“They been giving her shit?” Jace asked with a scowl.
“Well, they showed up at the apartment you’re letting her use. Ordered her home and told her to quit being a child. This is a thirty-year-old woman my mother was dressing down, mind you. When Brittany refused, Mom wanted to know how she afforded the apartment she was living in and how she was making it on her own. Brittany told her it was none of her business how she got the apartment and that she was making it like most people made it. By working.”
Jace chuckled. “Good for her. Wouldn’t have thought she had it in her to stand up to the wicked bitch of the east.”
“Me either to be honest,” Ash admitted. “But she seems determined to make a break from the family. I’m proud of her. Mom can be intimidating and you have to understand until recently Brittany has always done what Mom wanted her to. No questions asked.”
“Must be a hard adjustment for her,” Jace said in sympathy.
“I’m having dinner with her tonight. You and Bethany want to join us? I’d like Brittany to meet Bethany. Brittany hasn’t associated with the best female friends. They were never her real friends and Brittany knows that. When the chips are down, they aren’t riding to her rescue. They dropped her like a hot brick.”
“Sure. I’ll call Bethany and make sure we don’t have other plans.”
“Thanks. Will be nice to take my mind off other things.”
Too late he realized how telling that statement would be, and the last thing he wanted was to discuss it with Jace, who would most definitely latch on to it and wouldn’t let it go.
“Anything you need help with?” Jace asked, his brow wrinkled with concern.
“Nah. Not unless you have a way of making a woman acquiesce to your demands.”
At that Jace’s eyebrow lifted. “A woman? Do tell. This has to be worth the price of admission.”
“It’s complicated,” Ash muttered. “She’s being difficult.”
Jace laughed. “Show me one woman who isn’t!”
“Bethany,” Ash pointed out. “You’re a lucky son of a bitch to have her. She’d give you the moon and you know it.”
“So what’s the problem with your woman du jour?”
Ash scowled. “That’s just it. She’s not just any woman. I don’t know, man. She hits buttons that a woman has never pushed for me.”
“Oh shit. It’s happened,” Jace crowed. “The smug son of a bitch who gave me and Gabe so much grief has finally fallen hard and from the sounds of it she isn’t exactly reciprocating.”
Ash flipped up his middle finger. “It’s too early for that. She just intrigues me. I want her,” he said bluntly. “And I’ll do whatever it takes to get her in my bed. The problem is, she isn’t exactly tripping over herself to get there.”
“Now this is hilarious. Women kill themselves to get next to you. You’re the charming one. Not as hard-ass as Gabe and I are.”
Ash barely held back the snort. His friends were sadly mistaken on that score. He might give the appearance of being the easygoing, laid-back one, but when it came to women, what he wanted, what he needed? There was no charm, no being laid-back. It had been years since he’d let that part of himself go with a woman. He still remembered her fondly. He’d just turned thirty. She was a few years younger than him. They both wanted and enjoyed the same things and when he’d actually let her see him for what he was, she hadn’t balked.
He still thought of Cammie from time to time. Wondered where she was. If she was married with children. And wondered if she’d found a man to satisfy her submissive streak.