“No thanks,” I shook my head in the negative.
It was just my luck that the entire get together was based around a crab boil—something that also made my colon want to eject from my body.
I also couldn’t eat the potatoes or corn since they’d been boiled with the crab and shrimp.
“Come on, try it, you’ll like it.” He waved the shrimp in front of my nose.
I bared my teeth.
“If I eat it,” I said lowly so only he could hear. “I’ll spend the entire night on the potty trying not to shit my guts out…okay?”
He clamped his mouth shut, finally realizing that everything here was along the same lines as the shrimp.
“I’ll go get you something…”
I left him before he could finish, heading straight to the table where the ladies were sitting and dropping in next to Aaron’s wife, Imogen.
“Men are stupid,” I told her.
She snorted before taking a drink from her red Solo cup.
“I think you should meet my husband,” Tally said. “He’s an ass on a good day. On a bad day, well let’s just say he’s…”
“Let’s just say what?”
That was Tommy, her husband, and I had to bite my lip to keep from laughing at the look on Tally’s face.
“He’s an even bigger ass,” Tally finished. “Why are you skulking?”
Tommy’s mouth kicked up, and I saw his hand lower behind Tally’s back, and she shivered.
“What do you think he just did?” Imogen whispered.
“My guess is that he just put his hands down her pants,” I whispered right back.
Tally’s eyes, which had been unfocused and distant, finally returned to me.
“But there’s this thing about the man you love,” she whispered, not caring that the man she loved was standing at her back, listening to every word. “They can drive you insane, but at the end of the night, when you’re in their arms, everything that was wrong with that day ceases to exist.”
I found my first smile since I’d arrived.
The happiness that I could see on her face was reflected on his, and I felt a pang of sadness hit me.
Would I ever have that with Truth? Or had I forced myself on him, and we’d never have that?
I didn’t know, but I hoped like hell that one day we would—if only we could get over the Elais Beckett hurdle, I felt like we would have a fighting chance.
Hiding my irritation as well as I could, I settled on nibbling on the cookies that were lining the table as far as the eye could see.
“You’re freakin’ awesome, you know that?”
I took another bite of cookie and smiled at Imogen.
“Why do you say that?” I asked.
“Because you’ve just eaten your seventh cookie, and haven’t slowed down long enough to care about the fact that the men are watching you like you you’re going to go postal any moment.”
I sighed.
Looking down at the cookies with disgust, I shoved the next two into my mouth and made a promise to myself that I’d lose the weight I’d put on since moving into the same house as Truth.
It wasn’t a lot of weight, per se, but it was enough that I couldn’t fit into my jeans as well as I’d been able to do two weeks ago.
I looked over at the man responsible for all my weight gain—all seven pounds of it—and let my eyes rove all over his body.
Even in a pair of jeans, a black shirt, and his cut, the man looked ripped. He looked like he worked out, played hard and had no regrets at all in life.
His eyes turned away from the conversation he was having with Seanshine, Aaron, and Tommy—when had he left?—and caught mine. Our gazes caught and held.
“Have y’all gotten serious?”
I looked up, and realized rather quickly that the ladies were having a conversation around me—one that clearly was about me—and I hadn’t been paying the least bit of attention.
“I’m sorry, what?” I gave Tally a small, apologetic smile.
“I asked if y’all were serious.”
I looked down at my ring, fingering it, and the ladies gasped.
“What is that?” Tally grabbed my hand.
Imogen leaned across the table, her ass waving in the air, and snatched my hand to hers.
“You’re married?” Imogen shrieked.
***
Truth
I was having a serious conversation with Aaron about emergency protocols, my hand on Tank’s head, petting him softly, when the woman's shrieks rent the air.
“You’re married?” Imogen shrieked.
The men that were surrounding me looked in my direction, wondering if I would deny it, but I could do nothing but shrug.
“Vegas, baby.”
The men had, apparently, neglected to tell their wives that we were married.
Big Papa snorted.
“Got my first wife that way, too.”
We’d all heard about Big Papa’s first wife.
She was a Vegas show dancer and had seen him at a show. She thought he was some big man made of money with him dressed up so fancy as he was. Really he’d just been attending a police officer’s convention and had worn a suit instead of his uniform. Tracy, Big Papa’s first wife, thought he was hot shit in that suit, and one thing led to another, causing them to be married by the end of the night.
Sean came along nine months later, and two months after that, she was gone again, never to be seen again.
Big Papa had filed for divorce, and had then filed for abandonment when nothing ever came of the divorce papers he’d sent to her.
Six months later, Big Papa was officially a single father, and he’d pretty much been that way ever since.
Though he’d been married one other time, but that hadn’t taken either.
That one had just been a fast and loose wedding as well. The marriage had been even shorter.
Two days after Lizzibeth married Big Papa, she filed for an annulment.
But that was about all I knew about that one.
Lizzibeth had nearly broken Big Papa.
It didn’t seem like too big a deal at the time, but now that I had a woman of my own, I could see the lines on his face. I could also read the loneliness in his eyes, though he’d never admit to it.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” Aaron said, popping me solidly on the back with one scarred hand. “The real question is, what are you going to do about it.”
I sighed.
“I’m not doing anything about it,” I admitted. “I’m going to keep living my life.”
“And what about her?”
That was from Ghost.
“What’s it to you if I do anything or not?” I shot back.
“What’s it to me?” he asked, leaning forward out of the shadows. “You have a woman that cares for you, and you’re just going to throw her away?”
I’d never said that. Not even once.
“Nope,” I denied. “She’s already moved into my house. Now I just have to make sure that pecker head doesn’t try to kill her.”
“That won’t happen,” Big Papa promised, ready to turn the topic at hand. “Now, about that security.”