“But they are being so obvious.”
I was talking about the group of college-aged girls that had gathered in a loose huddle around where the guys were playing the game. A collective sigh went up when Jet, Ayden’s husband, bent over the table to take a shot. I mean there wasn’t much he could hide in those tight pants he had on, but still, if that was my other half, my skin would be crawling. It already was and I didn’t even know what Nash was to me. I mean I was starting to figure it out, but I wasn’t brave enough or secure enough in myself or him to give it a name.
Ayden laughed a little and licked the salt off the back of her hand that had been left over from the last round of shots.
“They always are. You just have to know that even though the girls are looking, the guys never look back. You can’t be with someone and not trust them completely. It will never work out.”
Considering Jet was not only gorgeous but also in a band and on the road a lot, I guess that meant she really, really trusted him.
I made a face and blurted out with tequila-scented courage, “But I remember all of them in high school. They slept with everything that moved. How can you know that they are any different now?”
I blinked in shock because that wasn’t appropriate or something I would normally ever say. I felt a flush fill my face, but Shaw reached out a small hand and put it on my arm. I wanted to crawl under the table and hide.
“I was a few years behind you in school, Saint, so I know. I know what Rule was like, I remember very clearly how bad they all were. People change. Time makes us grow. Life happens, good and bad, and it’s the person you love, the man inside you can’t live without, not the sum of what he did or didn’t do when he was younger and still figuring life out.”
Ayden picked up her beer and nodded solemnly. “I spent years and years trying to bury a past that is really ugly, that I thought in turn made me really ugly. Who I am now is not that person, but I wouldn’t exist without those experiences.”
I bit my bottom lip. It was tangy from lime and booze. A tight breath shuddered out of my lungs and I let my gaze dance from one of them to the other. They were lovely young women. Strong enough to deal with the attention their men garnered, kind enough to welcome me into the fold with no judgment because they wanted Nash to be happy. I just didn’t know that I could ever be as clear on the past versus the present as they seemed to be.
I propped my elbow on the table and put my chin on my hand.
“I was fat.”
They both blinked at me and then shared a look. Ayden’s light twang asked, “So?”
“It made me shy and awkward, something I never outgrew. I got picked on a lot in school. People were mean, it hurt, and now even though I’m not that girl on the outside, I am still totally her on the inside, and it makes me act like a weirdo.”
Shaw pushed her long hair back over her shoulder and looked at me questioningly. “What does that have to do with Nash?”
I waved a hand sloppily in the air in front of me. “You trust Rule, Ayden trusts Jet … but to me, why should I trust anyone when there are girls like that throwing themselves at him? Boys like pretty girls that are no work.” I said it like I was an authority on the matter.
They shared another look and Shaw told me point-blank, “Nash isn’t like that. First of all he is the least judgmental guy in the world, and second he has never, and I mean never, spent as much time with any single girl as he has with you.”
Ayden made a noise and patted me on the knee. “I hate to tell you this, honey, but those boys have the pick of the ladies they want to spend time with: skinny, chubby, blond, brunette … you name it and they can have it. The point I think you might be missing is that clearly our boy has picked you to spend time with and he has made that choice over and over again.” She pushed some of her dark hair out of her face and lifted a dark eyebrow at me. “And believe me, none of them are scared of doing a little work.”
I was listening to their words, but at the same time one of the college girls broke from the pack and waltzed up to the table. Nash was leaning on the pool cue, and even though she was clearly headed in his direction, his gaze was locked directly on me. He was watching me closely and all I could do was stare back. I couldn’t ever imagine trusting someone, loving someone so unquestioningly that you just knew that you were the only person they were thinking about, the only person they wanted. That seemed like a fantasy to me. That couldn’t exist in real life … could it?
“I don’t know if that makes me feel better or worse.”
They both started to talk at the same time, trying to reassure me that Nash was loyal, that he was a great guy, that he was the nice one in the group, that he was typically the voice of reason because Rule was such a hothead and Jet tended to be moody and emotional. I listened to it all with half an ear while I watched the coed put her hand on Nash’s chest and smile coyly up at him. I don’t know what bothered me more, that she was openly flirting with him, or that it bothered me so much. It made me very uneasy to watch it happen.
Nash shook his tattooed head, took a step back, and handed his pool cue to Rowdy so he could wind his way through the throng of ladies. His eyes stayed locked on mine. I think he could tell I was upset, and not by anything the girls said, but by the overt attention he was drawing. He wasn’t mine, at least not in any kind of spoken, official capacity, so it shouldn’t matter, but it did.
He dropped his hands on my shoulders and I felt him drop a light kiss on the crown of my head. It was that, those simple little gestures that tried to untie all the things I thought I had knots tied securely around.
“Everything okay?”
Shaw and Ayden nodded and I gasped as he turned my chair around so that I was facing him. He put a hand on either side of the chair so I was caged in and forced to look up at him.
“Seriously, are you all right? We can go if you need to.”
I felt like I couldn’t breathe. It would be the second time he had left his friends early because of me, because I just couldn’t get my head together. I opened my mouth to respond, to tell him it was fine. His friends were actually really nice. I had a nice enough buzz going that I could fake my way through another hour or so, but I didn’t get the chance to speak because Rule suddenly appeared at the table, his light-colored eyes wide in his handsome face.
“Rome just called me. Cora’s in labor.”