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Now I dragged my eyes from Fiona—my wife—to glare at my best friend.
“Don’t,” I ground out in warning.
My reputation here in Jupiter was as the easygoing ladies’ man. A reputation I’d crafted on purpose, one that wouldn’t hint at any of the truth, wouldn’t attract women wanting to stick around to try to settle down with me.
But sometimes my mask slipped. And I felt him. The man I’d starved, silenced, and struggled against for years. The one who wanted to hurt. To kill. With his bare fucking hands.
And right now, part of me—a fucking large part—wanted to tear my best friend apart.
Rowan could see that. Because part of his job before this was to establish threats. Take them out. He was well aware of how dangerous I could be. How unhinged.
“Does she know?”
I mashed my teeth together, trying to find some semblance of calm. It wouldn’t do well for the bride to get shit-faced and the groom to beat the shit out of his best man at the wedding.
“That’s none of your damn business,” I hissed.
Rowan nodded once, watching me intently. His overall posture seemed casual, but I knew he was tensed, prepared for me to lash out.
“Your parents know?” he continued.
We’d originally planned on getting married at city hall. Except we actually needed our friends to know about the wedding in order for them to believe we were a couple. And when Nora found out, she was appalled at the idea of city hall. She’d taken over. Fiona had reined her in somewhat, but even I wasn’t brave enough to step in.
It didn’t matter much to me.
What did matter was that my parents and my family most fucking definitely were not coming.
“They will,” I said, sipping my whisky.
I fucking ached to get drunk. But Fiona was getting drunk enough for the both of us. Someone had to get us home safely.
Home.
I hadn’t had one of those in years. My place in Jupiter served its purpose. Had walls, a roof, a place to sleep, eat, and fuck.
Fiona’s cottage was most definitely a home. She’d spent a whole lot of time collecting knickknacks, making it full but not cluttered. There was light coming in at all points of the day, bookshelves full of tattered paperbacks, candles, throws, plenty of places to sit and relax.
I wasn’t a man to say the word ‘cozy’ out loud, but fuck, it was cozy.
She loved it here. You could see that with how she’d established a home. Created roots.
And I’d bought the house. Because I understood that we’d need shit like that in order to convince Uncle Sam we were serious. Because I had the money. And yeah, because I was a sick asshole who wanted to fuck with her, just a little.
She’d been pissed.
Really fucking pissed.
It turned out she was hot as shit when she was pissed off.
That didn’t bode well for me, since she was pissed off whenever she was in my presence, and I had to be in her presence for a good while and not fuck her.
“Your mom will be happy,” Rowan commented, sipping his beer. He, too, was nursing one because he was driving his woman home and wouldn’t do anything to put her at risk.
The way he loved her hurt me to look at sometimes.
I was happy as all hell for my grumpy best friend. He deserved that shit. And Nora was sweet, funny, and goofy as shit. It was great to see two people who deserved it get happiness.
But it made me bitter. Angry.
