“Thanks,” Carter mumbled. He tipped his head back and pressed the pack to the bridge of his nose. “I think it’s stopped bleeding.”
“Did you black out?” Maggie asked.
“Fell like a tree,” the Brit said with a malicious grin that Leah found herself recoiling from physically. He demonstrated with his arm. “Right back on the coffee table.” The grin became a sneer. “He spilled coffee on my boots.”
“Tenny,” the other one, Reese, said, a bit of inflection touching his voice. A reprimand.
“Well, he did.” The Brit – Tenny – gestured down at his feet. “And these are brand new.”
“They need a little character, then,” Maggie said, sharply. “No self-respecting Dog oughta be walking around here in squeaky new boots.”
The tiniest smile flickered at the corners of Reese’s mouth.
“You two go do – whatever it is you do on a Wednesday. Shoo.” She waved, and they both left.
“She doesn’t like you,” Leah heard Reese say, as they slipped out the door.
“The tragedy. How will I survive?” Tenny shot back.
Maggie stared at the door a minute after it was closed, hands on her hips, shaking her head. “If Fox doesn’t get hold of that one, I’m going to.” It sounded like a threat, and knowing the queen, it wasn’t an idle one.
Then she turned to Carter. “Well. Let’s take a look.”
He lifted the ice pack away and Maggie tutted and fussed over his face, touching the already-swelling, already-bruising line of his nose with careful fingertips. “It might be broken.”
He swallowed again – swallowing blood down the back of his throat, probably, based on the thickness of his voice. “Feels like it.”
Maggie bustled around behind her desk, and rummaged through one of the drawers. “Did you really sleep with Chanel?”
A beat passed. “Kinda.”
Maggie snorted and produced a package of wet wipes. “Jazz not getting the job done anymore?”
“It was Jazz’s idea.”
“Ah.”
Leah felt like an interloper in the worst way. She was struck again, like yesterday, by the thought that Carter was a very different person from the kid she went to school with. Getting his nose broken because he slept with someone’s girlfriend? His own girlfriend suggesting he sleep around?
She knew things with the Dogs were – different – sometimes, but she’d never pegged Carter as that type. Had always assumed that, even as a one-percenter, he was the sort who’d settle down with a wholesome girl, dedicated and monogamous.
She wanted to get up and leave; this wasn’t her business and, frankly, it was awkward listening in on it.
But she also wanted to hear more. Sue her: sometimes, gossip was juicy.
Maggie set to cleaning the blood off Carter’s face with a wipe, her touch motherly, efficient, and practiced. God knew how many bloodied noses she’d wiped in her tenure as club first lady. “In case you were wondering, Leah,” she said, “nothing at all has changed around here. Men are still dumb, and they do dumb shit on the regular.”
Carter made a face – and then winced for real.
“Hold still,” Maggie told him, and went back to wiping.
He kept his face upturned, his eyes closed. Leah saw a glimmer of wetness on his lashes, at the corners of his eyes. Having your nose broken had to hurt like a bitch; his eyes would definitely have teared up, an automatic reaction to the sinus damage.
But that bit of shine looked like tears to her. Like sadness.
Poor dummy, she thought.
Six
