Own the Wind(45)

What I knew was he was loud and bossy, and he appreciated the sacrifice members of our military made for us, so I could get over the loud, bossy, and crazy bits.

Therefore, I smiled back.

She tipped her head to the couches. “Go, sit before Tex tells you to do it in a way that people at Walgreens a block away will hear. I’ll bring these out.”

“Thanks,” I replied.

“Don’t mention it,” she mumbled, her eyes sliding back to Tex, who was again banging on the machine that looked like it cost as much as my living room furniture (and more) like it only produced under the most abusive of conditions.

Shy flexed his arm around my shoulders and guided me toward the couch. We hit the seating section in front of the windows, and Shy again put me where he wanted me, settling me into the corner of the couch. He sat on the arm beside me and pulled me up against him.

The nice woman came out with our drinks, and I had a hopefully undetected mini-orgasm when I tasted my drink. Really, the crazy guy was an artist. Shy and Landon were catching up, which, not surprisingly, didn’t give me a lot of opportunities to enter the conversation.

This went on for a while. Long enough for my mind to wander to things I could be doing. Such as, say, ascertaining if I was going to be blacklisted by the traveling nurse’s agency for backing out of a job and calling the HR Department of the hospital to see if I could have my old one back and phoning my landlord to see if I could stay in my apartment although I gave up my lease.

Nothing important.

I didn’t want to get impatient. I wanted the opportunity to get to know Landon, though that kinda wasn’t happening except for me doing that by following their conversation.

Not to mention, I’d never seen Shy like this. Obviously happy his brother was home safe. Obviously happy he and I had moved to another level of our relationship. Obviously happy in a way that made my belly feel warm that he was in the company of two people he cared about.

Not that I didn’t want him to have that. Of course I did.

It was just that yesterday I had let a kiss change the course of my whole life. I had crap to do, and sitting and listening to two badasses shoot the breeze was not a high priority.

Nevertheless, I settled in for the long haul while mentally designing my to-do list when Shy noted our mugs were all empty and he announced he was getting us more drinks.

He kissed the top of my head and headed to the counter.

I watched him go, happy to have something to do that I immensely enjoyed, like watching him move, when I heard Lan call my name and my gaze swung to him.

“So you two are tight,” he remarked and I smiled.

“Yeah, we’re tight,” I confirmed.

He looked over his shoulder toward Shy before he leaned forward in the armchair, settling his elbows to his knees. His expression changed and I braced.

The expression change wasn’t mean or ugly. It wasn’t even blank, like he was hiding something from me.

But it still wasn’t good.

“Park and I are close,” he declared, and I nodded since I knew this. He continued, “We talk. The last year, not often, can’t do that too often when you’re in the thick of shit. But when we do, we lay it out.”

Uh-oh.

I couldn’t know for certain what was coming, but that didn’t mean I didn’t have a feeling.

“Okay,” I said cautiously, sucking it up, wanting it over and inviting him to share what was on his mind.

Lan took me up on my invitation.

“Last thing I heard about you, Tabby, was that you were about to tie the knot and it was a coupla weeks after that went…” he paused and I knew he was trying to find the right words when he finished “… south.”

“Yeah,” I verified, still talking softly. “That went south.”

“Sorry, honey,” he whispered, and the way he said it was almost as sweet as his brother could be. I liked that even though I didn’t like our topic of conversation. Still, I nodded.

“That was a while ago, Landon,” I informed him. “Almost a year.”

“Yeah,” he muttered then he asked, “After the…” another hesitation “… other guy, is Park your first?”

I felt a tingle slide down my back, the kind that didn’t feel great.

This was none of his business. Okay, he was Shy’s brother, they were close so it kinda was.

It also kinda wasn’t.

“I’m not sure—” I started, but stopped when he shook his head and lifted a placating hand.

“Please get this, Tabby. He’s my brother. He’s my best friend. We’ve been through a lot of shit. In an effort to survive that, we had to learn how to unload and we did that by unloading on each other. After we both left that life, that didn’t stop. In other words, I know about you.” His eyes held mine. “All about you, Tabby.”

This wasn’t great news.

I opened my mouth to speak, but he lifted his hand again and kept his eyes locked to mine.

“I know he was a dick to you. When you laid it out for him, he gave that to me and I can see why you thought he was a dick. I also know he talked a lot about his brothers in his Club, and he talked about some of the family attached to that Club, and most of that family he talked about was you and you weren’t even talkin’ to him. He didn’t tell me why that was, but that doesn’t mean I couldn’t get a read that he was into you. Seein’ him with you, the way I’ve never seen him with another woman, I get now he’s not into you. He’s into you.”