“No.”
Beside him, Walker chuckled. “Well, too fucking bad, bro. There’s something going on, and you might as well tell me.”
“Why? Did you want to talk about it when you were being all pissy about Harlow?”
“Ah…so this is about a woman.”
Dammit.
“Do you remember how you handled things when we were at the pub and Harlow showed up?” Walker prompted with a smirk. “You invited her to join us even though you knew it pissed me off.”
“Yeah, well…it worked out, didn’t it? You guys are all happy and in love so…”
Walker sighed loudly. “We both know this isn’t about me and Harlow. This is about you, and if I had to guess, I’d say Maisie. So we can cut to the chase, or we can keep talking in circles, but I’m telling you now, we’re going to talk about it.”
“No, we’re not,” he murmured, staring out the window.
Unfortunately, now he was stuck with essentially no escape. They were going to go to dinner, and it was going to get awkward quickly if he refused to talk.
Well, he could be as stubborn as the next guy and he was used to eating in silence. Hell, he’d been doing it for years before he moved here to start working on the resort. So, he’d go and enjoy a burger and a beer and listen to Walker talk. It was only a few hours out of his life. How bad could it be?
But when they walked into the pub, he had his answer.
Bad.
Very bad.
Seated in the back, at the same booth he and Walker were just reminiscing about, were Connor, Slater, Harlow, and Milo.
“Jeez, you got Milo here for this too?” he muttered to Walker.
“Like I said, we’re going to talk about this,” Walker replied before stepping around him and strolling toward the table.
Muttering a curse, Axel knew he had no choice but to follow, but he made sure his expression showed just how pissed he was about the whole thing.
Harlow jumped to her feet and came over and hugged him. “Don’t be mad,” she whispered in his ear. “We care about you and we’re worried about you, that’s all.” She squeezed him tightly before stepping back and smiling. “This is a good thing. I promise.”
He didn’t believe it even a little bit.
And he knew he was in for it when everyone stood up and insisted he go into the booth first.
There goes my escape route…
When he sat, he glared at Walker. “Seriously?”
Shrugging, Walker grinned. “We all agreed that you’re a flight risk, so…humor us.”
It was a little cramped with six of them in the booth, but once everyone was settled, he braced himself for whatever was going to happen.
“We all agreed that I should talk first,” Harlow said softly. She was sitting directly across from him with a reassuring smile. “No one’s asking for specific details, but it’s come to our attention that you haven’t been yourself since the weekend of the storm. Obviously, something happened between you and Maisie, and considering she’s going to be working on the resort, we need to make sure you’re okay.”
“I’m fine.”
“Axel…”
Looking around, he made sure he glared at each of his buddies before facing Harlow again. “Everything’s fine. It won’t be a problem when Maisie’s at the resort. We already talked about it, and it’s fine.”
She frowned before sighing. “Okay, I tried to ease into this and be the buffer, but now…” She motioned to Walker.
