“I think, personally, we should let the boys deal with the Chamber family situation,” Shanti said while strolling toward Knox and me and skirting us when she got there, doing this in order to go to my kitchen. “And we should take up the Cheyenne situation.”
“Totally,” Willow agreed.
“I’m all for that,” Joey added.
“I’ll be talking to Cheyenne,” Knox declared.
“You will?” I asked.
Everything about him softened, even his hold on me, though that didn’t loosen. I had no idea how he pulled it off, but he did. I also liked it.
His voice gentled too when he said, “I fucked her over, honey. I need to come clean about that. She deserves it. And maybe after I do, she’ll lay off.”
Although Cheyenne was not my favorite person for reasons I didn’t need to enumerate, and I knew that would be seriously awkward for him, he did need to do that.
“Allow me to explain how that’s gonna go down,” Shanti began from where she was at my Nespresso machine, and she’d taken down every coffee mug I owned.
Apparently, instead of me walking on sunshine, but doing it giving my guy a morning BJ, we were all gonna have coffee.
Although I would have picked door number one (blowjob) the morning after our blessed reunion, coffee with my girls and getting back to our regular programming wasn’t a consolation prize.
Since his dick wasn’t going anywhere (hallelujah!), I could go down on my guy after they left.
Shanti had her finger through the handle of a mug, and she used it to indicate the fullness of Knox.
“You are…you,” she continued. “You’re gorgeous. You’ve got a shit-hot, alpha-male, testosterone-fueled job that pays big bucks. You’re a catch no woman wants to throw back. You will sit down and have that convo with her, and she will take it one of two ways.”
She put the mug under the Nespresso spout and hit the button on top, then returned to Knox.
“First, she’s going to sense your guilt and think she can use it to manipulate you into coming back to her. Or she’s going to miss your whole message, note only that you sought her out to spend time with her, not why you did it, just that you did. And she’s going to twist that into thinking there’s something still there between the two of you. The result of either of these will be Cheyenne continuing to stalk one, the other, or both of you and backing that up by doing increasingly deranged things.”
IMO, Shanti was, as ever, correct.
“This is why you need to send in the Angels,” Joey stated.
Considering the fact I worried Shanti was right, I was curious.
Thus, I asked Joey, “What are we gonna do?”
Joey shrugged. “No clue. But we’ll come up with something.”
“Back off until I talk to her and get the lay of the land,” Knox ordered.
“We’ll give you space, brother,” Shanti said. “But we’re still gonna plan because she isn’t gonna give up that easy and we gotta be ready.”
Knox didn’t look happy about that, and it was such that it was killing my “Walking on Sunshine” vibe.
“And by the way, I’m just making us coffees because I’m out and I don’t feel like navigating a grocery store on a Saturday,” Shanti said. “As soon as I set us up,”—she grinned—“you can resume your reun?—”
She didn’t finish her statement because there was another hammering on the door.
Jessie was closest, but Knox stalked to it, opened it, and Martha was there.
This could mean anything. Impromptu brunch by the pool and she was there to give us our assignments for food (or booze). Her needing a hideout because she saw one of her daughters-in-law pull in. Or, even though her unit wasn’t close to mine, she was miffed the Angels had knocked so loud, so early, and she didn’t feel she should keep that a secret.
It was none of these things.
Instead, she said, gazing irascibly up at Knox, “Good. You’re here. So is Alexis’s father, and he had a few things to say Jacob didn’t like, so things are getting very real right now down in the courtyard.”
