Page 72 of Brutal Sin
“Shit.” He startled at Shay’s voice. “Why are you still lurking?”
She cocked her head and scrutinized every inch of his face. “Something really bad is up with you, isn’tit?”
“Apart from my annoyance levels from your constant nagging, no.” The cloying thoughts of going back to Tampa didn’t help. He’d contemplated making the trip every damn day. There was a hatchet to bury, if only for his sake, because his parents made it clear they still wished he’d been swallowed instead of conceived.
But it was about closure, right?
Or something similar. He’d read a convoluted online article outlining paragraphs of psychological drivel stating all the reasons to be the better person. All of which made a lot of sense. Just not enough to convince him to pack hisbags.
Not yet, at least.
“You sure? You haven’t been brutish lately. I was thinking of changing your nickname to melon.”
He scowled.
“Because you’re so melancholy,” she explained.
He pushed all the air from his lungs. Before Ella, Shay’s taunting had kept him on his toes. She was an annoyance he enjoyed reciprocating. Now, all he wanted to do was sink his head back against the chair and go to sleep. “Get out, Shay.”
“See, that right there is a stellar indication of your melon state. Brute would’ve told me to try it and see how I liked the unemployment line, but this melon uses a defeated tone to tell me to leave.”
“I don’t have time forthis.”
Her expression stilled as she contemplated him, then slowly her face fell and a potent look of concern bore down on him. “Now I’m really starting to worry.”
“Look, I’m fine, okay? I’ve got shit going on. Personal shit. But it’s nothing I can’t handle.”
“You know you can talk to me if you need someone.”
He glared. “Seriously?”
“Don’t be like that. We’re friends. I care aboutyou.”
He closed his eyes and massaged his lids. “I’m not the talking type. You know that.” At least he hadn’t been. Not until Ella. That woman seemed to bring out the verbal diarrhea in him. She currently knew more about his life than his closest friends.
“Well, maybe you should be. It wouldn’t killyou.”
“It might.”
She chuckled, the sound half-hearted. “Have it your way. But just so you know, if you’re not downstairs in five minutes, I’m bringing the team uphere.”
“Yeah, I heard.”
Her footsteps faded down the hall, allowing the shit running through his head to reassemble and gain traction. This whole situation had started because Shay had wanted him to help a random chick obtain an orgasm.
But Ella hadn’t turned out to be a random chick, and what he’d given her hadn’t merely been an orgasm. She’d taken much more from him. Too much more. And he had no idea how to get those parts of himselfback.
He was stuck feeling too hollow and too heavy, at the same time. There was darkness, as well as picture-perfect clarity. Unpredictability and painful routine.
He pushed from his chair and made his way downstairs to fast-track the punishment. There was no point holding out any longer. His friends had been patient, far more than he would’ve been in return.
They all sat in a line, positioned across the stools at the main Shot bar. Leo, Shay, Cassie, and T.J.—all of them holding matching blank expressions as he walked behind the bar to face them headon.
“You’re late.” Leo slid a stack of mail across the counter. “And you might want to consider checking the mail every once in a while if you plan to continue being the office bitch. This must’ve been sitting in our box for weeks.”
“It was on my to-do list.” He grasped the envelopes and flicked through the pile, finding a mass of potential bills and one hand-written address.
“You seem like you’ve been busy in the office.” T.J.’s statement sounded like more of a question.
