Chapter 5 #2
Popping up from the lounger, I interrupt Nate who is apparently talking to me, though I haven’t heard a word. “I need a drink. Anyone else? Sav? You want a drink? Come get a drink with me.”
“Jor?” Nate questions, his brows furrowing over eyes that match mine. “You okay?”
Damn it, why can’t my brother be less observant? I mean, he’s not the most observant guy—he was far more perceptive prior to Savanna coming along—but it’s his job to oversee everything going on in a situation. From the bar to being a lieutenant at the firehouse. He. Sees. Everything.
Sleeping with Liam was the worst decision I could have ever made.
“Yep! Just hot. I need something to help cool me down.”
Savanna laughs, gesturing towards me. “You could start by taking your dress off. Assuming you’re wearing a bikini under it, anyway.”
I glance down at myself. The turquoise bathing suit coverup I threw on over my bikini wasn’t just for the walk through the hotel to the pool. It was also to cover the bruises plaguing my thighs, hips, and god knows what other parts of me.
“It’s helping keep me cool,” I explain, waving at my face. I try desperately not to look at Liam who is closing the distance between us quickly, but to no avail. Our eyes meet and I feel my stomach clench in good and bad ways. “It’s my throat. I’m thirsty. I need a drink.”
Spinning on my heel as Liam and Brody pull up to our location, I beeline it away from the four of them, my eyes scanning the area for the bar.
I know this place has a few of them and it doesn’t take me long to spot one, though I’d probably be wise to seek the furthest one.
Or maybe back to the one in the lobby. If Liam is here, that means I’m not at risk of him knocking on my door.
Unless he were to follow me back, in which case everyone would notice and that would be worse than me just trying to avoid him at the pool.
Because I can avoid him. Between the bar and the multiple pools, I can totally avoid him.
“Jor?” A voice says at the same time someone touches my elbow.
I shriek, whirling around, completely expecting to see Liam standing there. Instead it’s Savanna, eyeing me like I have multiple heads growing from my neck.
“What is going—” She gasps, a hand slapping over her mouth. “Oh my god, you finally did it.”
Panic grabs hold of me. “What? Did what? I didn’t do anything.”
“You liar!” she accuses, turning to look over her shoulder at the group of men at the loungers.
Brody and Nate aren’t paying any attention, but Liam’s eyes are locked on us. Locked on me. Even from this far away I can see the questions in them.
Savanna turns back to me. Grabbing my arm, she spins me in the direction of the bar, keeping herself close as we hurriedly walk further away from the group. “You finally slept with him, didn’t you?”
My eyes are wide and wild. “What do you mean finally?”
“Oh please, Jor,” she says with a roll of her eyes. “You guys have been—in the words Liam once used on me—eye-fucking each other for months now.”
My jaw finds the pool deck. The lump of coal in my stomach is never going to dissipate. Obviously we thought we’d been discreet, but if Savanna has known for months about our flirting, then we didn’t hide it nearly as well as I thought. Which means Nate…
“Stop it. You don’t need to freak out,” she says with a laugh, patting my arm. “Nate has no idea. I don’t think he wants to have any idea. I think he’d rather stay in ignorant bliss. Trust me, I tried asking him about it months ago.”
Shaking my head, I go for denial. Savanna may be my friend, but she’s Nate’s fiancée. She’s the last person, besides Nate, I should be talking to about this. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Savanna’s adorable laugh rings through the air around us. “I pray you never have to lie to Nate about this because you’re awful at it.” Rubbing my arm, she side eyes me as we step up to the bar. “Was it as good as the rumors claim it to be?”
“Savanna!” I hiss, pinching her side. She shrieks with laughter, dancing away from me.
“It’s probably best you don’t tell me. This way I’ve got plausible deniability if Nate ever asks.” Taking a step back, she gives me a once over. “But you look exhausted and well spent.”
Ignoring her, I put my attention on the bartender, giving him a friendly smile. “I’ll have a shot of tequila and a mimosa.”
“Oh, when you said drink you actually meant drink.” She hums for a moment then orders herself a mimosa sans extra tequila shot. “Hypothetically, though, if you had slept with Liam… are you okay? I mean, hypothetically, this is Liam we’re talking about. Well-known playboy.”
Groaning, I turn to face her, leaning my hip against the bar before I grimace at the tenderness that shoots through me.
“Hypothetically, yes, I’m fine with that part.
More than fine. It means—” My mouth falls open as I stare at her, the solution to almost every problem that’s been plaguing me since leaving Liam’s room this morning.
Besides the blaring disaster that if Nate ever finds out he’ll never forgive me.
“What? It means what?”
“It means that I’m an idiot. I’ve been freaking out the whole time thinking Liam is going to want to talk about everything, or make a big deal of things. Thinking maybe he’ll want to do it again. But he won’t.” Grabbing onto her forearm, I squeeze it excitedly. “You’re right. This is Liam.”
A smile slowly starts to slide across my lips as I pick up the shot of tequila awaiting me. I hold it out to Savanna, waiting for her to pick up her mimosa, our glasses clinking together. “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.”
I down my shot as she sips on her drink thoughtfully. “You know,” she says, “Not everything stays in Vegas. My wedding is in Vegas and I get to take the marriage certificate home.”
Sliding the empty glass across the counter, I give the bartender my room number for both our drinks, glancing at Savanna after. “Don’t rain on my parade. Some of the hypothetical tension has just left my body.”
“I bet it all left last night,” she mutters with a sly grin.
I shoot a glance in her direction telling her to shut up as we make our way back to the lounge chairs.
Feeling a hell of a lot more relaxed than I did prior to our visit to the bar, whether that’s because of the tequila, the hypothetical confession, or the realization that Liam of all people will not make a big deal about this, I’m not sure.
I don’t really care, either. Feeling better means I can probably get through the day—and more importantly the week—without avoiding Liam.
“I’m just saying, Quinn and Luke would be lighting you up right now,” Nate is stating as we reach the chairs. “I’m doing my due diligence, for them, by calling you out.”
He’s staring at Liam with a smirk the size of Texas on his face, trying to keep from laughing. Brody is on the lounge chair across from him, eyes also on the man standing between the two chairs. Humor dances across his features, though he’s quieter than Nate about it.
“What did Liam do now?” Savanna asks, plopping her butt down on the lounger beside her fiancé.
“Look at him!” Nate waves a hand in Liam’s direction, causing us both to check him out. At first I don’t understand what I’m seeing all over his chest, but Nate clarifies it for us. “He got torn the fuck up by some hellcat last night.”
My blood runs cold as a flood of horrified embarrassment shoots through my veins. Holy. Fucking. Shit. Liam’s chest looks like he got mauled. The tanned skin glows red in certain places where he’s been scratched to shit.
Savanna bursts into a fit of laughter that I want to kill her for. “Is your back in the same shape?” she asks through her giggles.
“Yes!” Nate exclaims when Liam refuses to meet anyone’s eyes. “Whoever he went out and found last night sure did a damn number on him. Christ.”
Savanna sobers thoughtfully for a moment. “If he looks like this, can you imagine what she must look like?”
Before I can react to her, which is probably a good thing because murder is still a felony, Liam finally looks at each one of them before his eyes land directly on me. “We’ll never know considering I woke up alone.”
Brody chuckles with a shake of his head. “Ouch man.”
“Literally,” Savanna laughs and high fives him a moment later.
“Are you certain she wasn’t a hellcat?” Nate ponders, laughing along with the rest of them. “Truly? Because Christ man, the last time I saw scratches like that, Brody bailed surfing and ran into a bunch of rocks.”
Liam, with his stupid half grin making his face look far too good for this conversation, nods. “Positive. She was fucking perfection.”
Amazing. How could life get any better? Liam views me as perfection, and my brother sees me as a hellcat.
When do we go home?