Chapter 14
FOURTEEN
THREE JOBS
The hammering on the door the next morning made the three beings in my bed jump.
Though, only two reacted instantaneously, and one of those two was not me.
Jacques jumped off the bed and headed toward the front door, barking.
Knox slid out from under me.
I pushed up to my elbow in time to see him dragging on his jeans.
“It’s probably the Angels,” I guessed.
“Yeah,” he grunted supremely unhappily, and this surprised me so much, it lifted some of the fog of my sleepiness, and I focused more fully on him.
Perhaps it was because I wasn’t quite awake, along with the fact I was still reeling from all the drama, both good and bad (but especially good) from the last several days, but I couldn’t get a lock on why he seemed unhappy.
Sure, it wasn’t cool my chicks were hammering on the door like that first thing in the morning on a Saturday.
That said, they were my chicks, and last night was dramatic. So of course, they’d give me time to deal with my shit before that time was up (apparently, that time being now), and they came to check on me.
But I’d just been woken up by the pounding too, and I felt in the mood to cue up Katrina and The Waves “Walking on Sunshine” and dance around my apartment like Jack Black did in that record store in the movie High Fidelity (excluding the gross sex stuff that was still hilarious in the movie, but I would not be doing).
All of these thoughts took so much time, Jacques had come back to bark his what’s taking so long? Knox had his jeans buttoned and was prowling down my hall with a face full of thunder, Jacques, his stubby nose up in the air, chasing after him.
At this juncture, I realized my mistake at not also moving instantaneously.
Therefore, belatedly, I did that.
I fumbled around to find my undies, and when I located them, hastily pulled them up. I gave up digging out actual clothes and grabbed Knox’s shirt, shrugged it on and was racing down the short hall buttoning it, in time to see my second surprise of the morning.
Instead of barring the door, Knox had stepped aside, his hand on the door, his posture an invitation for the Angels to file in and interrupt our reunion.
Which they were doing.
I had six pairs of huge eyes on me in Knox’s partially buttoned shirt (and more than likely, wild sex hair) as I cleared the galley kitchen to step foot in the living room.
There, I stopped.
The only pair of eyes that weren’t on me were Joey’s, and they were affixed to Knox’s awesome, wide, defined, perfectly furred chest that was so magnificent, even his arm in a sling obscuring part of it did not lessen its impact.
“Uh, yeah, last night was a lot,” I started it. “But as you can see, Knox and I worked it out.”
Joey turned to me.
“I’m ruined for all other men,” she declared. “And I’m not even seeing the whole enchilada.”
“You guys have worked things out?” Raye asked.
I looked down at the shirt on my body.
I then looked at Knox to see he hadn’t done up all the buttons on his jeans.
The top two were still loose, and he’d gone commando, so there was an eyeful there as well, and it was a happy eyeful.
As such, I understood even more than I already did what Joey was saying, because I’d seen the whole enchilada.
Knox became aware of this situation and started to rectify it by finishing the buttons on his fly one handed after he closed the door and made his way to me.
Alas, he did this talking.
His voice was a pit of supremely agitated gravel when he confirmed, “Yeah, we worked things out. But it’s good you’re all here ’cause you got shit to work out with my woman too.”
Even though him going public right away with his “my woman” announcement made me feel all melty…
Oh boy.
“Knox—” I tried.
He positioned so his good side was at mine, and he used his arm to slide along my shoulders and haul me forcibly into his frame.
When he did this, all the Angels’ eyes got wide, this time, including Joey’s.
Those eyes also got happy.
But Knox kept speaking.
To my friends.
“When shit’s goin’ down, you do not leave her swinging.”
Okay, this was true, but it wasn’t his place to point that out.
I turned into him, put my hand to his abs, and pressed to his side. “Babe—”
That was as far as I got.
“That shit is not right, and you know it,” Knox stated a truth directly to the Angels. One—I loved him to bits he was angry on my behalf—but as noted, it wasn’t his to state. “I never wanna sit my ass anywhere like I did last night and see you desert her like you deserted her last night.”
“Honey, that was my idea,” I said quickly, and his irate gaze came down to me. “I need space when I’m holding a grudge. I asked for it. They were just doing what I asked.”
“Still. Not. Okay,” he gritted.
He was right, and wrong.
And fun fact I’d just learned?
He was all kinds of cute when he got protective.
“You can give someone space in a way they still know you have their back,” Knox continued. “And last night was not that.”
Regrettably, he was right.
I bit the side of my lip.
As he watched me do this, effectively conceding the point at the same time sharing they’d hurt me (even if I felt it important to reiterate, I asked them to stay distant), the banked hazel fire in his eyes roused and the green came out in stark relief.
That was something new too.
Or maybe, I’d just not been close enough to him when he was uber pissed to notice it.
For some reason, this made him turn back to the Angels and announce, “The reason we ended was that I gave her an ultimatum. Quit the Angels and be with me. Or stick with her girls and lose me.”
There were outraged gasps throughout the group.
“She chose you,” Knox stated.
A myriad of reactions came after that, but all of them centered around surprise and understanding with lots and lots of love and sisterhood.
Knox still wasn’t done.
“I’m over that shit now. But as you can see, the asshole in that situation was me. She kept her mouth shut to protect me. And you left her swinging.”
They were back to looking abashed.
“He’s right,” Jessie said, her attention on me. “You asked for space, but we could have sent some drinks to your table or just stopped by to say a quick hi.”
“It wasn’t cool, and it felt gross,” Harlow put in.
“That’s partially our fault that our drama leaked out all over everywhere,” I said.
Knox grunted his dissent to my declaration but fortunately said no actual words.
“But everything is okay with you two now?” Willow asked.
“Yeah,” I answered. “We had a big come to Jesus and, well…” I smiled so large, it hurt my face. “It’s all good now.”
All the Angels were smiling too, with Harlow adding a silent clap at her chest and rolling up and down on her toes.
“Except Cheyenne getting up in our shit,” Knox rained on our parade.
I frowned up at him.
He ignored my frown and looked to the Angels. “And you women wading into my family’s business.”
“We’re gonna stop doing that,” Gemma piped up. “Because we haven’t had a chance to talk to Luna about it yet, and because the Russian mob warned Raye and Luna off.”
The arm around my shoulders contracted exponentially and Knox dipped his chin to look down at me again.
His eyes were very green.
EEP!
“The boys didn’t tell you?” I asked.
That green got greener before he asked back, “They knew?”
I decided to shut up.
“I think, personally, we should let the boys deal with the Chamber family situation,” Shanti said while strolling toward Knox and me and skirting us when she got there, doing this in order to go to my kitchen. “And we should take up the Cheyenne situation.”
“Totally,” Willow agreed.
“I’m all for that,” Joey added.
“I’ll be talking to Cheyenne,” Knox declared.
“You will?” I asked.
Everything about him softened, even his hold on me, though that didn’t loosen. I had no idea how he pulled it off, but he did. I also liked it.
His voice gentled too when he said, “I fucked her over, honey. I need to come clean about that. She deserves it. And maybe after I do, she’ll lay off.”
Although Cheyenne was not my favorite person for reasons I didn’t need to enumerate, and I knew that would be seriously awkward for him, he did need to do that.
“Allow me to explain how that’s gonna go down,” Shanti began from where she was at my Nespresso machine, and she’d taken down every coffee mug I owned.
Apparently, instead of me walking on sunshine, but doing it giving my guy a morning BJ, we were all gonna have coffee.
Although I would have picked door number one (blowjob) the morning after our blessed reunion, coffee with my girls and getting back to our regular programming wasn’t a consolation prize.
Since his dick wasn’t going anywhere (hallelujah!), I could go down on my guy after they left.
Shanti had her finger through the handle of a mug, and she used it to indicate the fullness of Knox.
“You are…you,” she continued. “You’re gorgeous. You’ve got a shit-hot, alpha-male, testosterone-fueled job that pays big bucks. You’re a catch no woman wants to throw back. You will sit down and have that convo with her, and she will take it one of two ways.”
She put the mug under the Nespresso spout and hit the button on top, then returned to Knox.
“First, she’s going to sense your guilt and think she can use it to manipulate you into coming back to her.
Or she’s going to miss your whole message, note only that you sought her out to spend time with her, not why you did it, just that you did.
And she’s going to twist that into thinking there’s something still there between the two of you.
The result of either of these will be Cheyenne continuing to stalk one, the other, or both of you and backing that up by doing increasingly deranged things. ”
IMO, Shanti was, as ever, correct.
“This is why you need to send in the Angels,” Joey stated.
Considering the fact I worried Shanti was right, I was curious.
Thus, I asked Joey, “What are we gonna do?”
Joey shrugged. “No clue. But we’ll come up with something.”