Chapter 2 Quinn #2
“No, I was but I, eh, broke it off.” Mia rubbed her hands over her jeans. “I mean, it wasn’t much, just a few hookups, nothing serious.”
“Why’d you break it off?” I asked.
“We all want to know that,” Ava spoke up. “And just as a heads-up, did I tell you that he’s the lead singer of the band?”
She had, plus I already knew, but I played dumb anyway. “Oh. Alex?”
Mia blushed, and Ava grinned at her but answered me, “Oh yeah, the night you were evil to me at the party, he said you were nice.”
“Evil?” Mia questioned.
Awkward. “I think evil may be a stretch,” I said quietly.
“You told me Jett was going to ruin me and you would enjoy watching.” Ava laughed good-naturedly, and I realized she wasn’t being a bitch, she was genuinely laughing at the memory.
“He has ruined you though, hasn’t he?” I teased her slightly. “And I’m pretty sure he’s ruined you for any other.”
Ava lost her smile and looked serious for a moment. “Yeah, probably.” She sighed loudly before she grinned again. “Dick.”
“So, things are good?” I asked her. It probably was uber personal and in some form of overstepping, but he was my best friend, and she was his first proper girlfriend. I had the right to be protective.
“Yes.” Ava’s beam would have lit the darkest corner of the night. “He’s . . . wonderful.”
I caught Mia’s eye roll, but I also saw her genuine happiness for her friend. “You know she hated him all through high school, and now she’s all Lil’ Miss Saint.”
“He is a colossal dickhead,” Ava protested with a playful swipe at her friend. “But he’s my dickhead,” she said proudly as she looked at me shyly. “Sorry, is this weird for you?”
I blinked. “Um, no, why?”
“Well, you said he’s like your brother, doesn’t it freak you out?” Ava asked me as the cab reached Cardinal.
“Oh, no, trust me, there is nothing you can tell me about any of them that I don’t already know!” I gave a genuine laugh, and she laughed with me.
“So, you’re like the extended sister?” Mia asked me curiously.
“In a way.” I nodded.
“You have more willpower than me,” Mia said with a grin to Ava. “I would have climbed at least one of them like a monkey up a tree.”
I felt my face freeze my smile in place.
“You’ve never hooked up with any of them?” Mia asked me curiously.
“Ash is my ex,” I told her bluntly and took a perverse delight in how quickly she lost her playful smile. I saw her eyes flick to Ava, who didn’t look like this was news to her.
“I didn’t know that.” Mia’s hard stare was for her friend, who was avoiding eye contact.
“Why would you?” I gave a careless shrug. “Ex means in the past.”
“Yeah, um, sure.”
“That’s us here,” Ava broke the uneasy silence. She handed the cab driver a twenty, and then we were on the sidewalk outside a bar, all of us avoiding looking at one another.
“Is this an issue?” I asked them both. “I can easily go.”
“What?” Ava looked alarmed. “No! I want you to stay, this doesn’t have to be weird.”
“And it really isn’t weird,” Mia piped up. “He’s hot, he’s bound to have a hotter ex, and I can still look, right?” She looked at me with an almost dare in her eyes.
“Honey, you can touch for all I care.”
She didn’t look convinced, but there was fuck all I could do about that. “We going in?” I asked.
“Yeah, um, just to let you know, and avoid any other awkwardness . . . Mia wasn’t the only one who has a history with the band. It was friendly and nothing actually happened with Shane, but he and Alex, well, they kind of aren’t friendly to us anymore.”
“Then why are you here?” I asked.
“Wade’s my friend, and it’s his band,” Ava said easily as if telling me snow was white.
“Loyal,” I said with narrowed eyes to both of them. “You too?” I asked Mia.
“Heck yeah, Wade’s been our friend since the beginning of last year.”
“I like loyal.” I opened the door to the bar, and we went in. I hadn’t been in here before. There was an awful lot of wooden furnishings, and it looked more hunting cabin than bar. However, the atmosphere was light, and I could see it was clean. The Devils had taken me to worse places.
As we walked in further, I felt the tug of my sleeve, and glancing back, I looked at Ava in question. Mia had walked around us and was heading straight to a blonde who I recognized from social media as Wade’s girlfriend.
“You okay?” Ava asked me as she shifted from foot to foot nervously.
“Ava, your friend isn’t the first girl that’s liked Ash openly. The main difference is that at least we’re no longer together. When I was with him, that was different, but now we’re . . . friends.”
“That’s nice though,” Ava said to me, completely clueless.
“Yeah, it’s peachy.”
“I’m missing something?” Ava asked me with a tilt of her head.
“Jett’s told you nothing?”
“He said if I needed to know, you would tell me,” she confessed.
“He mentioned you and Ash used to be a couple, but he didn’t say anything else.
And honestly . . .” Ava hesitated as she looked past me.
“I forgot.” She shrugged. “Your relationships with each other are tight, I can see that. I also know I’m still on the outside, and that’s okay, because I’m there for Jett.
If I make friends with any of you, that’s a bonus. ”
“It’s refreshing, your honesty.”
“I don’t do subtle very well,” she said with a grimace.
“I didn’t bullshit earlier; I think you would be a good friend.
You take no bullshit, and I respect that.
” I watched as she tugged her sweater. “Mia’s a flirt.
She isn’t the easy girl people think she is.
I know she has a reputation for being a ‘love them and leave them’ type, but she doesn’t sleep with most of them. She just likes company.”
“I have no judgment of your friend; I know what gossips can be like. Her business isn’t mine and mine isn’t hers. Or yours for that matter. You and Jett are a couple — I respect that — but he is my best friend, and he will tell me things, and I can’t stop that . . . and I won’t.”
“He talks to you about me?”
Ava looked too delighted for me to keep a straight face. “Yes, he does,” I said as we resumed walking to her friends. “He’s happy.”
“Oh.” I watched her look at her feet as she tried to hide her wide, happy smile. “I think that just made me stupidly delirious,” she whispered to me.
I couldn’t help it — she was irresistible, and the pull to her genuine openness made me feel very protective of her.
“I’m glad, but now I need you to do me a favor,” I said to her quietly as the band stopped their preparations and was looking at us. “Lie for me when I tell them I know their music.”
Linking her arm through mine, Ava smiled at me as we reached them. “Quinn, I got you, girl.”
Alex smiled at me in welcome, and I was quickly introduced to the others. Mia caught my eye once and smiled at me, and throwing my usual caution to the wind, I returned the smile.
I had this.