Chapter 7 #2
“About everything,” he bit off, looked away, took his own sip of beer, and I was just then realizing he was ticked.
“What’s going on, Brady?” I demanded.
He turned back to me. “He went in alone.”
He was talking about when Knox got shot.
“I know, that was messed up,” I agreed.
I had more to say, but I didn’t finish that either.
“Most of the guys didn’t even know he had that situation happening in his family.”
That totally tracked when it came to Knox.
Then again, it would. It probably wasn’t fun sharing your father and brothers were drug smugglers/warehousers/distributors, and your sister was hooked up with a man who had ambitions to be a criminal kingpin.
“You can understand why,” I said quietly.
“Sure,” Brady returned curtly. “If he’s going to live his life with them excised from it. His history is his own. It’s when he puts his ass on the line for whatever it is he was doing last Thursday night that’s the problem.”
I could see his frustration.
I also could see Knox would be dealing with even more of the stuff I’d been dealing with, namely not confiding important life stuff to friends, only for them to find out and feel betrayed you didn’t trust them with that important life stuff.
Even if it was understandable that you didn’t.
“I’ve already given him shit about this,” I told him.
“And so has everyone else,” Brady told me.
“Okay. Then I don’t understand how this tracks with us pretending we kinda/sorta are into each other,” I remarked.
“He got in my shit about you.”
Whoa.
This was news.
“What?” This question came out on a gasp.
“A while ago. We’ve been having words on and off because I’ve been making it plain I wasn’t big on the shit he was pulling, even before he got with Cheyenne. But when Gabe and Willow were connecting, he cornered me in the workout room at the office and got up in my shit.”
“What’d he say?”
“That me making a play for you was horseshit. That he knew our game, and it was totally uncool.”
Admittedly, Knox was right. It was foolhardy and smacked of desperation (that last from me, which I was belatedly understanding was not a good look).
“I can’t say I disagree with him,” I said carefully.
Brady had no reply.
“What’d you say to him?” I asked.
“I told him he’d know fucked-up, uncool plays since Cheyenne was a rebound, she was not the woman to bring into our crew because he was eventually going to get shot of her, but he did it so he could shove her in your face. And if he can dish it out, he needed to man the fuck up and take it.”
Oh boy.
Those were fightin’ words for sure.
“Bet that didn’t go over too good,” I muttered.
“I thought he was gonna take a swing at me.”
I flinched.
“Unless it’s company business, he hasn’t spoken to me since.”
Crap.
That was really bad, and something else to jot down on our list to talk about.
“I’m sorry, Brady.”
“I’m not. If he gets his head out of his ass, he’ll understand why he’s being such a goddamn baby about you.”
I hoped he didn’t say that “goddamn baby” part to Knox. Though I figured he didn’t because that surely would have made fists fly.
“We’re over in a way we’ll never be past that, my man,” I told him something I’d already shared. “At first, when you suggested we do our thing, I don’t know.” I shook my head. “I wasn’t in my right mind. I was hurting about Cheyenne. I—”
“You were hurting because he shoved her in your face.”
Boy, Brady had a thing about that for sure. Maybe even a bigger thing than me.
But he wasn’t done.
“She doesn’t fit. Not him. Not our crew.
And he knew it. So not only was he rubbing your nose in his whole ‘I can get another chick just like that’ play,”—he snapped his fingers on these words, and I fought flinching again, because yeah…
that was why it hurt because he could get another chick just like that—“he was messing with Cheyenne’s head too. Also uncool.”
If she was stalking me/Knox, then…agreed. It was definitely going to be uncool.
“Are you sure that’s where he was at?”
I asked the question, but I’d heard Knox tell her off over the phone. They didn’t actually last very long, though it was longer than a few weeks (huh).
And now she was maybe/probably stalking me.
Shit.
“You won’t tell me why you two ended it,” Brady noted. “But I’m gonna ask again, why did you end it?”
“That’s between me and Knox.”
“Loon, he asked his ex-girlfriend to send you into his hospital room,” Brady pointed out. “You were the first person he asked for, and as far as I know, the only one.”
My heart skipped, my skin warmed, and I ignored both.
Ulk.
“And Lan tells me you’re nursemaiding him,” he continued.
Ulk times two.
“And you two acted like a couple while you were doing it,” he finished.
Ulk times a thousand.
His voice lowered when he said, “I thought you wanted him.”
“We’re not meant to be.”
“I don’t get that.”
“And I don’t get what still pretending to flirt and be into each other would accomplish,” I replied. “Especially when…Gemma…” I let that hang.
He didn’t address Gemma.
He said, “Because it’s working.”
This time, my heart jumped and my eyes stared.
Working?
What was working?
“A man who is not still into a woman does not get up in his bud’s face about flirting with her, especially when he knows we’re just fucking around, though, not literally,” he stated. “If he can get anyone he wants, what does he give a shit about me going after what I want?”
“He and I did have a thing, Brady, and it was intense.”
“And it was over, so he’s got no call to harass me if he let you slip through his fingers. We didn’t start that shit up the day after you two split. It was months later.”
This was true.
“He gave me an ultimatum, me or the Angels,” I announced.
It was Brady’s turn to stare.
“And he gave me about five minutes to decide,” I went on. “No thinking on it. No discussion. ‘If you want me, you’ll stop doing that shit,’ were almost his exact words.”
Actually, his exact words were: If you want me, if you want this, us, a future together, you’ll stop doing that shit. Not a single next mission. Walk away from it, Luna, right now. If you don’t, then walk out that door.
“What the fuck?” Brady asked into my unhappy reverie.
“I shouldn’t have told you,” I said quickly. “And you should know, I get it. It was after that homeless abduction case. You guys had to go in…again…and clean up the mess. I mean, why aren’t you going after Gemma? Are you hesitating because she’s an Angel?”
“This isn’t about Gemma,” he said shortly.
And boy, the dude could get short when Gemma was brought up.
“Brady—”
“And that shit with Knox was not about the Angels.”
I felt my throat get tight.
“Yeah, it’s not news to you that we all think you women have a screw loose,” Brady said (I couldn’t counter that, as mentioned, we were nutso broads doing vigilante shit).
“But we also know there are reasons you do what you do. And you don’t pull stupid shit.
Your moves are considered. You know your strengths.
You know your limits. You’ve been easing into the game and doing it smart.
And you know when it’s too hot and you need to back away and find someone else to finish the job. ”
Aw, that was all sweet.
The server came with our food.
I immediately tucked in because…Nashville hot chicken.
I was on bite number two before I noticed Brady wasn’t eating (he’d picked the French dip burger so he should be all over it).
“We need to be just Brady and Luna,” I said after I swallowed.
“Because I need to be just Knox and Luna, friends. Sure, friends with a history, but friends. I care about him, Brady. I care about you. It’s upsetting in the extreme you aren’t talking to each other because of me.
And I don’t even know what I was thinking, because I’m not into games. ”
For a second, he didn’t say anything. He just held my eyes.
And then, very quietly, he said, “This isn’t a game, honey. This is very serious, and if you don’t realize that either, then shit is gonna get a lot worse before it gets better.”
I didn’t like that at all.
“What does that mean?” I asked.
“That means I guess I’m sidelined, and I’m gonna have to watch it unfold like everyone else.”
“We’re all just friends,” I asserted.
“You’re right,” he said, finally picking up his burger. “We are.”
“Then what’s with your new enigma gig?” I demanded.
“You want it straight?” he asked.
“Always,” I retorted.
He then gave it to me straight.
“You and my boy are in love. And when shit that is not supposed to come between you comes between you because one of you is fucked in the head, and the other hasn’t figured it out yet, things, like they are right now, get messy.”
Although I did realize I needed to figure things out, I had to admit, everyone telling me I needed to figure it out was beginning to get on my nerves.
“I can’t say I don’t feel deeply for him, Brady. And I know he feels the same for me. But that was then, and after screwing up, both of us, we’re finding our way to what will be now. Something that’s healthier for both of us and a lot of people we care about.”
At least that was what I hoped we were doing.
“If you say so.”
Now he was ticking me off.
I didn’t feel like being ticked off.
I felt like eating my sandwich, going home and deciding whether I was going to let it go and allow Cheyenne to burn it out, or go over to Raye’s and tell her that I had a feeling Cheyenne was following me, then create a strategy around what to do about it.
So I moved to put a line under it.
“You’re right, I’m in love with him.”
Brady’s head cocked sharply to the side.
And I remembered what Jessie said earlier in the day.
“He showed me that, gave me that, then he took it away. No discussion. No going to our corners and cooling off. One second, we spent every minute with each other when we didn’t have to be doing something else.
The next, he told me who I had to be for him, or that I needed to walk out his door.
I’m me. I can’t be anything other than me, even if I love a pretty awesome guy.
If he wants me to be other, I just can’t do it.
More, he shouldn’t ask me to. And if he can’t discuss important issues with me, I can’t do that either.
I walked, Brady, and he didn’t back down.
He didn’t rethink what he’d said and come to me to discuss it.
He didn’t call. He didn’t text. I walked, but it was Knox who let me go. ”
I took a deep breath because this was all kinds of no fun to relive, and kept at him.
“It hurt enough the first time, I couldn’t go through it again. And now, through that hurt, I’ve done stupid shit that’s getting in the way of your relationship with him, not to mention Gemma.”
I let that hang, in case he wanted to slide something in there.
He didn’t.
Per usual.
“But he and I did eventually talk,” I reminded him. “He told me he wanted me in his life. He wanted me to be his friend. He wanted us to figure that out. I agreed, then I blew it. Now, he’s been shot and I have to instigate damage control. For me, and it appears, for the two of you.”
“You let me handle my shit with Knox,” Brady ordered.
“Your call, but are you hearing me?”
He seemed torn, like he wanted to say something, and when he spoke, what he said wasn’t what he wanted to say.
“I’m hearing you, Loon.”
I gave him a small smile. “I’ll miss flirting with you. You’ve kept my skills sharp.”
He shook his head, a small smile on his mouth too, and he reached for a truffle fry.
“We’re gonna get through this,” I told him.
He gave me a penetrating stare.
And then he said, “I fucking hope so.”
“I’m gonna make it so.”
Another penetrating stare, before an ominous whispered repeat of, “I hope so, babe.”
I grinned hugely (and fakely at him).
He stared at that too.
Then shook his head and kept eating.