“Threaten me again, bitch,” Jordan said, “and see what happens.”
Gloria leaned closer, not the least bit intimidated. She hadn’t hit another girl since she was fifteen, but she’d bet it was just like riding a bike. “Get the hell out of here before I toss your skanky ass out myself.”
“Sarge.” She heard Asher coming down the steps behind her, but Gloria didn’t take her glare off Jordan. “Fuck me. Are you kidding?” Funny, that was almost exactly what Gloria had said. “What the hell are you doing here, Jordan?”
“Oh, man.” Ricky took an exaggerated step away from Jordan and made the very wise decision to save as much face as possible. “She yours? I didn’t know.”
She yours? Gloria’s stomach tossed. Jordan was Asher’s once. Just once, but once was too much. In a rush, Glo realized she’d overstepped. This wasn’t her fight. This wasn’t any of her business. Asher wasn’t hers and she wasn’t his. Abruptly, she turned, moving away from the three of them as quickly as she could with her shoes sinking into the sand.
“No, she’s not…” Asher started, then to her retreating form, he called out, “Glo! Babe.”
She kept going.
*
Fuck, fuck, fuuuuuuuck.
Jordan was a plague. How one tiny woman could cause him so much grief was beyond him. Asher gave up the drinks in his hands, wedging the cups in the sand and reaching Gloria in a few rushed steps. Jordan and Broderick were an issue he wasn’t handling right now. Gloria was the priority.
“Dammit, Sarge.” He caught her arm and steered her to the side of the deck, still far enough from the gang at the bonfire that no one would hear, and a few extra feet away from Jordan and Broderick—and whatever the hell was happening there.
“Yes?” Gloria stopped in front of him, raised her eyebrows, and waited.
“Yes?” He hated when she pretended nothing was wrong. As he’d learned over the years, this was her standard avoidance maneuver. “What was that all about?”
“What was what all about?”
“You threatening Jordan. What did I walk in on?”
She wouldn’t look at him. “Nothing.”
Beautiful liar.
He claimed her other arm and backed them deeper into the shadows, just under the edge of the deck. “That wasn’t nothing. Tell me.”
“You do this to me a lot, you know that?” She frowned at his palms on her arms. “This feels very similar to the toy drive last year. You pushing me into a wall in the hallway in the middle of a party.”
His mind went to everything immediately following that moment and his veins caught fire. An answering heat in her eyes told him her mind had chased his to that same memory. The moment they’d gone up to the room and their kisses turned to stripping each other bare. The moment he’d laid his mouth on her naked body, and she put hers on his. The moment he slipped inside her and they moved in sync, their eyes on one another’s as they felt every soul-exposing moment together.
Yet it’d been reduced to this. Arguing, lying to save face. He was sicker of it than dealing with Jordan, and that was saying something.
“I’d like to get beneath this layer of bullshit, so why don’t we just stand here until you tell me what’s going on?” He released her.
“That was for you!” She let out a dry laugh.
“Sarge, I don’t need you to field Jordan for me. I can handle her.”
“So can I.” A mix of strength and hurt flashed across Gloria’s features. He hated that. Hated more that he’d caused it. But there was no way to undo his past, to unknot the tangle he and Jordan were in.
“I can’t change the fact that Jordan is around. She’s part of my past. She’s…” He lifted a hand and dropped it. “She’s going to be around.”
“I know that.” Her weary tone suggested this wasn’t her issue. Her eyes jerked to the crowd around the fire and then to the people mingling upstairs.
“Then why—”
“She’s not a good mother, Asher.”
He blinked. Last thing in the world he’d expected her to say. “Okay.”
“I don’t like the way she talks about Hawk.”
He frowned. “What did she say?”
Gloria shook her head, looking frustrated and sad and something else he couldn’t put his finger on. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
Suddenly, it didn’t matter what was said. Only one thing mattered.
“What I walked in on back there was you taking up for Hawk?”
She pressed her lips together. Damn. He was right.
“Taking up for me?” he pressed.
She looked at her shoes.
Wasn’t he the one who was supposed to be coming for her? Wasn’t he the knight—literally—in this situation?
“Sarge.” He palmed her face and forced her eyes to his. “You don’t have to defend me, or Hawk. I can handle it.”
Her eyes went wide and she shot him a look that, if he were a lesser man, may have killed him. His strong, tough girl wasn’t used to anyone slaying dragons for her. She’d been doing it for herself for way too long. That strength was the very thing about her that drove him nuts, as well as what he loved about her.
Loved about her.