Chapter 3
Three
Enzo
“Are you sure this was a good idea?” Asher asked as I stood in the kitchen, looking in the fridge for something to make for lunch.
“Yeah. Why wouldn’t it be?”
“Because we don’t know her that well, and more importantly, she doesn’t know us.”
“So? We’ll all get to know each other.”
“What if she doesn’t want to stay with us? What if she finds out what we do and decides this isn’t a good fit for her?”
I closed the fridge and turned to face him.
“She doesn’t have anywhere else to go. I’m not comfortable throwing her to the wind and hoping she can just figure it out.
She doesn’t need to know what we do. It’s not like it’s everyday conversation.
We’ll have to change how we do things for a little bit, but it’s not a big deal. I’m not worried about any of it.”
“I think you’re missing the most important part,” Asher said, pulling out a barstool and sitting at the island.
“What’s that?”
“You’re attracted to her.”
“So? She’s an attractive woman.”
“Yeah, one who just caught her boyfriend cheating on her. She’s going to be vulnerable, and you know what that means.”
“It won’t happen,” I assured him, already knowing where he was going with this.
It wasn’t uncommon for women to throw themselves at us, especially once they found out what we did for a living.
But Violet didn’t strike me as that kind of woman.
If anything, I would be more worried that she would freak out about what we did and try to high-tail it out of there.
While she was assertive and stood her ground with her idiot ex-boyfriend, something about her screamed good girl to me.
I could tell that she was in a vulnerable position, but the last thing I expected was for her to try to come on to either of us.
She didn’t strike me as the kind of woman who would be so bold sexually.
“You say that, but—”
“I said, it won’t happen,” I interrupted curtly, giving him a look that implied that this conversation was over.
He groaned heavily, but dropped it as I went back to the fridge to figure something out for lunch.
Twenty minutes later, I was finishing making club sandwiches when Violet came into the kitchen. Her hair was pulled into a loose pile on her head, exposing her long, slender neck.
“Lunch is ready,” I said, nodding to the table where Asher was sitting. “What would you like to drink?”
“Oh, you don’t have to go through all of this—” she started until I pinned her with a look as I set the sandwiches on the table. I tried to keep my expression firm, but soft, so I didn’t scare her off.
“We know that we don’t have to do anything.
We want to. What you’re going through is a lot, and believe it or not, we are really nice guys who like to help out.
It would be our pleasure to take care of you.
Our goal is to make sure you feel safe and comfortable while you focus on yourself and figure out your next step.
It’s okay to stop and take a moment for yourself, Violet.
Just like it’s okay to let others help you when they can,” I said carefully.
“I’m sorry,” she replied with a heavy breath. “I really do appreciate you guys letting me stay for a little bit until I figure things out. I guess I’m just kind of out of it right now. Today has really thrown me a curveball.”
She attempted to smile, but it didn’t meet her eyes as she pulled out the chair beside Asher and took a seat.
“Well, I guess it’s a good thing Asher and I both played baseball in high school, so we’re well-trained to handle curve balls,” I replied as I grabbed three bottles of water from the fridge and set them on the table.
“You both played baseball?” Her gaze shifted up, her gorgeous brown eyes locking on mine. They were the most beautiful shade of brown I’d ever seen, soft like honey with little gold flecks that you could only see if you looked closely.
“We did,” Asher agreed, forcing me to focus on something other than her. “Though I was better at it than Enzo.”
“Like hell you were,” I replied with a snort as I set a sandwich on my plate and waited for her to take one. Once she did, I took a bite and started eating.
“You guys grew up together?” she asked, taking a dainty bite before wiping the corners of her mouth and setting the sandwich on her plate.
“We’ve known each other since second grade. I was the cool kid, and he was the geek,” Asher said.
“I wasn’t a geek,” I corrected. “I just happened to excel at certain things that came in handy later in life.” Like learning how to hack and all of the secrets of the dark web.
She raised her eyebrows in question, but I just winked at her.
I wasn’t ready to reveal all of my secrets just yet.
A pretty blush flushed across her cheeks in an immediate response to the wink, and I took note of that.
While I wasn’t trying to break my promise to Asher that I wouldn’t allow anything to happen between us, I was a man who took pride in making women feel certain things.
Knowing what she liked and responded to would be a good thing to keep in my back pocket—just in case.
I had never been one to deny a woman pleasure, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to start with her.
“Have you guys always lived together?” she asked before taking another bite. I could see her slowly start to relax, which made me happy.
I couldn’t imagine how stressful all of this was for her.
I didn’t blame her for keeping her guard up, especially after finding out her boyfriend had been cheating on her.
I couldn’t deal with him the way I really wanted to, but the one thing that I could promise her was that we would always take care of her.
She could take the time to reset and focus on what she wanted out of life, while having a safe place to do so.
“We got an apartment right after college and then recently bought this duplex. We have shared interests, so it just made sense that we live together,” Asher answered, and I felt the urge to kick him because I knew exactly what kind of interests he was hinting at.
While he lectured me about her being vulnerable, he wasn’t pulling out any stops in controlling himself around her. This might be harder than I thought.
“What kind of shared interests?” She took another bite, this time bigger, as if her appetite had finally made an appearance.
I smiled, pleased to see her relax even more.
Thankfully, it wasn’t like she didn’t know us—even if our interactions had been quick and not super intimate.
But the fact that she had spent small amounts of time with us before now and had trusted us to help her move some of their stuff in early on was a good starting point.
“Women,” Asher replied, his dimpled smile spreading across his face as she choked on the bite she was chewing.
She quickly lifted her napkin and covered her mouth as she coughed before taking a drink of water.
“Women? As in, you both date a lot of them?” she questioned.
“Sometimes,” Asher admitted with a shrug.
I glared at him from across the table as he arched an eyebrow at me, taunting me to call him out on it.
“We don’t date a lot of women,” I corrected, taking a large bite so my mouth was too full to answer any other questions.
She looked between us but didn’t press the subject as silence fell over us as we continued eating.
“Well, I promise not to be in your hair too long. I’ll start looking for a job and a new place to stay tomorrow. Thank you for letting me stay here in the meantime. I appreciate your generosity.”
I nodded, not bothering to correct her that she would be staying here as long as she needed.
As far as I was concerned, there was no end date.
While her boyfriend might have been a self-centered asshole, I wasn’t.
Allowing someone to struggle as they tried to get back on their feet wasn’t something I was willing to do.
Asher turned the conversation to focus on her, and I was thankful that I wasn’t going to have to kick his ass after lunch. Violet talked about how long she’d been with Jared and how she’d given up a career she loved to move to Beaumont Creek to be with him.
“I thought that we were in love, and I don’t know,” she said with a sigh as she stared at the bottle of water in front of her.
“I guess I just thought that someday we would get married and have a family. I didn’t expect to move all the way to New Jersey just to turn around and find myself single and homeless on the same day. ”
“It’s not your fault,” Asher assured her, reaching his hand across the table to gently squeeze hers.
I looked at her face to gauge her reaction and felt a flutter in my stomach when she smiled at him instead of pulling away. While I knew that we both agreed not to make any moves on her, it was nice to see that she was receptive to his touch—just in case.
“I don’t know. Maybe it is. I’ve always been the good girl who does what people expect of her.
I answer the calls about my extended car warranty, even though I don’t have a car.
” She laughed and shook her head. “I always go out of my way to make sure everyone around me is happy to the point that I can’t remember the last time I worried about whether I was happy.
I’ve been so caught up in being what others want me to be that I worry I don’t even know who I am anymore.
Jared basically decided this life for us, and I just stupidly went along and didn’t bother to ask any questions.
He convinced me to close my bank account because I wouldn’t need it anymore with him taking care of me.
I should have known better, and maybe I would have, had I been focused on myself instead of worrying about what he wanted. ”
“Well, I give you credit for answering those extended warranty calls,” Asher said with a flirty smile as he shifted the conversation to a lighter topic. “You can’t get me to answer my phone half the time, even if I know the person who is calling.”
“He’s not lying,” I said, smirking at him, knowing he was the worst with calling anyone back, his mother included.
“Hey, I’m a busy man with shit to do. I don’t have time to sit around and bullshit on the phone for hours.”
“I would hardly call it bullshit when it’s your mom calling.” I arched an eyebrow and looked at him as I took a drink of water.
“It is when she’s just calling to try to set me up. Like I said, I don’t have time for that shit.”
“And see, I would be the person who answers those calls and then let my mom make me feel guilty about not dating someone,” Violet said as she scrunched her face.
“Does your mom do that to you, too?” Asher asked.
“My mom died when I was thirteen. My dad raised me, but I haven’t talked to him in a few months.” Her voice was quiet and full of sadness.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” I said, fighting the urge to reach over and hold the hand Asher wasn’t holding.
I couldn’t imagine how that would go over with her sitting there, having two guys holding her hands.
Maybe someday if things between the three of us changed and she knew what it was Asher and I liked to do with women, but not right now.
I didn’t want to scare her off in the first hour she’d been with us.
“Thank you. My dad did his best to raise me as a single father, but when I moved to Beaumont Creek with Jared, he wasn’t happy.”
“Did he not like him?” Asher questioned.
“No, it wasn’t that. I don’t think he ever took the time to get to know him, especially since we hadn’t been dating that long.
My dad was more upset that I was leaving because I wouldn’t be there to work and pay for the bills so he could gamble away the rest of what was left from my mother’s life insurance policy. ”
“How long were you and Jared together before you decided to move out here with him?” I asked, keeping the edge out of my voice so it didn’t come across as judgmental.
“Six months,” she said sheepishly, looking down at the table to avoid looking me in the eyes. “Six months that felt like forever to me. I thought I knew him, so I took that leap with him.”
“Please don’t do that,” I said, getting her attention as she looked up nervously at me.
“Do what?”
“Don’t look away from me like you’re embarrassed. There is absolutely no one here who is going to judge you for anything you’ve done, Violet. This is and will always be a safe space for you. Jared was an idiot, but now we’re benefiting from his mistake.”
“How so?” she asked, a look of uncertainty still sitting on her face.
“Because now we get to enjoy having you here. His loss is our gain.”
I left the rest of what I wanted to say unsaid because, even though she was feeling more comfortable with the idea of staying with us, that didn’t mean I wanted to scare her off right away.