41. Fox
FOX
S hane snatched up his bag and headed to the door.
“Mate—” I tried to get in his way and got a rough brush-off.
“Not your mate. Not anymore. You’re dead to me. Both of yous.” Shane flung open the door and walked through it.
I leapt to catch it, snapping a look at Ash. She was so pale even her lips were white.
I had to go after Shane, though. Had to try to salvage something, even though I didn’t know what I would say. I caught up to him at the elevator.
“Keep walking or I will knock your teeth down your throat,” Shane bit out without looking at me.
A couple coming from the opposite end of the hall faltered. The guy turned his date around and they went the other way.
“Look, I have a room. Let’s talk this out.” I touched my pocket, realized I’d left my room key in my room downstairs. My phone was on the table in Ashley’s suite.
“Nothing to talk about,” Shane said.
The doors opened and I stepped inside the car with him.
“You have a death wish? You reek of sex, you prick.”
“I know what you’re thinking,” I said grimly. “This wasn’t going on when she was in Oz.”
“Fuck you, it wasn’t. Why else would you tell me not to marry her?”
“Because you didn’t love her.” I had never spoken so harshly to anyone. “And nothing happened until this morning when she got the letter from you that was so lukewarm, she couldn’t kid herself any longer. So I’ll tell you what else didn’t happen. You and Ashley.”
“Really? Why’s that? With you in the house, getting in the way all the time?”
Don’t engage . Don’t engage.
“Four times,” I blurted, showing that many fingers. “Four times I said I’d find my own place and you talked me into staying to finish the house. I’d say you’re like the mafia, but you’re more like a toddler with a security blanket.”
Shane dropped his bag and shoved me into a corner.
I lurched off the wall before the pain of contact had penetrated and shoved Shane to the other side. Things would have got very rough if the elevator hadn’t stopped and opened.
“Shane?” Sandy gasped. “Good Lord! What are you doing here?” She dropped the bulging plastic bag she was holding and came into the elevator to hug him. “The wedding’s back on?” She was beaming.
“ No .” Shane gave her an abrupt one-armed hug between snatching up his bag and stepping out of the elevator.
She set out a hand to hold the door, blinking in confusion.
“Is your room on this floor?” Shane demanded. “Or?—”
“I was heading to the laundry.” She grew flustered as she stepped out and picked up her bag. She glanced between us.
“Don’t look at that prick. He busted up me and Ash so he could move on her.”
“That’s not true. Sandy?—”
She didn’t look surprised, though. More like this was news that confirmed something she already believed. She sent me a disheartened look that might as well have been a kick in the stomach.
Angry frustration gripped me. I was hurt that she immediately believed the worst, but guilty because Shane’s accusation wasn’t completely wrong.
The doors started to close and I said, “We’ll talk later, when you’ve cooled down.” Knocking each other around wasn’t going to solve anything.
“Go fuck yourself.” Shane started down the hall.
“We’re this way, love,” I heard Sandy say.
If she looked back at me, I didn’t see it. The doors sealed and I leaned against the wall as the floor dropped. I was sick with myself for letting things fall apart so badly. I tried to push the button for Ashley’s floor, but the elevator finished its descent to the lobby.
Now I couldn’t get back to the vista level without a card keyed for it. I didn’t even have my own room key.
Brilliant. Just fucking brilliant.
I crossed to the lobby telephone, but Ash didn’t pick up. I left a message that I’d be in the take away shop in the lobby, then sat there eating a breakfast bagel I charged to my room.
What had even just happened? How had things turned inside out so quickly?
Walking into the suite to see Shane there, naked, had been a punch in the gut. Not one of guilt, though. A green-hazed possessiveness had knocked me off balance. Shane and I could take the piss and get competitive with one another, but we were always on the same side. Suddenly, he’d been a rival. A threat.
Shane had sensed it right away. He’d made jokes, had given us the benefit of the doubt by asking if we’d been to the pool, but suspicion had hung in the air like a whiff of smoke. Shane and Ash didn’t know each other down to the last eyelid twitch, but Shane and I did. We had both had our fur up from the second we’d laid eyes on one another.
Refusing to leave when he asked me to had betrayed things further. I had been hanging on her every word, listening for the revelation I dreaded—but maybe wanted?
The acknowledgement of us hadn’t come from her lips, though. That had stung, but maybe she’d been scared to say it.
The way she’d grown so upset as she shot down Shane’s attempt to make up had tied my guts into knots. The only other time I’d seen her get worked up like that had been the hairclip incident, when she’d thought I was picking on her. How had I thought that was harmless and cute? The consequences of pushing back scared her. I saw that now and I’d been compelled to stick around and let her know she was safe. She wasn’t alone. I would always have her back.
My feelings must have been painted ten-feet tall across my face, ’cause Shane had seen ’em and read the situation without any effort.
Twenty minutes later, I remembered that she was supposed to get a pedicure. I ate the fruit cup with yoghurt I’d ordered for her and debated trying to find her at the spa, but I wasn’t up for post-analysis in front of her sister and Izzy, though. Shane’s and Sandy’s contempt were quite enough for the moment, thanks.
The front desk refused to give me access to Ash’s room, even though I assured them I only wanted to retrieve the phone I’d left there. I managed to talk them into a spare card for my own room, at least.
The blankets on the bed were still tousled. I made a half-hearted effort to straighten them, but it didn’t help sort out the disarray in my head. An hour ago, I’d been trying to think how I could possibly go back to Oz and keep this from Shane and carry on as normal.
So much for that. My whole life was unraveling and I wasn’t even sure of Ashley’s motives. Why had she fallen into this bed with me?
What did I want her to reason to be? I’d been the one who was adamant we maintain our friendship, but we’d given into lust and I hadn’t had time to come to terms with that. I didn’t know what I wanted to happen.
Did I want her to share my life? Because, after the cluster-fuck I’d just created, she was justified in asking, ‘What life?’
Fuck. What the hell was I going to do?