Smoke and Steel (Wild West MC #2)(8)

Marcy butted in.

“I’m feeling a bit ill we’re going through this again when we’ve known for a while that Bryan was oblivious the best of times, thoughtless the worst, and that was not okay.”

“Well, I guess Hell bitching incessantly about Bryan,” (Ugh! I didn’t bitch incessantly!) “then he’s gone, and now she’s bitching about Christos, I…I…”

Bree trailed off and her attention did the same, wandering slowly across Fortnum’s, a used bookstore on Broadway where we hung most Sunday afternoons, gabbed and drank coffee.

Marcy, Kyra and I turned to see what caught her gaze, and for the first time in my life, it happened.

You know that lightning bolt all the books said hit a woman when she saw a man she knew in an instant she wanted to jump?

That lightning bolt just hit me.

Dear God, he was fine.

Faded jeans. Black T-shirt. Biker boots. One of those wallets that was chained to his beltloop, the chain hanging down his hip and then looping up to his ass like the dip in a roller coaster you really wanted to ride.

He had dark, messy, overlong hair that had a lot of curl in it and a face you wanted to wake up to.

Tying the bow on the package that was him: he was tall, his shoulders were broad, and his ass was awe-inspiring.

I knew this because I was awed speechless and immobile, the only thoughts in my brain being how hot getting razor burn from his stubble would feel and how full my hands could get with that tush.

He was rough and I was ready.

As if he felt us staring at him, he turned our way.

When he did, I couldn’t hold back letting out a small gasp, because I could see the striking light blue of his eyes from where we were sitting in the huddle of furniture by the window.

I was so engrossed by how amazing he was, I didn’t realize until too late that he might have turned our way, but he’d done it to look right at me.

Ohmigod.

“Ugh, you just broke up with Bryan, did you not give a shit about him at all?” Bree asked loudly.

I watched the guy’s lips twitch (and Lord have mercy, what lips), and he turned back to the line.

I turned back to our group in order to give squinty eyes to Bree.

“Oh my God,” Kyra said in a whisper. “You just cock-blocked a sister.”

“Uh, have you heard of a rebound?” Marcy was also whispering. “And that tall drink of water practically has ‘rebound’ tattooed on his forehead.”

“Did you care about Bryan at all?” Bree ignored them and asked me.

“I looked at a guy, I didn’t ask him to marry me,” I replied. “But to answer your question, yes. I did. After I packed his box and put him out, when he was gone, I curled up in bed and cried until I was useless. I not only didn’t finish baking the cookies I was making, I didn’t eat them. Not a one.”

Kyra gasped, such was the power of this revelation.

Yes, my cookies were that good.

But I hadn’t shared the worst of it.

“I miss him. I pick up my phone half a dozen times a day to text something to him. I don’t want to clean my sheets because they still kind of smell like him. And he’s going to get in touch in a few days after giving me space, and he’s going to ask to talk, to work it out, and it’s going to gut me all over again because I know he isn’t right for me. He isn’t good for me. He won’t make me happy, which means I won’t make him happy. So I might ghost him, though that’s unlikely, because what we had means he doesn’t deserve that. So I’ll call him to set a time to sit down and share what he wants is not what I want. This will be nearly impossible to do. So then I’ll probably cry myself useless again.”

“I didn’t know you cried like that,” Marcy said quietly.

“I broke up with my boyfriend,” I pointed out.

“You should have called,” she returned.

I shrugged.

Marcy was still speaking quietly when she noted, “You know, you’re allowed to be human and lean on people when the occasion merits it. We can be there for you like you’re there for us when we need you. You don’t have to be strong for everybody all the time, like you had to be when your mom left your dad.”

That meant a lot, and I hoped the look on my face shared that it did.

Marcy’s answering smile, which was full of sympathy, said I succeeded.

“Never go through a breakup alone is my motto,” Kyra put in, her gaze kind and worried and resting on me.

“You’re not a cynical loner like Hellen,” Bree stated.

Everyone’s eyes cut to her.

“There’s a girlfriend line,” Marcy snapped. “And, sister, you just jumped over it like you’re Carl fucking Lewis.”

Bree stood, picking up the Dior saddle bag she paid five thousand dollars for, when she just had to wait a season and she could buy it for twelve hundred dollars less.

She tossed it over her shoulder, tossed her strawberry blonde hair, then declared. “I’m in a bad mood and being bitchy. I need to go home to Ben and Jerry’s.” She settled her gaze on me. “I’ll think about what you said. But really, Christos is very sweet. I mean a lot to him. You can’t imagine how embarrassed he was to ask for my help. He’s Greek. They’re macho. I could see how upset it made him. But it’s a temporary situation. He’s cash poor. He promised me, it’ll turn around. Still, it didn’t feel good to watch a guy I’m falling in love with grovel like that, then you guys piling on didn’t help.”