“Let’s go over our choices. One, you’d all be pissed at Knox, which would put our friend posse in jeopardy. I’ll remind you, Raye, he served with Cap, your fiancé, and they’re super close. And I don’t have to remind you that you and I are super close too.” I looked at Jess, Harlow and Willow in turn. “He’s super close with all your men.” I took them all in. “Our whole tribe is super close, as tribes tend to be. So, maybe we fuck up that dynamic…for what? A two-week relationship that wasn’t strong enough to stay the course?”
I could see understanding clear in Harlow’s eyes, as I heard my voice deteriorating, and actually all of their expressions changing, but now this was flowing, I couldn’t stop it.
“Or his buds get pissed at him and try to get him to try again with me, like Brady did, and I went along with that. Though, that was not my finest hour.”
Gemma, who was into Brady, as Brady was into Gemma, bit her lip and looked away.
There it was.
Proof.
Not my finest hour.
I kept speaking. “Or you get pissed at me for giving up and try to get me to have another go with him. But what eventually ended it was too big to surpass. I can’t share it with you because it might affect how you think of him, and I refuse to do that. I might think it’s wrong, but it’s him. It’s how he is. Who he is. It’s not for you to judge. It’s not for you to change. If it isn’t for me to judge or change, it sure as hell isn’t for you.”
“Luna–” Gemma tried to break in gently.
But there was no stopping me now.
“Trust me, you all were constantly pushing me at him anyway, not even knowing this, and I experienced the agony of that. If you knew we’d had what we’d had, you’d have doubled down, and I couldn’t have hacked it. So I kept it secret, like Knox asked, but I did that for me too, because I needed it.”
I was finally talked out, thank God, and more thanks to God, none of them forged into the silence.
Eventually, Jessie broke it. “I can’t really be pissed at you when I kept my whole family history from all of you until my brother disappeared, and it was outed.”
Very true.
“Though you did give me shit for doing that,” she continued. “But that didn’t last long so, sadly, I can’t hold a grudge.”
Thank God for that. Jess was hell on wheels with a grudge.
Willow glanced at Shanti.
Shanti suddenly was fascinated with her gold-strapped Havaianas-clad feet.
Shanti didn’t share.
I also didn’t share that she was total shit at hiding she had it bad for Liam, another Nightingale man, and she wasn’t going there (neither was Liam, who was also shit at hiding he was into Shanti big-time, though both of them were good at hiding this from each other).
“Now, I slept on Dream’s couch—” I began.
“You went to Dream?” Harlow’s voice was pitched high.
“I needed space and that guaranteed it,” I explained something that didn’t need to be explained since they’d dragged me into my own apartment, unlocking the door and everything.
“That would guarantee it,” Joey muttered.
That was almost funny.
But I needed this to be over. I needed to stretch out my back, shoulders and neck. I needed to pay bills. I needed to go to the grocery store. I needed to do laundry. I needed to keep busy like I always was apt to keep busy (what could I say? life was to be lived, and I was the kind of chick who lived it), but that went into overdrive post-Knox because sometimes, not all the time, but sometimes, if I kept busy I wouldn’t think of him.
His mouth on mine.
His hands on my body.
His cock moving inside me.
His smile aimed at me over a cup of coffee.
