Elastic Hearts (Hearts #3)(28)

“I wasn’t sure if this was added to the original addendum,” Corinne said.

“Fuck no, it wasn’t.”

“Okay. Well, I’ll let you go. I just wanted you to see it just in case.” She paused. “Do you think they’re maybe getting back together and she’s unsure?”

I swallowed back my impending growl as I looked back at the screen, back at Nicole, who was now holding Gabriel’s hand as he looked down at her with a smile. I was going to kill her. I was going to f*ck her and then kill her. What the f*ck was she thinking? What the f*ck did I want her to be thinking? I didn’t even know anymore. I couldn’t be sure. But the thought of those red lips on anybody else but me was enough to drive me f*cking crazy.

“I don’t know. I’ll get to the bottom of it,” I said.

“May I make a suggestion?” she asked just as I was hanging up.

“What?” I said, my impatience clear in my voice.

“Maybe ask William?”

“What a great idea, Corinne. Let me call her father, who happens to be my boss, and ask him if he knows what the f*ck is going on with my client. I’m sure that will bode well with the whole ‘maybe you can become partner when this shit is over, Victor’ thing.” I paused to take a breath. “I’ll handle it.”

I closed my eyes and started counting backward from ten. I felt like any moment a vein would pop out of my forehead, or my neck, or my f*cking arm with the amount of force I was using on my remote control.

I called my sister to see if she was watching. Maybe I should watch this with other people present so I wouldn’t end up trashing my entire f*cking house.

“Mia and Jensen are here,” my sister said upon answering the phone.

Shit. I’d forgotten our friends were coming into town.

“Are they there right now?” I asked.

“Yeah, they didn’t bring the kids, though. We’re watching the Globes. Want to come over?”

“Yeah, I’ll be there soon.”

I’d picked up the keys, a bottle of wine, and started walking to my car before we’d ended the call. When I got to my sister’s house the front door was slightly open, so I knocked loudly and stepped in, closing and locking it behind me.

“In here,” Estelle yelled.

“Oh God,” her best friend Mia groaned, and then caught sight of the bottle in my hands and perked up. “Oh. He brought wine.”

I scoffed as I leaned over to kiss her cheek, and my sister’s. “Now we know the way to Mia’s heart isn’t corny love stories, after all,” I said, referring to her husband, and my other best friend, who was a writer and had made it his life goal to write stories about Mia, even when they weren’t together. Fucking pansy. “Where is Jensen anyway?”

“Out back with Oliver, smoking a cigar.”

My eyes nearly bulged out their sockets. “Oliver is smoking?”

“No. Jensen is. Oliver’s probably lecturing him on how bad it is.”

I chuckled, handed over the wine, and headed that way, but stopped when I got to the door and turned back around. “What do you guys know about Nicole Alessi and Gabriel Lane?”

Mia’s smile widened. She tucked her short blonde hair behind both ears and sat up straight. “Well, aside from the fact that he’s so hot,” she said, and as soon as the words left her mouth Jensen opened the door behind me.

He looked at me and smiled, greeting me with our usual handshake and hug before looking at her again.

“I know I’m hot, babe, but you really need to stop telling everybody you see.”

She rolled her eyes. “I’m talking about Gabriel Lane. He’s so f*cking dreamy.”“He is. Did you see the pictures of his vacation in Mexico a few months ago? Holy shit. I mean, if his swimming trunks—” Estelle said.

“Would have gone a little lower. I know,” Mia finished with a half shriek, half laugh.

I shook my head, making a distasteful face. “This is what you’re married to?”

“We all have our vices,” Jensen said with a shrug and a laugh.

“Hey,” Oliver said, walking in. He frowned when he saw me. “I didn’t hear the bell.”

“That’s because you psychos left the door unlocked and open again. I don’t understand how you live. This isn’t 1920, and you don’t live in the middle of nowhere. Didn’t you get the email about all the burglaries?”

“Oliver installed a camera system,” Estelle said as she poured herself and Mia each a glass of wine. She paused. “Who else wants wine?”

“We need something stronger than wine to watch this shit,” I said.

“So we save the cigar I brought you for later?” Jensen asked.

“When does this start?”

“Officially? In thirty minutes,” Mia said.

I looked at Jensen. We had thirty minutes to spare. Once we were outside, we closed the door and sat on the chairs out in the porch. He handed me my cigar and the lighter.

“How’s work?” he asked, blowing out smoke from his cigar.

“I need my drink, or something with a more calming effect than this for me to talk about it right now,” I said, holding up the cigar. He laughed.

“I was going to stop at a shop on the way here, but Mia thought Bean would have a heart attack.”