AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Yes.” She sighs, leaning against the wall, crossing one of her legs over the other. I haven’t seen her in jeans in a while either, but she’s gone full country with boots, and even a hat that’s almost as big as the one Piper is wearing, which is also visible across the room. “What are you even doing here? Tif was scheduled.”
“I told her to take the night off,” Frannie says with a casual shrug, crossing her arms so we’re standing in the same pose. “Her boyfriend is in town from the rig.” Ah. “Plus.” She nods her chin toward Piper, who’s been in the same conversation with Vic and her friend Maria, who greeted her like no time has passed, since this thing kicked off an hour ago. Based on what Piper told me, it’s been several years since she and Alex have seen Maria, having gone to her lavish New York wedding together after college. She lived a very different life than either of them, and they seemed ok with that.
“The party has arrived,” a voice I immediately recognize calls, and through the door walks Alex Calloway, taking her gigantic sunglasses off and holding out her arms like a star on the red carpet. “Please, don’t all crowd me at once.”
“You’re obnoxious.” Nolan wraps an arm around her from behind, so I know he means his jab affectionately. He seems like the kind of guy I would have been friends with, looking back a decade ago. From what I’ve heard through their friends, he and Alex took several years to finally date, and in that time he was mixed signal city, because he was so hard to read, and so focused on getting recruited out of college.
I wonder to myself if I’ll ever be that at ease with Piper, that free to be affectionate, loving, with other people’s eyes on us. I’d had a taste of it a few times over the last several months, and it was still something my brain was trying to process. But maybe he is too? Maybe the affection is just something he does because he knows, like Piper, that Alex feels more secure when he does it.
That idea makes me feel a little better inside as I watch them make their way to the bar. Seer’s already making their drinks when they walk up, and she turns to me, waving a hand.
“Hey, boss man!” I stride over to the corner of the bar, and Nolan claps me on the back over Alex’s head. She looks up at his arm like she’s about to bite it. Seer holds a near-empty bottle of Moscato up. “Can you grab me two more of these from the fridge?”
“I’m not working tonight,” I say dryly. She gives me a withering look - because my name is on the side of the building, or her barback is the new guy she’s still training, or she’d rather ask me than my sister, who actuallyisworking tonight, I’m not sure. “Fine.” I take one last look at the label before heading for the kitchen, where I spy Mateo dishing out orders on the fly.
“All good out there?” he asks, and I nod, clapping his shoulder as I walk by.
“All good, Chef, the bartender is shit and didn’t stock up like she’s supposed to.”
“I’m telling her you said that.” I can’t see his face, but I know he’s smiling into the bowl of pico he’s mixing.
“Go right ahead.” I open up the fridge door, shifting tubs of guac and cheese until I find the stash of chilled wine in the back. When I turn, bottles in hand, Mateo is standing in front of me, and his demeanor has gone from teasing to deadly serious in a matter of seconds.
“I’ll take those.” He snatches the bottles out of my hand, setting them on the workstation beside us, and I stare at him. “I need you to, uh, take a deep breath for me, man.” Mateo mimics what could only be compared to breathing they do in a birthing class, taking quick, short inhales, and then one deep exhale, his hands moving with the gesture.
“What the fuck you doing?” I move to pick the bottles back up, and he steps between me and the work station. “Seriously, Mat, what is your-"
“Liv is outside the kitchen door.”
Chapter 61
Fitz
Ifreeze,myentirebody tensing, and I close my eyes for just a second, willing his words to be a hallucination. A daydream. A stroke. Anything is preferable to my-ex wife actually showing up to this thing.
Silently, I turn on my heel, and sure enough, I see the top half of Olivia’s face through the diamond-shaped window in the kitchen door. Her eyes narrow when she sees, taking in my appearance.
I reach back out for the bottles again, but Mateo moves faster than me. “You don’t need to take any projectiles out there.”
“Projectiles?” I’m about to ask if he thinks I’ll throw something at her, when I see Ryan’s face in the window beside her.
I see red.
Faster than it had at the races, faster than the moments reading those texts over and over until my eyes crossed, I seered, and Mateo grabs at the collar of my shirt as I hurtle toward the door. But before I can fight him off, before I can formulate a coherent sentence, we hear a voice from outside the doors.
“You’ve got some fucking balls showing your face here.” I blink, the red seeping away as Mateo and I look at each other, because that voice is one we both know too well. Liv and Ryan’s faces disappear from the door, and Mateo doesn’t try to stop me, but follows me out. And I have to blink several more times to make sure I’m seeing things correctly.
Ryan and Liv, a very pregnant Liv, cornered near a seating area while my sister waves her arms around like a cartoon character, hair flying, practically spitting as she speaks.
“If you thought for one second you can set foot on WHG property without a problem, you’re dumber than I realized.” She points a finger in Liv’s face, and she rears back, against Ryan, who wraps his arm around her. Around his wife, I surmise from the rings on their hands.
“You don’t get to speak to her that way,” Ryan has the gall to say, and Frannie laughs, a loud, outrageous cackle that turns the attention of several people waiting in line for the bar.
“What’s going -oh shit.” Alex halts next to us, mid step, her drink halfway to her lips when she spots the catfight about to ensue. As if his husband senses are tingling, Nolan rounds the corner behind her, quickly takes in her shocked state, and then tries to turn her away, but all she does is hold her drink up to him. He takes a deep breath that I recognize all too well, having already done the same several times today.
I tell myself I’m probably spot on the money - in another life, Nolan and I would have already been friends - as he takes his wife’s drink.
He looks at Mateo. “Ex-wife?” Mateo nods, crossing his arms, and Nolan shakes his head, glancing over at me. “Want me to go get security?” He nods toward the opposite corner of the room, where, behind the buffet full of people piling up their plates, a cop sits, yawning to himself.
