The room erupts in a series of awww shits and she told yous, but I ignore them.
I lock eyes with Trix as she stares at me, anticipating something. Our gazes tangle, and I can’t help but get lost in the violet depths. Seconds pass before her expression falls. Her eyes dart among the guys, now painfully obvious about avoiding mine. Shit, why am I such a mess around this girl?
“Later.” She waves with a flick of her perfect hand and moves through the room to the door, Gia following behind her.
Way to go, genius.
Couldn’t have fucked that up any better.
Trix
“God, I feel like I might explode.” I lean back in my seat, hoping it’ll stretch out my belly enough to give the food I just ate somewhere to settle. “That was so good.”
Gia makes a pained face. “So damn good.”
We moan and groan for a second, and I consider how grateful I am for good friends. If this were a date, I’d have stopped at half a burger and passed on the fries, but with Gia, I can stuff my face until my heart explodes.
“Phew . . .” I take a swig of my beer. “I’m gonna sleep like a baby tonight.”
She tilts her head with tiny tilt to her lips. “You sound like an old man.”
“Sometimes I feel like an old man.” I rub my stomach and fake burp.
We laugh, and when it dies, she leans in with her elbows propped on the table. “How are you doing?” All that bright hair and those lightly freckled cheeks give her an innocent appearance that contradicts a painful past that shines through her thoughtful steel-colored stare.
I swallow and play stupid. “Whoa . . . call the party foul police.” I motion to her with my beer bottle hand. “Holy serious face, batman.”
She simply lifts one eyebrow.
I roll my eyes. “Gia . . . I already told you—”
“I know what you told me, but I don’t believe you.”
“Hatch and I hooked up.” I shrug and force myself to look casual. “Nothing more.”
“I think you miss him.”
My thumb rolls back the soggy label from my beer bottle. “I don’t.” I just need him.
She worries her bottom lip for a second. “You seem, I don’t know, different. Preoccupied maybe?”
“No.” I shake my head and shrug. After Mason’s blow off at Zeus’s and then again tonight at Gia’s house, I’m starting to think the guy despises me, but I just can’t figure out why.
“Crap. If it’s not Hatch, then . . . is it Mason?”
My eyes bulge out of my head. “What? Why . . . why would you? No!” I pull my hair back and twist it behind my head, thinking. How do I explain without outing myself? “Yes, I mean . . .” A long exhale falls from my lips, and defeat weighs heavy as I consider how to lie to my friend.
Would it be so terrible to let her in just a little? She could help me find the answers I’m searching for. After all, she lived with Hatch for longer than I’ve ever spent time with him. Neither she nor Rex talks about it openly, and she’s never divulged anything more than the basics of her time there. But maybe if she knew, if she understood the reasons for my searching, she’d offer something helpful.
“Gia?” I keep my gaze down, but feel her staring at me. “Do you know what it’s like to need someone you hate?” I peek up at her, and her expression is blank. “You almost have to become someone else to get close, and when you do, you realize you’d do anything, give up anything, just to get closer, even though you can’t stand the person?”
She recoils at my words, and I instantly feel like shit. After Gia took off and ended up living with Hatch at the Wild Outlaw MC compound, she was so messed up and dependent on him she could’ve died.
I depended on Hatch for information. She depended on him for survival.
“Gia, I’m sorry. That didn’t come out right. I meant that—”
“No need to apologize.” She shakes her head as if she’s trying to shake free the memories. “I know exactly what you mean, and of course I have. I know the feeling well.” Her fingers toy with the ripped ends of her paper napkin. “Rex, he, uh . . . he doesn’t like to talk about it.”
“I don’t blame him. You should’ve seen him the night he found out where you were.” A shudder runs through my body at the memory.
She nods. “Yeah, I know, but how can we move past it without talking? He never brings it up, refuses to even mention Hatch’s name. Even in therapy he shuts down. And the nightmares . . .” A long breath escapes her.
“Give him time. I’m sure he’ll come around.”
“Anyway what you and Hatch had was not the same as what I had with him.”
“It wasn’t what it looked like. I just . . . I need to find him and have him be okay.” Just, not for the reasons she might think.