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JUNE
“What do you mean, you fucking shot someone at the bar?” Dominic clenches his fist so hard I worry it will break his entire hand if he applies any more pressure.
I stand in between the sitting room and the kitchen. My best friend is being comforted by Alec in one room, and Dom’s considering murdering Simon in the other. Both are equally important.
“You would have done the same thing,” Simon tells Dom, but with much less anger in his voice than Dom. “He ruined June’s night out.”
Wait a minute, Simon killed the guy because ofthat?
"Plus," he adds. "He was about to shoot some lady and her dude. I think it was a lovers’ quarrel or something."
“A lovers’…quarrel?” Dominic pinches the bridge of his nose between his fingers. “You opened fire in a public place because of a little relationship drama?”
I step forward. “He had a gun, Dom. Simon did what he had to do to eliminate the threat.” I sigh. “Isn’t that what you hired him for?”
He ignores me and focuses on Simon. “And you didn’t think you should stay? Deal with the cops yourself? Do you know how big of a headache this is going to be to clean up?”
“My priority was getting June out of there safely.” Simon glances down at me. “That’s always going to be my priority.”
Dom’s phone buzzes on the counter. He glares at it. “And so it begins.” He grabs it and points at Simon. “I have to take this. Don’t fucking go anywhere.”
Simon leans against the counter and folds his arms over his broad chest.
“You did the right thing,” I try to reassure him.
He shrugs. “Maybe.”
I stalk toward him, my hand resting on his shoulder. “You did.”
Simon flits his attention to my best friend in the other room. “How’s she doing?”
If I'm being honest, I've been partially unsure of how to handle the situation. Cora has been on a need-to-know basis with pretty much everything that's happened since the guys have come into my life. But with that, it makes stuff like this difficult. I don't know what to say, what to do, how to comfort her when it's laced with secrecy and lies. She's one of the most important people in my life, and the truth will only put her more at risk.
But if I’m okay with keeping her in the dark, should I be allowed to be mad at the guys for doing the same fucking thing? Is what I’m doing really any different?
I don’t have a romantic relationship with Cora, though. I don’t live with her, share space with her, and avoid her at all costs. I don’t sneak out before she wakes up and come home when she’s asleep, and I don’t lie when she point blankly asks me a question.
Okay, maybe about Miller—but that’s for her own good. Miller is deep in the criminal underworld, and if she got involved, it would pull her into it, too.
There’s a large portion of me that welcomes it. To have a best friend I could confide in, to actually have proper girl talk and explaineverything. It would be amazing. But that would be selfish of me, and Cora staying in the dark is for her best interest.
“I don’t know what to say to her,” I whisper to Simon while looking over at her.
“You’ll figure it out.” He nudges me in the direction of where she and Alec are sitting on the couch together. They’re close, too close, and in my focus on Dom and Simon, I may have missed another potential relationship I need to steer her away from.
Alec isn't nearly in the life as much as the rest of the guys are, but he still has his foot in the door and knows way more than I'm comfortable with her finding out. He's a good guy, but good isn’t the only standard that my best friend deserves. I guess he scores a few points in the looks department too, with his dark eyes and matching hair. That isn’t enough to get a chance with my best friend, though.
I walk over and lower myself onto the couch next to Cora. “Hey, you.”
She tugs the blanket over her shoulders tighter and turns toward me. “Hey.”
“Crazy night, huh?”
Cora nods. “Yeah.”
“You doing okay?”
"Yeah. Alec and I were just talking about this course at the university we both took."
