39. Cairo
THIRTY-NINE
cairo
Vivian’s arm possessively links to mine as she chats aimlessly with her friends. The not so funny part of tonight was that she wasn’t invited to this surprise shindig. I know Torin and Reeve didn’t bother passing the details over to her.
So, how she’s here…
I got a few suspicions, but none have been confirmed because we haven’t had a moment alone and I’m grateful for that.
What I’m not so appreciative of is Bay Astor walking through my house with Reeve at her side. My attention immediately soaks in her dark hair flowing freely down her back to the black crop top and matching ripped jeans that hug her hips and perfect ass.
Her hand lands on Reeve’s bicep with a smile as he leans in to whisper something in her ear, standing there a little too long for it to be shoved away as friendly.
No, those two like each other.
Reeve does, I know that for a fucking fact, and if Bay doesn’t return the feeling, she sure as hell does a good job of acting like it.
Unlike Vivian, her movements aren’t calculated and basic. Bay’s laugh looks genuine, even though I can’t hear it over the music sounding through the kitchen. She doesn’t stand super close to Reeve when they’re done talking, giving him space while she drinks from a red Solo cup and he continues to speak.
But you can’t help but notice the way she watches him with interest with every word that comes out of his mouth.
I mean, Reeve isn’t that fucking interesting, fuck.
However, Bay’s blues look at him like he’s the only dude in the room. I know what I said before. She needs a friend, someone to steer her away from the depths of Vivian’s cunt-filled attitude or Matteo’s drowning attempts, but I’m double-guessing all that shit now.
Especially when she’s sinking her claws deeper into my best friend.
“Cairo, what do you think?” Vivian yanks on my arm, but it’s a subtle, sweet warning to pay the fuck attention before she bitches at me about it later.
“About what?” I sigh as three of her equally blonde friends look at me with sheer interest at whatever the fuck my answer is.
“White horses,” my fiancée says. “You can come in on?—”
“No,” I deadpan. I wouldn’t be caught dead on a fucking horse for fun, or pure enjoyment.
“But it’d be so magical.”
White horses for fucking what?
I look down at Vivian, her brown eyes already locked in on me with natural excitement. “What are you talking about now?”
“Our wedding.”
Geezus motherfucking Christ.
“What wedding?” I press, watching her cheeks blanch in embarrassment before she lifts her chin and smiles at her friends.
“Stop teasing me,” she scolds lightly before digging her fingernails into my arm.
“The only joke is the fact that you’re not wearing an engagement ring.”
Vivian laughs, fake as fuck, explaining to her cronies that it’s being resized and that it’s the most beautiful thing in the world.
Meanwhile, I return my focus to the room, only to fall back on Bay and Reeve again. He’s taken her cup, looping his arm with hers.
And they’re coming this way.
I should steer Vivian away, but I’m so over this bitch I could scream like one with all the text messages, late-night phone calls, the dinners she wants me to attend with her family and the loads upon loads of bullshit that she believes I should entertain because of her delusional dreams of becoming husband and wife.
She thinks the Forsaken Crew is going to lob in money for her shopping and mansion that she’s claimed for us to have after our joined nuptials, but there’s no mansion, no kids, no happily ever after, no shit after this.
“Brother,” Reeve calls out, bringing Bay right into the snake’s nest but giving zero shits or fucks about it. “You look like you could use a drink.”
Vivian stiffens at my side, but I ignore it. “I could.”
“Let’s go get?—”
“We were talking about wedding plans,” Vivian cuts in, steering her hard focus to the other woman at hand. “This is import?—”
“Were you invited here?” Reeve cuts in with knitted brows. “I don’t remember you being on the guest list and, furthermore, this isn’t the time nor place. However, it is the time for Cairo to get fucked up on his birthday that doesn’t involve one of your primly picked dinners.”
“It was a nice dinner at a very nice restaurant,” Vivian counters sharply. “Only the best for my future husband.”
Reeve smiles at her, sinister and dry. “Damn, Viv…if that were true, you’re really gonna get upset with the bachelor party. Torin and I would have so much shit planned, it’d make a grown man blush.”
Vivian glowers at him. “Don’t you dare bring strippers.”
Reeve shakes his head. “Wouldn’t dream of it. I’d be bringin’ in some Forsaken Crew groupies. Let him get one last good fuck out of him before he’s celibate for however long it takes to get rid of you.”
I notice Bay’s fingers lace with my best friend’s, silently telling him to lay off before her blues cut over to mine.
I can’t help but glare at her for no reason at all other than I can’t do what Torin and Reeve are currently doing, which is touching her whenever they want.
It’s jealously, I know it is.
However, it doesn’t stop the cold hard facts of what I can and can’t do.
Someone has to be level-headed about what’s going on, and if she could still be a potential threat to us all. Emilio has seemed to give her space that she’s appreciating and she’s using it to spend time with the guys. And you know what they say, keep your friends close and your enemies closer…
“Let’s go, Cairo,” Vivian orders. “Your friend’s mouth is crude and disgusting.”
“He’s going to grab a drink with me,” Reeve counters without any argument. “You can fuck off here with your friends and pretend that he gives a shit about you like you’ve been doing for years.”
Vivian’s dark ebbs fall on Bay. “Why so you can get her involved?”
“She’s with me,” Reeve replies, even though he doesn’t need to. “She’s mine .”
My brow furrows when Reeve’s attention flicks to me, and it poses no question about what he just said.
He’s seeing Bay and that’s it.
“I’m not looking to get into your life,” Bay tries to reassure her. “I’m with him.”
And now that she’s confirmed it, my skin begins to irritably prick.
Vivian’s unamused expression falls down the length of Bay, because she considers her a whore and nothing else. Just because she shows off some of her body, Vivian judged her before she even spoke to her at Torin’s improv basketball game.
I glance down at my watch. He should be back from one of those any minute now. And he’s going to love the fact that Vivian showed up.
“I’m going to go wait—” Reeve clenches onto Bay’s hand, grounding her to her spot when she’s about to give us all some space.
And there it is.
If it wasn’t clear way before this, Reeve is going to include her, and I still don’t like it.
“C’mon, Cai,” Reeve muses, sending Vivian a challenging smirk. “We’re gonna go get drunk and make some bad decisions.”
His hand falls on my shoulder as he pushes me away and guides us through the kitchen and back to our game room with a pool table and bar overlooking the swimming pool in the back.
A game of pool is already going on with a few other guys from the crew, wads of money in the middle of the table. Reeve points to one dude behind the bar to grab me the usual.
A few girls are dancing in the corner, a card game to the opposite side and Reeve’s dumb-ass comment awaiting me.
“You need to stop hangin’ out with her,” Reeve chides lightly. “You do know how to say no, right?”
“It’s pointless,” I deadpan.
“Sounds like you could use more than a drink,” Bay adds in as we stop at the bar, instantly annoying me that she thinks she can just put in her piece.
“Are you offering yourself to me like you have my best friends?”
Bay perks a brow at me, and Reeve sends an adjoining scowl.
“Watch it,” he mutters, sliding the glass of liquor that promptly shows up in front of him my way. “She’d fuck you stupid with the side pussy you’ve been dealing with.”
It’s my turn to turn up a brow because there’s no way magic falls out of Bay Astor’s cunt and makes the world a better place. “I highly doubt it.”
“Don’t knock it until you try it.” Reeve’s already looking over at her with, I’m sure, hearts in his eyes, because she’s smiling up at him like he’s insane. “You ready for some fun, baby?”
“Always.”
I roll my eyes when Reeve’s focus lands back on me. “Truth or dare, fucker?”
“What are we, sixteen?”
“Might as well be.”
Fuck me.
“Dare.”
Reeve’s lip curl but Bay beats him to it. “I dare you to stop acting like a moral prick who’s had a stick up his ass since he was born. It’s your birthday. If you can’t let loose on one day of your life, not sure how you’re gonna make it without stroking yourself out about everyone else’s problems.”
“You could do me a favor and become less of one by getting fucked somewhere.”
Bay glances at Reeve. “You heard the man.”
He smiles at her, leaning to press a sinful kiss to her lips before sliding his tongue in between them.
They go at it for a few seconds, clearly not giving a fuck that I’m in attendance before Reeve reluctantly pulls away. “Little bit long, baby. I need to get at least one drink in him.” She nods, and then begins to pivot, when Reeve reaches for her. “Where you going?”
“I’ll be back.” She winks, then takes off while Reeve watches her every step of the way until he can’t any more.
“Do you really think this is wise?” I ask. “The more you get in with this chick, the more blinded you’re going to be.”
“I’m over that.” He waves a dismissive hand in the air. “You care enough for the both of us.”
“And you’re gonna get your heart broken.” He scoffs at me. “You think this is a game?”
“I’m not gonna walk around here with a stick up my ass like you have since we were fifteen. I’m also not going to let an opportunity go that pulls my interest. I like Bay. The woman is going to carry my children one day, and all will be right in the world.”
“And, what, Torin is gonna be alright with that?”
“Don’t care. His problem.”
Okay, this is where it’s a problem. Reeve is thinking with his dick, and Torin isn’t far behind.
“So, she takes precedence over him? You’re trading your brother in for a chick?”
“No,” he growls out, hazel eyes turning into slits on me. “I’m just not going to be hung up about it twenty-four-seven like you. Have some fun while you can, dude. You’re so high on your fucking pedestal that you could’ve already solved this problem with Vivian years ago.”
“She’s Muncy’s daughter.”
“And we’ve made more important people disappear with less hassle.” I don’t respond to that because I can’t argue with it. My morals and my father’s hold on not offing her have been weighing heavily for years. “You ready for next Sunday?”
I nod. Prepping all week for my fight with Matteo for the Titan seat isn’t something I’m particularly worried about at the moment. I got the shit in the bag, no matter what dumbass crap he’s looking to play.
“I need you focused, brother.”
I look over at him. “I need you focused, brother. I know you like her…but we can’t afford the slip-up, got it?”
He hesitates, but finally nods in agreement. Everything we’ve worked for will crumble if she’s has an ulterior motive at play.
A few minutes later and sips of my drink, Bay strides back in before a blood-curdling scream erupts from the other room.
My brows clash together as Bay plucks my drink out of my hand and downs the contents like she’s been doing it forever. “What the fuck was that?”
Her blues don’t come to me but Reeve, her new little partner in crime. Together, they’re gonna give me a fucking headache, I can feel it now. “Your future wifey’s car is leaking something.”
“What?”
Her lips curl into a beautiful and wicked smile. “Water.”
“The fuck did you do?” I step up on her, not sure why I’m so fucking pissed that she got involved. It’s probably because I don’t want to hear Vivian’s bitching for the rest of the night.
Or the fact that I don’t want her under anyone’s radar for that matter.
“I didn’t do it,” she says innocently. “I just got to witness it.”
“Then who?—”
“Torin.”