Chapter 10 #2
“Uh huh.”
“Have you all seen it?” Brenda asked with a gleam in her eye, looking around at all of them. “We could change this from game night to fake hockey night.”
“I have seen it, and I’m not sure we can say it’s really about hockey,” Yasmine replied with a light laugh. “I don’t know anything more about hockey after watching it than I did before.”
“Which is part of its charm.” Brenda nodded and grinned. “What about the rest of you? Audrey? Claudia?”
“I haven’t yet, but I am not watching that with my grandmother.” Audrey got to her feet, glaring at the grandmother in question.
“Better get snappy on watching it, or you will be.” Brenda snapped her fingers. “I can’t spend time with you if you don’t know where the cottage is.”
“I’ll watch it with you, without your grandmother,” Claudia told Audrey, shooting Brenda a look.
The older woman smirked and pointed fingers guns at Claudia, who shook her head.
“But right now, I want to hear about how Yasmine ended up with a dog. Let’s all go sit down, and we can play something easy while you update us. ”
“Sure.” Yasmine unclipped the leash from Hope’s collar.
A few minutes later, she had her drink for the evening, Hope was resting comfortably under the table, and she started the rundown of her Wednesday.
With a lot of gasps and interruptions, it took her twice as long to get through the story as it did when she’d told Amara and Veronica.
Mostly because Claudia kept chewing her out for going over to Sarah’s alone, then going back over to Sarah’s alone, and then not running when she heard the door opening and a man came in.
“Wait, his name was Zeus?” Claudia asked, frowning.
Ah, crap, that’s right. She’d meant to refer to him as the neighbor. It really was the same Zeus. Which made sense, but she hadn’t wanted to deal with Claudia’s reaction to knowing him if it was. Oops.
“Yes. I thought it sounded familiar, but I haven’t really been able to place it,” Yasmine said innocently. She hadn’t been sure after all.
“Tall, bald head, great beard, big dick energy?”
“Yeah, that sounds like him.”
“I love a man with fat-dick spirit,” Brenda chimed in, beaming at Audrey, who shot her a dirty look.
Claudia shook her head again. “That would be my co-worker.” Claudia crossed her arms over her chest. “How did you not pick up on that? It’s not exactly a common name.”
“I don’t know.” Yasmine shrugged. “I haven’t heard that much about him.”
“Didn’t Mason tell you about him?” Cassidy asked.
“No.” Yasmine made a face. “We mostly talked about the future. He wasn’t super forthcoming with things that were going on with him in the now. It was something I figured would eventually change, but…”
She didn’t look at Audrey, but she didn’t have to. Everyone knew why Yasmine and Mason hadn’t worked out.
“I’m so sorry,” Audrey blurted out automatically.
Yasmine shook her head, meeting Audrey’s gaze. Audrey had nothing to be sorry for. Neither she nor Mason had done anything wrong. It was what it was, and really, it was Yasmine’s fault.
“You have nothing to be sorry for; it is what it is.” Yasmine shrugged. “I should have known better than to try to circumvent the curse. Who cares anyway? So, Zeus works at Black Fox, so what?”
“Well, they don’t all completely trust him,” Cassidy said after a moment when Claudia didn’t answer. She was leaning back in her chair, arms crossed over her chest, with a blank expression that suggested she was thinking something through. “David mostly does now, but even he’s not certain.”
“But why not?” Zeus hadn’t known who she was either; Yasmine was willing to swear to that. And he’d seemed like a really nice guy.
“He used to work for Devlin, although he quit before Devlin got fired. Lincoln hired him to be the team’s tech guy a few months ago.
He seems like a pretty nice guy, but I think it’s been hard for him to fit in on the team.
When he comes into the bakery, it’s never with someone from Black Fox. ” Audrey shrugged.
Great. Of course, she knew what was going on with him, because Mason probably actually talked to her.
To be fair, it could have also been Audrey’s brother who’d told her, but Yasmine would bet it was Mason.
It just showed another difference between how he was with Audrey and how he’d been with Yasmine.
She shouldn’t have tried to push a relationship that just wasn’t there.
He sure as heck hadn’t confided in things with Yasmine.
She couldn’t remember him ever mentioning Zeus; more likely, she’d heard his name from Claudia.
“I’m almost positive I told you about him,” Claudia said, confirming Yasmine’s suspicion.
“To be fair, I wasn’t super paying attention to your work stories,” Yasmine admitted, only a little abashed.
“I was kinda busy trying to plan a wedding and then, you know, not. Don’t even think about apologizing, Audrey, or I swear I’ll get switchy and beat your butt.
” She pointed her finger in Audrey’s direction.
She didn’t need to look at the other woman to know that was exactly what Audrey had been about to do.
Audrey bit her lip and sat back in her seat.
“There’s nothing wrong with focusing on what’s important to you,” Brenda said with a nod. “Work drama is boring, anyway. Is this Zeus hot? I feel like he should be hot.”
“He’s hot,” Yasmine confirmed, at the same time as the other three, including Claudia, who shrugged when they all looked at her.
“He’s a Dom, but I’m not blind,” she said.
Wait, he’s a Dom? Yasmine managed to keep from asking the question out loud because it didn’t matter. She wasn’t getting involved with him or anyone else.
“It doesn’t matter, though,” Yasmine said firmly. “We’re only in touch about Sarah and the dog. It’s kind of sweet how much he cares about them.”
“Don’t tell Mason or David,” Claudia said, surprising Yasmine as the other woman looked between Audrey and Cassidy.
She didn’t bother admonishing Brenda, Yasmine noticed.
“Zeus is already having trouble fitting in with the team; he doesn’t need Mason and David coming down on the guy just because he happened to meet Yasmine and help her out. ”
“Yeah, that’s fair,” Cassidy said with a sigh. “Plus, with his connection to Noelle…”
“What connection to Noelle? Wait, I think I remember this…” Yasmine frowned.
That frown deepened as Cassidy quickly told her the whole backstory about Zeus and his ex-girlfriend, who was cheating on him with Devlin. Which made the team not trust him.
That was bullshit. It was so obvious he’d been set up, she wanted to go around and smack everyone who doubted him. Zeus wasn’t shady at all. Why on earth would they think he was?
Although even Claudia seemed suspicious of him. She nodded along with everything Cassidy was saying.
Maybe the team didn’t get to see much of the real Zeus.
Not the way she had. And maybe they hadn’t given him a fair shot from the beginning, whereas she hadn’t known who he was and hadn’t had any preconceived notions about him.
But it still made her want to smack all of them upside the head.
Especially Mason. How could he not tell her about all of this?
“So, yeah.” Cassidy shrugged, looking a little regretful. “I like Zeus, personally, but he is very standoffish. I don’t know how the guys would react to you being involved with him.”
“Why should they react at all? They don’t get a say in my life or who I date.” Especially Mason.
“Because they’re nosy, interfering, overprotective busybodies, and they still don’t fully trust Zeus.
” Claudia twisted in her seat and pulled a game box from the shelf.
“Now. I’m tired of talking about work and men.
I think Deadly Dowagers is the right game for this evening.
It’s not strip poker, Brenda, but I think you’re going to love it.
We murder our husbands to increase our fortunes until one of us has a big enough dowry to marry the duke. ”
“Oh, yay, that does sound like fun.” Brenda perked up with real interest. Of course, she did.
Yasmine just shook her head with bemusement. It didn’t seem fair that David and Mason didn’t trust Zeus, but Claudia clearly didn’t want to talk about it more. Just because he used to work for Devlin didn’t mean he was a bad guy. Especially since it was past tense.
Maybe she’d try to find out more from Claudia or Audrey later. Or maybe not. Since it wasn’t like she was going to be getting to know him better. Since she was off men now.
She focused on Claudia rehashing the rules of the game. It had been a while since they’d played this one.