Chapter 17
Garrett
Everything was going to hell.
“How do I know Katie?” Rhys said. “I told you about the hot girl with the smoothie at the gym.”
“Oh god…” I watched Katie wince, her head going to her hands.
“How the hell do you know her?” he snapped at Rhett.
“Katie was with Dave.” Rhett said that like this was something we should all have known, but that couldn’t have been further from the truth. “She…” He blinked, staring wide eyed at the girl, but she didn’t see the pain there. “She’s the girl I’ve been crushing on all this time.”
“That was Katie.” I shook my head. “Your Katie?—”
“Not his Katie,” Rhys growled. “You stood around with your thumb up your arse while that dickhead you worked with treated her like shit.” He turned to face us. “Babe, I would never–”
“Jesus, Rhys—” I started to say, the discomfort coming off the woman in question in waves.
“So how do you know her?”
Both of the men I called best friends stared me down, suddenly united.
“Well, I haven’t been pining after her or getting splattered with smoothies.” Katie wouldn’t even look at us right now. That meant I needed to shut the fuck up, but I ignored that impulse. “But she’s the hot girl that talked me into adopting a dog, not a cat. Katie…”
I had talked people off ledges before and I could do that again, but as I reached across the table, she jerked to her feet. For a second, I thought she was going to run out the door screaming, but instead she poured a glass of wine, filling it right to the brim, then shaking her head and drinking straight from the bottle. I watched her swallow mouthful after mouthful of wine until she was forced to catch a breath.
“Well, it looks like you all have a lot to talk about,” she said finally, then nodded to me. “I’ll approve your application?—”
“Katie—”
“How the freaking hell did we end up here again?”
Jesus Christ, Rhett could be blunt sometimes. He just opened his damn mouth and the words came spilling out. The change in Katie was immediate. Rather than spooked, her whole body went perfectly still.
“What do you mean, again?”
Tread fucking carefully, that was the message I got. There was no hiding now. She stared each one of us down, waiting for an answer. Of course, that was the moment I smelled the acrid stink of burning cheese.
“Shit, the lasagna!” I was up and out of my seat, wrenching the oven door open and pulling out a dish of pasta that had now burned to a deep brown.
“Don’t worry about the damn food,” Rhys snapped, stepping forward. “Look, Katie?—”
“Is this some kind of kink for you?” I heard the pain in her voice and that distracted me from the mess in the pan far more effectively than anything my housemates had to say. “Do you guys like, pick up some girl and what…” Her brow creased. “Share her between you like a slab of beer?”
These were the words of someone who’d been really hurt and feared a repeat performance. I let out a shuddering breath, setting the tea towel down.
“Look, can we talk about this?” I asked. “Calmly, seriously. I’ll dish up the food?—”
“The food doesn’t matter.” Rhett looked so damn pale right now. His hands clenched into fists, something that had Katie taking a step backwards. I was moving then, placing myself between her and my friend, before he finished what he had to say. “You think this is some kind of weird thing we have going?” I didn’t move an inch as he drew closer, but I felt Katie peer out from behind me. “It wasn’t like that at all.”
“Maybe Garrett has it right.” Rhys shook his head as he looked at me, then Katie. “Freaking Tauruses. Everything is better with food.”
“This has nothing to do with—” I started to say.
“Can you sit down with us, have a meal, and promise not to run out of here?” he asked Katie in a small voice. “We’ll answer every damn question you’ve got.”
“Katie?” I turned around to find a harried looking woman who was all too pale, except for the bright red spots in her cheeks. Her eyes flicked from one to the other of us as I stepped closer. “You want out? I’ll escort you to your car.”
She was going to say yes. My heart ached with every beat as I watched her swallow hard, then nod slowly. I had this all planned out in my head. I’d wow her with my cooking, have my trusty wingmen back me up, make me look good to the woman I wanted to impress, and instead she was backed up against the kitchen cupboard like a wild animal.
“Dinner…” she croaked out, nodding at the lasagna. “Answers and dinner, in that order.”
I could do that. A drawer was opened and a spatula was retrieved. I sliced up the pasta and was dishing it up in seconds. A side salad was added to each plate, a few shavings of parmesan added to each plate, along with a drizzle of balsamic vinegar over the salad. I had all four plates balanced on my arm and then carried them over to the table. This had to be what a UN negotiation between hostile countries was like. Everyone stared at each other, not the food. Once I was sitting down, I placed my hands together, elbows on the table, and then let out a long sigh.
“The last girl I dated…” I didn’t like to think about Natasha, but I couldn't help but see her face right now. “Was the same one we all dated.” A wary look came my way. “Everyone knew. We were up front about it.”
“Met on a polyam dating site,” Rhys mumbled.
“She wasn’t.” Rhett hadn’t softened for a second. Instead, his eyes bore into Katie’s, demanding her attention. “Nat…” He shook his head. “Natasha… It said on our profile that we were looking for something serious. We had been dating for a couple of months?—”
“When we met her for dinner to see if she wanted to be exclusive with us.” Rhys picked up a fork, but it was just to move some lettuce around his plate. “Felt like a foregone conclusion.”
“There was no indication that Natasha wanted something different to what we wanted.” God, this fucking hurt. It was like digging up old corpses, the stink of them filling the room, forcing us to keep our breaths shallow. “It was supposed to be a celebration.”
Suddenly, I understood Rhys’ demand that I ignore the food. The cheese, the meat sauce I’d laboured over, it felt like a congealing mess, disgusting to look at.
“We wanted to commit to her, wholly and solely.” Rhett studied Katie closely, and I knew why. He was trying to get a read on her reaction before she got a chance to say a thing. Anticipating the blow before it came. “And she…?”
I knew Natasha’s rejection hit him hard. It had for all of us, but right now I was beginning to think it was hardest for him.
“She didn’t want us like that.” Rhys pushed his plate away. “She thought it was fun and hot having the three of us panting after her, but that was it. Turns out she wasn’t looking for anything serious. Nothing wrong with that. Just would’ve been nice to know before we…”
Shut up , I thought furiously. Just shut the fuck up. We were vomiting up our past all over the table I’d worked hard to set, so I wasn’t surprised when Katie pushed her chair backwards.
“I know I said I’d stay for dinner, but…” Her throat bobbed. “I’m really not hungry.”
“I can put some pasta in a takeaway container for you.” It was a relief to stand up, retreat into the kitchen. “You can take it?—”
“I’ll approve your application for Bronson.” A hand came to rest on my arm and that had me standing there, perfectly still. “I can confidently say that each one of you will be a great fit, if you still want him?”
“Katie.” I turned to face her, my eyes taking in the fall of her hair, the ten different shades of brown and gold in her eyes. “Of course, we do. I didn’t offer to adopt him because I wanted to…” Get in your pants, that went unspoken. “He’s an amazing dog and we want to give him a good home.”
“OK, I’ll let the shelter know. It was nice…”
Katie turned to face the rest of the room, but she didn’t finish her sentence, rushing out of the house, leaving the three of us to stare after her. I flinched when I heard the front door slam shut. Fuck, I’d organised to have the day off work, cooking, planning all day for this dinner, and for what? I picked up the now cooled lasagna tray and started scraping it into the mulch bin, knowing none of us were going to be able to eat it.
“Gym,” Rhys announced, collecting his plates and Katie’s. Rhett clung to his.
“We’re not—” I said.
“We go to the gym and blow off some steam, lift heavy until our backs ache and our heads are empty.” He stared at the two of us, a challenge clear in his eyes. “Then when we’ve burned all that energy off, we work out how the fuck we’re gonna get Katie to see us as three guys she wants to date.”