Rowdy (Marked Men #5)(46)
“Rowdy and I have a lot of lost time between us. I don’t know that I would do anything differently necessarily, but I do know that when I look at him now I see a lot of things I wish I had been around to experience.”
“What exactly is going on between the two of you?” That came from Ayden and she didn’t have any humor in her tone. Rowdy was her man’s BFF and she wouldn’t tolerate me playing around with him. It was clear in her amber eyes and the firm set of her mouth.
I shrugged a shoulder. “He calls it getting reacquainted.”
One of her dark eyebrows shot up until it almost touched her superstraight bangs. “What do you call it?”
I was going to answer when Shaw suddenly interjected and I realized she was the peacekeeper of the group.
“Leave her alone, Ayd. None of us have any room to talk when it comes to figuring out what is happening with these guys. It was like walking across a shaky bridge with no handrails hanging over the steepest canyon trying to get from where we were to where we wanted to be with all of them, so lay off of Salem. Rowdy is happy, he’s not out sleeping with half of Denver anymore, so why doesn’t everyone just leave it at that?”
I didn’t love having the fact that Rowdy’s salacious ways were well known and thrown into the mix but I couldn’t pretend he had been saving himself for me. I sighed and ran my finger around the rim of the glass.
“There’s a lot of history we have to wade through, so for now I’m just taking it day by day. I came to Denver mostly because he was here, but once I got here I found out some stuff about him and my sister I didn’t know, and that’s been challenging to work through.”
Cora tsked and reached for her plate of food. “He’s always been hooked on this idea that there is one true love. We’ve all tried to tell him that’s silly and that there are a million wonderful women in the world that would be happy to have him, but he’s been adamant—at least he was until you showed up. His tune changed real quick then.”
I sighed again. “He asked my sister to marry him when he was eighteen and she turned him down.”
A collective gasp went up from all the other girls that again had the other restaurant patrons looking in our direction.
I shook my head ruefully and forced a lopsided grin. “I knew he had a thing for her, a crush, I thought. I had no idea he was thinking forever and ever with her. I worry that he might have lingering feelings that he can’t separate from this thing we have going on now.”
Cora snorted and poked the end of her fork at me. “We all do dumb things when we’re eighteen. You don’t even wanna know about the guy I was with when I was eighteen. It was just a mistake born out of loneliness and insecurity. We all made them back then.”
Ayden nodded vigorously. “I made really bad choices way before I turned eighteen and my idiot brother had already been locked up more than once by the time he was that age. It isn’t fair to hold the past against him.”
Saint even chimed in. “Nash broke my heart into a million pieces right around the time he was eighteen. It almost kept me from giving him a fair chance when he came back into my life last year. That would have been the worst mistake I ever made.”
I sighed again and picked up my drink to finish the last little bit of it. I needed another and maybe another when I started thinking about Rowdy and his feelings for my sister.
“It’s my sister.” That was a complication I don’t think any of them could really grasp, because as much as I cared about Rowdy, there was no way I was ever going to not have the same blood in my veins as, and undying loyalty to, Poppy.
“What does he say about it all now?” Man, I really did love Shaw. She was always so levelheaded and her entire demeanor was just so loving and open. She was going to make a spectacular mother even if the kid turned out as wild and unpredictable as its dad.
“He says it’s not all his story to tell. I’ve tried to get Poppy to fill in the blanks for years but she always changes the subject or assures me that whatever happened between the two of them was in the past. Something bigger than what I always thought is working underneath everything I’m trying to build on and I don’t like it.”
“So what if it doesn’t work out with you and Rowdy?” Ayden’s drawl sounded deceptively languid. “Are you just going to pack up and roll on to the next tattoo shop—the next guy?”
I should’ve told the sultry southern bell to mind her own damn business but I couldn’t fault her for being protective over her friend.
“That’s what I normally do.” The truth wasn’t pretty but it was what it was. “I don’t like it when things get messy and complicated.”
Her whiskey-tinted eyes narrowed just a fraction. “Sounds like you’re right in the middle of messy and complicated to me.”
“Yeah, and for once my inclination isn’t to cut and run but to stay and fight. Rowdy always mattered a lot to me. Now it’s in a different way, but I’m not about to let him go without a very good reason.”
Royal suddenly jumped in the conversation in her typically brash way.
“Okay, I’m not part of the inner circle, so I’m going to ask what I know we all have to be thinking.” Her eyes were almost as black as my own and they were sparkling with mischief. “Did he sleep with her—your sister, I mean? Because if he did that’s kind of weird and I think that along with the proposal might have you wanting to rethink the whole situation.”