex. When that never happened and not only that, when what we shared felt life-changing, I thought we were in the clear.
Wishful thinking, I know.
Our drink order is taken and the chatter around the table is happy. I try to pull myself out of my brain and focus on the conversation.
“Did you hear about Callum winning big last night?” Holly asks.
“Really? How much?” Theo clinks his water glass to Callum’s.
“Forty-k,” he mumbles.
“Holy shit,” Theo says. “You playing today?”
“Nope.”
“Come on. Let me live vicariously through you since I can’t do it,” Sutton says.
“It’d be okay in Vegas, wouldn’t it?” Jamison asks.
“Wait—can judges not gamble?” Marlow asks.
“He could, he just avoids everything that could paint him in a bad light, publicly or privately,” Scarlett says.
“Not everything,” Sutton says, rubbing a hand over his jaw.
“Oh, every single person at this table would’ve divorced Tracy’s ass long before you did.” Holly laughs, and the ones of us who aren’t verbally agreeing are nodding.
“She didn’t make it easy, but I tried.” He shrugs. He lifts the mimosa the waitress just set in front of him. “Fortunately, the two of you will never be miserable with each other,” he says to Theo and Sofie. “To a happy marriage and a peaceful home.”
