It feels like an intervention, and I don’t like it. Still, once I note them all blocking me in, my eyes move back to Willa.
The worst part is that as I watch her tip her head back and laugh, hands holding Wren’s, I don’t think I’ve ever seen her look more beautiful. Her hair is half down, the top half braided and knotted at the back of her head, the rest flowing down her back in loose waves instead of her normal severe ponytail. She’sin a light blue outfit, the end of it just barely touching the top of her tight white shorts with a brown belt. When she twirls, the bottom lifts, showing a sliver of her tanned, toned stomach.
I could lie and say I haven’t been watching, haven’t been keeping track every time Wren spins her out for a glimpse at it, but I’d be lying.
Fuck, I’m pretty sure every single man in this place is doing the same, a fact that makes that familiar irritation brew in my chest.
“You have to stop looking like you’re constipated every time you see her,” Hallie says.
“I don’t?—”
“You totally do,” Madden says, coming over to our growing group.
“I give him a month before she’s over his shoulder,” Nat says, sipping a drink from a thin straw, a smile on her full lips.
“A month?” Hallie says, disbelief in her words. “I give it two weeks.”
“Nah, six, at least. He’s still too far in denial,” Jesse says. Hallie looks over her shoulder, raising one perfectly arched eyebrow at her fiancé.
“Unlike you?” He grins, pulling her further into him and pressing a kiss to the top of her head.
“Unlike me. I was long gone for you well before I carried you out of here.”
“Adam only took, like, two weeks,” Nat says, and somehow, my confusion only grows deeper.
“Yeah, but the first time he did it, they didn’t fuck after. So does it count?” Hallie says, seemingly to genuinely wonder.
“Can we not talk about my sister getting fucked?” Madden asks, face a bit green.
“Are you all out of your fucking minds?” I ask, interrupting the strange conversation.
“You get used to it,” Adam says with a sigh from the other side of the table. “But they’re right: you gotta stop glaring at her. It’s getting weird.” I try to school my face, then finally turn away from the women dancing.
“I’m just worried. She’s lived a sheltered life. She’s never been drunk to my knowledge.”
Hallie tips her head before challenging me.
“You know, she wasn’t even drinking earlier,” Hallie says, a smile in her words. “When you came in? She was nursing a soda.” I turn to her, confused, and a wide grin spreads across her lips, like she’s greatly enjoying dropping this bombshell. “But you came in, went all crazy caveman, argued with her, and essentially pushed her hand.”
My eyes widen, and I move to stand, deciding then and there that this stupid game needs to end, but Hallie’s hand moves to my arm, gripping with surprising strength and forcing me to sit back down.
“If you go over there and tell her to leave, she’s just going to fight you harder, do exactly what you tell her she can’t do. She’s like a teenager with her first taste of freedom,” Nat says, and even though I want to, I can’t argue with her logic: I’ve seen it play out a few times already.
“She’s having fun, Leo. There are four completely sober men watching her every move and committed to keeping her safe, and Colt won’t let anything bad happen here. You said it yourself: she’s lived for the brand most of her life. She’s never been free to have fun, to explore. This is a safe place for that to happen.”
“She’s safe here, Leo. This is the best place for her to let loose. She can’t live her entire life cooped up. She needs to have the opportunity to live.”
I sigh, then lean back and cross my arms on my chest. “You’re kind of good at this,” I say begrudgingly.
“My brother’s a bartender,” she says as if that explains everything, then lifts a shoulder. “And my mom didn’t love me.”
“Jesus, Hal, you can’t just dump that on people,” Jesse says with an exasperated sigh, but he’s still smiling, as if this entertains him. She turns to her fiancé, a fierce look on her face.
“Why not? It’s the truth!” She seems strangely okay with this information, and I have to wonder if it’s some kind of inside joke. Hallie turns her assessing gaze back to me. “And because of it, it just means I can see damaged people a mile away. You and Willa? My people.”
“My parents love me,” I argue.
“But…?” Her ability to read people is actually alarming. “I can smell a but.” I roll my eyes and sigh.
