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Gareth shot a smug look Rick’s way. “She means I fucked her. Nice and hard. Got her all wet too, even when she was half-asleep.”
“If we weren’t in a hospital right now, I’d fucking shoot you for that,” Rick growled out.
“There will be no shooting,” I said, taking on a commanding tone I usually only used with Brianna. “And no more taunting, Gareth. Let’s try to relax for a while, recuperate while the authorities find Brett—”
“Fuck no,” Gareth hissed out. “You can’t tell me not to taunt him. Hell, I should be terrorizing you both for what you two did. In case you forgot, she was supposed to be mine.” He pointed at Brianna, still clutching her left hand with his other. “You two are way too old for her, anyway. One of these times, when you’re fucking her, you’ll just drop dead, mid-fuck.”
Rick looked like he was seriously debating on shooting him, while I sent a cold glare his way, about to chastise him for saying something so brusque, but Brianna broke the tension in the room in a way only she could.
She laughed.
It was a soft, breathy laugh, but a laugh all the same, and just like that, the glaring contest ended and Rick’s hand eased off his holster. All eyes had turned to Brianna, including mine. Her laugh, soft as it was, made me feel at peace in a way nothing and no one ever had before.
Once she was finished laughing, she said, “I love you guys.”
Gareth’s back snapped rod-straight, and Rick’s eyes widened somewhat. It was their turn to trade glances with each other, while I replayed what she’d said in my head. Normally a confession like that was spoken to a single person, but then again, no normal person was ever in a situation like this.
“Uh,” Brianna hastily added, “I didn’t mean it like that—it’s the drugs talking. Yeah, the drugs.”
I could confidently say I didn’t think it was the drugs.
Chapter Nineteen – Brianna
I really wish I wouldn’t have said it, because now I was faced with three equally intense stares—after Gareth and Rick stopped looking at each other, for whatever reason. Two pairs of green eyes, along with one icy pair of blue eyes, all watched me, as if they were waiting for me to say something else.
Hence why I quickly added, “Uh, I didn’t mean it like that—it’s the drugs talking. Yeah, the drugs.” I was exhausted, and I tripped over my words a bit, but I was alert enough to be embarrassed over what I’d said, and I could feel my cheeks flushing with heat.
God, they wouldn’t stop staring at me. I wanted to shrink back in this hospital bed and disappear, just to get out of this room and away from the heaviness of their freaking stares.
Eventually, I had to ask, “Why are you all looking at me like that?” It’d been one hell of a day-slash-night, so I was entitled to saying things I probably shouldn’t. Plus the drugs. I had more than one excuse.
Gareth held onto my one hand, while Alistair still clutched the other. Rick stood at the foot of the bed, emerald eyes on me. Gareth drew my attention to him first, leaning closer to me as he asked, “Who would you say you loved first? It’s me, isn’t it? That’s okay, you can say it. Let these old assholes know that you were mine first, in every way—”
“Don’t fucking listen to him,” Rick growled out. He set both his hands on the footboard, and his fingers curled around the plastic tightly. “He’s just—” He stopped himself from saying more, scowling.
I had no idea what was going on, but luckily for me, Alistair seemed to understand, because he explained, “I believe they have some sort of competition between them. Don’t quote me on it, but based on their reaction to what you said before, I can only assume you saying I love you to them means they won.” Alistair sounded bored, though there was a hint of annoyance—towards Gareth and Rick, not at me.
I looked at the others, dividing up my time between them. “Tell me he’s wrong. Tell me you two idiots weren’t actually in a competition with each other.” Thank God Rick had closed the door when they’d come in, otherwise I doubted we’d be having this conversation.
But it needed to be had. If there was one thing I’d learned about myself in the past few days, it’s that I didn’t like being kept in the dark about anything.
“Uh” was all Gareth said, while Rick muttered, “We weren’t supposed to tell you, otherwise it was off—”
“It’s off,” I spoke through bared teeth. I wasn’t some prize they could win by going behind my back and competing with each other for. If I was stronger, if I wasn’t hooked up to an IV, I would’ve gotten up, out of this bed, and punched them both in the gut. Or maybe even lower.
Yeah, I would’ve gone for the balls.
“It’s only off if someone wins,” Gareth told me, turning the full force of his devilish smirk upon me. “So, who won? It has to be me. It was always going to be me. I am the youngest, most handsome out of the three of us. It’s no competition, really.”
Gareth wanted to play at that game, huh? Fine.
“I think my exact words were:I love you guys. Guys, which is plural, as in all of you,” I said, pointedly ignoring the way Gareth’s smirk morphed into a scowl. “Which means, to me and anyone with a brain, it’s a tie.”
Gareth’s frame bent down, leaning over me as his eyes studied me, every aspect of my face, as if he thought he’d be able to find a lie in what I’d said. “What the fuck you mean,a tie?” he hissed out the final two words as if they were acid on his tongue.
“Do you need a dictionary?” I asked. “My phone is somewhere at the football field, but I’m sure one of you has a phone on you.” I rolled my head over to Alistair and said, “Do me a favor, please, and find Gareth the definition of a tie.”
“I know what goddamned tie is,” Gareth mumbled. “But it wasn’t a competition that could end in a tie. The winner was supposed to get you all to himself—”
