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ChapterSix
FELIX
Was I dick for pretending I never slept with Gemma? One thousand percent. Did it suck working beside her when she hated me even more than she already had before? Also, yes. But I had too much on my plate with Skye, and I couldn’t give Gemma what she wanted.
Sleeping together solved nothing. In fact, it made the friction between us worse. She looked like she wanted to stab me daily. I tried my best to stay out of her way, but sometimes I couldn’t help but fight back.
I wiped down the bar and slyly watched Gemma’s ass as she flirted with the men at the other end of the bar.
“Dude, you gotta stop,” Ryan said from the other side of the bar.
“Stop, what?” I asked, feigning unawareness.
I didn’t have to tell Ryan what happened between me and Gemma. The first shift after we slept together, he saw how she glared at me more angrily than normal. Ryan kept trying to convince me that just because I was Skye’s guardian didn’t mean I shouldn’t have a sex life. But he didn’t have kids. He didn’t get it.
“Dude, you know. You’d think it would have relaxed you at least,” he muttered.
I raised my pierced eyebrow at him. “What do you mean?”
“Man, you need a vacation.”
True. I needed a vacation a decade ago, but I didn’t have the money to go anywhere.
I wanted to argue with him further, but then Avery MacGregor came up to the bar with her newborn strapped to her chest.
“Hey, Avs. How are you?” I asked.
“Tired,” she said with a long sigh.
“Felix, go away. Let me talk to my sister,” Gemma said from behind me.
I jumped at her voice because I hadn’t heard her sneak up on me.
Avery rocked her crying baby. “Sorry to bring her in here, but she misses her daddy, and I can’t get her to sleep.”
“I’ll get Nolan,” I said.
“He’s doing inventory,” Ryan said. “I’ll get him.”
Avery rocked the baby in her arms, but the little girl wanted to cry to her heart’s content. Avery looked like she either wanted to cry too or chug a beer. This was the first time I’d seen her since she had the baby a couple of weeks ago. I wasn’t sure if she was breastfeeding, so I didn’t want to offer her a beer if she still couldn’t drink.
“Move,” Gemma said to me as she set down a bottle of Mac Daddy on the bar in front of Avery. “Avs, can I take a picture of you and the baby? For our social media.”
“Nolan should be in it,” Avery said.
Avery looked exhausted and defeated by the baby’s continued cries. Skye was two when Mom left, but I remembered those days. After my dad shut down and I had to raise my sister, I knew I had no desire to have kids of my own. That shit was hard. When people said stay-at-home parents didn’t have jobs, I wanted to punch them. Raising kids was freaking hard.
“Felix, fuck off,” Gemma said when she noticed I was still standing next to her.
“Gemma! Don’t be so rude, and don’t swear in front of the baby,” Avery scolded her.
Gemma rolled her eyes, and I crossed my arms over my chest. “Are you done?” I asked.
“No! You’re such a fucking dick. Get out of my face,” she seethed at me, balling her hands into angry fists at her sides.
Avery sighed. “Can you two not start? I can’t handle a crying baby and you fighting. Nol mentioned it’s gotten worse between you somehow.”
Yeah, I knew why it had gotten worse, and it was one hundred percent my fault. It surprised me Gemma hadn’t told her sister why. The Jensen Sisters were close. Nolan mentioned he found out more about Gemma than he cared to know after marrying Avery.
