AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Chapter Eight
Andrea
It didn’t take longfor the night to get out of hand but when you had rockstars and adrenaline junkies in the same room, it was bound to get a little rowdy. Both Luke and Rhys were close to being hammered when some old-school dance track came on the speakers. Luke decided it would be funny to get up on a chair and dance like no one was watching, throwing his hands up in the air.
Luke wobbled where he stood, and Quinn reached out to steady him, before Luke slumped down onto the seat and called for more shots, Andrea smiling as his dad ignored the request and instead turned down the music.
But her brother was far from ready to start winding down the party and reached over the bar and pulled out a bottle of tequila with a lopsided grin. Andrea saw Noah get ready to get up off his seat, ready to intervene if he needed to and he might have to because Rhys and Luke were downing the tequila like it was nothing.
Noah slid off his seat and stalked towards the two drunk idiots but Andrea was worried about how much Rhys was drinking. Rhys had always used alcohol as a means to cope with his dyslexia, especially when they were younger and he liked to party. Noah’s face looked murderous as he came toward them but it was Charlie who decided to be the one to calm things down.
“Okay Rhys, that’s enough tequila for Luke. I’m sure he doesn’t want me to pull rank and tell him that he has an afternoon training session that will be a bitch with a hangover.”
Luke groaned, running his hands through his tousled hair. “Ugh, boss is right. No more tequila for Luke.”
Rhys shrugged like it didn’t bother him that his drinking buddy was being ridiculously sensible all of a sudden and took a slug from the bottle. Declan reached over from where he was sitting. Grabbing the bottle, he handed it off to Noah with a fluidness that gave Andrea the impression that this wasn’t the first time Declan had been forced to take a bottle from her brother. Andrea watched in shock as a dark look crept over Rhys’s face for a microsecond before it vanished and her brother was smiling like it was no big deal.
The music dulled to a low murmur. Noah inclined his head to Declan, who pointed to the seat beside him and Noah sat down. Charlie looked a little pale as she went to the bar, and Andrea was about to check on her when Quinn approached Charlie, then Quinn shouted her farewells. Noah went over to Quinn and Andrea plonked down on a stool and gave her aching feet a rest, ignoring a certain rockstar.
“You okay?”
Andrea was startled to hear Declan ask her the question that she didn’t know what to say when she turned and he was sitting right there across from her. Her mouth felt dry and she took a sip of her beer, Declan’s eyes not leaving hers before she replied. “I’m good thanks.”
She hadn’t meant her tone to sound frosty and it made Declan frown, scratching at his beard as he sighed. “You think we can just be civil with each other so we don’t make it awkward for everyone else. I’ve had Rhys bending my ear all day asking if you being our manager is going to be an issue and Luna telling me to be nicer to you.”
“I was perfectly fine ignoring you so that this unpleasantness didn’t spoil the evening. You are the one who just sat down and immediately started having a go.”
A muscle ticked in Declan’s jaw, then he switched gears. “You went to the fire station to see Eric yesterday.”
That made Andrea smile without any effort. She had been passing the fire station yesterday and decided to stop in and see if Eric was on duty. The youngest of the Walsh triplets had scooped her up into his arms the moment she walked into the fire station and ordered her round to his mam’s for dinner some night.
The cheeky git also promised to make sure his oldest brother knew he wasn’t invited.
“I was passing by. Who would have thought that the baby who had stayed in the nicu the longest would be running into burning buildings? He’s still as cheeky as I remember.”
“He told me he asked you out.”
It was a statement said in the harshest of tones that plucked at the strings of her temper as she rolled her eyes. The triplets were a few years younger than her and Declan and despite the fact that all of the Walsh men were handsome and mostly charming, Andrea had no interest in the younger men. For fuck sake, she used to babysit them. Was Declan actually getting all bent out of shape because he thought she would go out with his little brother?
Ugh....Declan Walsh was not
“Your brother asked me out and I told him he was wasting his time flirting with me since I remember him having to go to accident and emergency when he decided to jump off your roof and bounced right off your neighbour’s trampoline and broke his arm.”
Andrea knew her tone had turned vicious, but Declan seemed to drag that reaction from her. She leaned in closer to Declan, saw his nostrils flare. “I also told your brother that I had changed since I last saw him and didn’t waste my time with boys when I spend my time with drop-dead gorgeous men who know how to treat a woman. I don’t plan on scratching an itch with any men from Cork.”
A growl rumbled in Declan’s throat but Andrea cut across him as he made to speak. “Don’t. you don’t get to be an asshole to me for years and then act like a possessive ex. Who I chose to sleep with doesn’t concern you and never will. So, take your let’s be civil and shove it up your ass, Declan.”
Andrea pulled back as Charlie sat down beside her, taking her drink and downing it after her own encounter with Noah. Declan had taken out his acoustic guitar and was quietly strumming it.
Luke and Luna’s dad told them he wanted to shut up the bar, looking tired and Luna told him to head off and they would clean up. Luke’s dad left with a warning not to wreck the place. Andrea was tapping her fingers along to the chords Declan was playing when he lifted his eyes to look at her best friend.
“You sing?” he asked Charlie, and Andrea hared that she felt jealous that he would ask Charlie and not her. Then her friend laughed and she felt super guilty for feeling jealous where Charlie was concerned.
“Hell no,” Charlotte laughed, then nudged Andi’s shoulder. “But Andi does.”
It felt like being cut open and she was seventeen again, playing the piano and Declan telling her that it was a pity she couldn’t sing because they could use her in the band. She had been so self-conscious that she couldn’t sing in front of him, had begged Rhys to not tell Declan and he had agreed because he hadn’t wanted to make his sister uncomfortable.
And now, now Declan would know and her stomach felt sick.
