Preparing to rise from the booth and rescue Sabrina—she was bound to attract a few bugs when she lit up a room the way she did—Hew blinked in astonishment when Mr. Short and Shiny slipped an arm around her waist. Instead of Sabrina feeding the fucker her knuckles, she smiled at him. Actually smiled that too big Julia Roberts smile. And as if that weren’t enough, she then proceeded to catch her bottom lip between her teeth and give the dickwad a flirty wink.
Becky saw Hew’s distraction and followed his line of sight. “Oh, look, babe!” She elbowed her husband. “Martin’s here.”
Martin.
The name rang in Hew’s ears like a death knell. He couldn’t hide the disdain dripping from his tone when he demanded, “Who the fuck is Martin?”
“The guy Sabrina’s dating,” Boss answered easily.
“Datin’?” He swore he could hear the squeaking slide of his testicles retracting into his body. “Since when is Sabrina datin’ someone?”
“Since two weeks ago,” Boss supplied, blissfully unaware that Hew was fantasizing about walking over and punching the unsuspecting Martin in his soft bits. “After you guys left for Africa, she got on one of those dating apps. Matched with Martin right away.”
“They really hit it off,” Becky added unnecessarily. “It’s a good sign, I think. Means she’s feeling better, more settled.”
“I was worried about her for a while there,” Boss agreed. “Thought she might never?—”
Boss and Becky continued to talk, but Hew couldn’t hear them. Not because the bar was filled with the jukebox’s music, dozens of conversations, and the crack of pool balls. Oh, no. He couldn’t hear them because the blood rushing between his ears was as loud as a jet engine.
“He’s too short for her.” The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them.
“Not when you stand him on his piles of money,” Boss joked.
Hew pinned his fellow Knight with a hard look. “What’s that mean?”
“He runs some fancy-dancy hedge fund, drives a Mercedes, and has a sailboat docked at the Chicago Yacht Club. That more than makes up for his vertical challenges.” Boss cocked his head and narrowed his eyes at Hew. “What’s with the face? Why are you looking at me like I just popped naked out of a cake?”
“That’s some mental imagery I could have done without.” Hew tried to wipe his expression clean.
Tried and failed, if Boss’s next words were anything to go by. “Are you… jealous?”
That had Becky’s head snapping around. “Wait a minute.” She pointed at Hew’s nose. “I thought you two were only friends.”
“We are,” Hew insisted through a jaw clamped so tight it was a wonder the words found a way past his teeth.
If he had to put a label on things, he’d say they were best friends.
He’d told Sabrina things he’d never told anyone, even his social workers. And she came to him for comfort when the grief over her brother’s death and the nightmares of what that fuckface Eddy Torres had done to her got to be too much.
Their individual traumas had formed a mutual bond between them. She’d become his safe space. And he’d become her emotional scaffolding, giving her the strength and structure to pick up the pieces of her shattered life and start building something new.
“She’s not ready,” he insisted with a hard shake of his head. “She’s still got healin’ to do.”
Becky watched Sabrina squeeze Martin’s bulging bicep. “She sure looks ready to me.”
Hew’s chest suddenly felt like he’d swallowed a box of fireworks. And that sustained happiness he’d experienced for the last eight months and thirty days?
Gone.
1
Black Knights Inc., Goose Island, Chicago
Eliza breezed into the TV room, a lotion bottle in hand. “If I leave my favorite hand cream in the half bath downstairs, will it remain unmolested? It’s expensive. And I don’t want you guys using it for…other purposes.”
Sabrina Greenlee hid her smile behind her can of sparkling water.
Welcome to Black Knights Inc., she thought. Home to elite operatives and leather-clad degenerates. They can dismantle a two-ton bomb before breakfast and spend the night debating lotion etiquette.
