She eyes the door again. “Huh. I can almost appreciate that.”
“Do me a favor,” Giselle says as she heads to the door to let them in without consulting me first. “Freak out about how much you love Aspen and make Cash think you’re going to attack her while I stand by and do nothing. Bonus points if you attack-hug her. Levi’s wife is the only reason I’m still around, and I like these men to remember to not take me for granted.”
“I think I love her,” Sloane whispers to me.
“Most of us do.”
Giselle swings the door open, and Aspen steps through first.
She has a new hairdo—dark brown and short today—and she’s dressed down in casual jeans and a purplish sweater.
Cash follows. His light brown hair is flopping all over, his nose is big as ever, and he’s wearing the look of a lumberjack still on his honeymoon between the flannel and the happy love glow.
He held out a long time, but now the last one of our group has fallen.
Except me.
“Ooh, are you Sloane?” Aspen squeals and beelines around me before Sloane can utter a word, throwing her arms around the redhead who just climbed out of my bed. “Ellie told me how you publicly dumped the shitwaffle who lied to both of you, and Sarah said they might have to move to Shipwreck because Ava loves you more than any of the nurses she’s had in Copper Valley or LA. You’re a freaking rockstar.”
“You have to the count of three to release my client before you find out why I was nicknamed head cheer bitch in high school,” Giselle says.
Cash snorts. “It’s a hug, G.”
Giselle looks him up and down, and then she does the most Giselle thing ever.
She hugs him.
There’s no warning. No notice. One minute, she’s looking at him, and the next, she has her arms around him.
But she’s not just hugging him.
She’s so fast, her hug also has his arms trapped right at the elbows, so he can only flap his hands at the wrist as his eyes bulge out and he makes a strangled gulping sound and tries to escape her grasp.
“Is this just a hug?” she asks him.
“Uncle,” he gasps. “Uncle.”
“Call your girlfriend off my client.”
“She let go.”
“No onetouches my client without permission, or I will touchyouwithout permission. Is that understood?”
“Fuck. I didn’t need to know your hair smells like—ulp.”
Aspen’s jaw has unhinged and her eyes are comically wide. “I’m not touching her!I’m not touching her!”
Giselle gives one more very obvious squeeze to her hug, then releases Cash.
Then she makes a tongue-out face like she’s gagging. “The things I do for you people… I’m getting too old for this.”
“If you ever need funding so you can retire from bodyguarding and go do vigilante shit instead, I’ve been poor most of my life, and I’d be happy to be poor again in the name of supporting a badass real-life superhero because you seem like the type who could pull that off,” Aspen says. “Totally worth it. Can we hire you to take out all of the terrible ex-boyfriends?”
Cash visibly swallows. “Babe? We okay?”
“You took a bodyguard hug for me. We’re good. But thank you for remembering that’s a good question to keep asking.”
“Yes. Good. Okay. Always. Also, you won’t be poor for the rest of your life,” Cash says. “You’re too talented. Also, you can have as much of my money as you want. Not that my money’s why you love me. I know that. I do. I’m just saying, no price is too—I’m shutting up now.”
