Forge chuckled darkly as he looked at his brother.“Is that how it happened?”he asked him mockingly.
“Yeah, Forge, it is.I don’t think they want a completely detailed recap,” Kash replied.
Forge smirked.“Ah, I don’t know.It’s kinda juicy.With the mur—”
“I was staying out here to keep your ass from getting in trouble, but fuck that,” Kash said, cutting off Forge.He stood up and held out a hand for Cressida.“Let’s go before I end up planting my fist in his face.”
“It’s fine,” she assured Kash.
“No, the fuck it’s not.He stepped over a line,” he told her as he pulled her up and against his side, then kissed the side of her head while glaring at Forge.
Forge continued to sit there, saying nothing as he drank his beer.
Kash and Cressida headed toward the doors of the house and left behind a silence that was becoming awkward.
“Okay,” Lula Mae said, glancing back to watch them disappear inside, then turned back to Forge, “were you about to saymurder?I love a good sordid story.”
“Jesus, Lula,” Wayon said to her with a shake of his head.
“What?They went inside,” she replied, then twirled a long strand of her blonde hair around her finger.
Whatever Forge had been about to say had to do with Cressida.I didn’t want to know.Kash had gotten her out of here fast, which meant it wasn’t something pleasant.He had been protecting her.That wasn’t our business.
“Better let that one go,” Forge told her.
Lula Mae sighed, then stood up.“Fine.Then let’s dance some more.I can already tell you that my brother is a boring conversationalist.”
Forge’s eyes went from her to me before he finally said, “All right,” and set his beer on the table between us before joining her.
My skin felt tight.I didn’t want to watch them walk over to the open area, where they’d been dancing earlier, but I couldn’t seem to look anywhere else.Forge paused to pick up a remote, then tapped something before putting it back down.
Lula Mae squealed happily as “Neon Moon” by Brooks & Dunn started playing over the speakers.Forge took her hand and spun her around until her back was to his front.
“You know this one?”he asked her.
“Yes,” she replied happily.
I watched.For a moment.As they began to dance, I realized I couldn’t do this.I might have sat through watching Calvin with other girls a million times, but it had never felt like this.I had enough pain in my life.I wasn’t adding to it.I didn’t want to care.I shouldn’t care.But I did, and there it was.I had feelings for Forge.Beyond a crush, I was afraid.
“I, uh … excuse me,” I said to Wayon, barely glancing at him before getting up and going straight to the door.Not chancing a look around.
I wanted inside, locked away in my room.Far away from this torture.
I could feel eyes on me the second I walked inside.Trying not to draw attention, I did my best fake smile and briefly made eye contact with a few as I continued through the room.Cressida wasn’t the only concerned face I met, but also Winslet’s.Hopefully, they would leave me alone for the evening.Explaining this to anyone wasn’t happening.I would deal with it and find a way to get over it.I had to.
Twenty-Seven
Forge
“Forge,” Lula Mae whined when I stopped dancing to watch where the fuck Elsie was going.
When she didn’t stop in the great room, I turned to Wayon.
“What did you do?”I asked him through clenched teeth.
He pointed at his chest.“Me?You think that was about me?”He laughed then, as if this was somehow funny.“That was about you,” he replied, pointing at me now, then wagging his finger at both Lula Mae and me.“Or rather, the two of you.”
“Did you say something to her?”I demanded.
