Ivy blushed. So adorable. How the hell had this bruiser landed such a pretty, innocent woman?
“You sure you two are together?” he asked her.
That got him an even more frigid scowl.
“Yeah, we keep asking her that. I’m Foley, by the way.” Tall guy held out a hand. Gavin shook it. “He’s Lou. And you’re…Gavin, right? Where’s Lancelot?”
Gavin laughed, then coughed to hide his amusement, not wanting Hope to see it. “My brother,Landon, is over with my parents. He’s being tortured as we speak. My mother is fixated on him and his fiancée having the perfect wedding.”
Sam nodded. “Fiancée, huh? Good. I guess he did get his head out of his ass.”
“Huh?”
“I gave him some advice a while ago.”
Lou sputtered, in the process of drinking a beer. “Sorry. Thought you said you were giving out advice.”
“ThisI have to hear,” Ivy muttered.
Sam flushed, and the look was so incongruous with the badass vibe he projected that Gavin could only stare. “Come on, Ivy. I’m not that bad.”
“No, you are,” Foley said. “I mean, totally awful. Just the worst.”
“The worst,” Lou agreed.
“The advice?” Gavin prodded, loving this.
“Well, your brother was wandering around in the rain, feeling sorry for himself. So I told him to be more like my man Foley here and sac up. Go get his ass in front of his girl and make her see things his way.”
“That’s your stellar advice?” Ivy laughed. “Oh boy. It’s a good thing you have the guys and me to help you, or you’d still be single.”
“Well, maybe.” Sam shrugged, then wrapped an arm around Ivy’s shoulders. “But I have you, so it’s all good.”
She tugged him down so she could kiss him on the lips. The joy in her big, brown eyes didn’t lie. “That’s right, you do.” She popped him in the arm. “But you still need to be nice.” Then she shook her hand. “It’s like hitting a wall. Well, I’m going to go over and talk with the girls. Be good,” she warned one final time, then headed toward a stacked redhead and a woman who looked familiar.
A sweet woman with cocoa-colored skin and bouncy blondish-brown curls. She was a stunner, for sure. How did he know her? And why, when presented with such a delightful package, did his thoughts instead veer toward blue eyes, yoga pants, and a snarky temperament?
“What are you looking at?” Lou asked, his low voice threatening despite his calm.
“I know her.”
Sam moved closer. So did Foley. “Yeah? How do you know Rena?”
“Oh right. Rena, from Ray’s. She’s all right.” Gavin nodded and realized how much space around him he’d lost as the men started to crowd him. The music turned from a slow ballad to something throbbing, techno punk, andloud. The bass pulsated through his bones, and sudden anxiety filled him. The remembrance of loud booms signaling danger. Shouting. Violence.
Not here. It’s all good. But it’s so loud.
His heart raced like a jackhammer.
He must have looked off because the guys frowned at him, and Lou took a step forward. Gavin instinctively clenched his hands into fists and jerked back. He bumped against the edge of a table, spilling someone’s water. He stilled and tried to make sense of everything. Breathing in and out, focusing on what was real and in front of him helped. But not with so many faces too close.
“Hey, we were just kidding.” Foley moved back a space. “Lou, step away, man.”
Lou shrugged and moved back. “Still didn’t say how he knows Rena, exactly.”
Gavin tried to be subtle about evening his breathing, but he feared he looked like a scared rabbit. Still, better a rabbit than a man two steps away from chopping Lou in the throat, shoving the flat of his hand under Foley’s nose to force shards of cartilage into his brain, and kicking Sam in the knee to take him down beforeputtinghim down permanently.
In seconds he’d evaluated and realized how to even the playing field. But hey, he hadn’t acted on it.
