I wasn’t petty enough to wish he’d fall. “Great.”
“I came by after—”
“I know.” I bit my lip, then added, “Thank you. For checking up on me.”
He smiled.
I hadn’t meant that as an opening.
I started to turn when he asked, “Got any plans for the weekend?” His green eyes glowed in the dimly lit room, made even dimmer by the heavily falling snow beyond the picture window.
“Get your own date, Grant. Nikki’s mine tonight.” Adalyn pushed a cold beer bottle into my hands while giving my ex the stink eye. Where I was disappointed by how it had ended, Adalyn was downright hostile.
Grant’s mouth pressed into a tight line that accentuated the oval of his face. “Always nice to see you too, Adalyn.”
She flipped him the bird, then held out her beer to me. “To getting rid of deadweights.”
“Ads,” I whispered, wanting to nip their surliness in the bud before either of them could shift and go at each other’s throats.
“Oops. I stole your toast, Grant.”
“Screw you, Reeves.”
The conversations around us quieted, and I assumed it was because of Adalyn and Grant, but then I noticed people looking over my head.
I followed their line of sight to Nash, Niall, and Liam.
“Out. Get out, you fucking lowlife.” Nash’s voice was crisper than the air outside.
Grant snorted as his chair legs clipped the slate tile flooring. “We were done anyway.” He got up, then nodded at Jared and Cane, who didn’t look done but who rose in solidarity. Before leaving, his palm closed around the top rung of my chair, and he leaned toward me to murmur, “The way I feel about your brothers and Adalyn doesn’t change the way I feel about you, Nik.”
I wanted to tell him that how he felt about me ultimately didn’t matter since we were never getting back together, but I hated public drama, so instead of saying anything, I nibbled my bottom lip until he was gone, and the noise level had returned to normal.
Nash watched me as he took the seat beside Adalyn’s, and I sensed the question twirling behind his azure irises, the one of whether I might be reconsidering Grant. I shook my head.
“Thank fuck.” It was Niall who spoke. I was guessing the youngest of my four brothers had gathered Nash’s query and my silent answer.
We were all so finetuned to each other that although we didn’t possess a mind link like Nash and Adalyn, we could often surmise what the other was thinking.
Niall dropped into the seat next to Nash and right away started chatting up his neighbor, a female shifter Nate’s age.
As Liam took the seat beside mine, I scanned the mess hall. “Is Nate coming too?”
“He went home early.”
“My parents’ place, or his?”
“His. He’s taking the breakup badly.”
“He and Bea were together for three years. Almost four.” Part of me still hoped their relationship was salvageable. I’d hesitated to send her a message today, but in the end, decided not to meddle. At least, not yet.
Adalyn stuck her already empty beer bottle on the walnut tabletop as Sasha came to take our order. “Actually, you guys need to find other seating. These were reserved. Right, Sasha?”
Color rose into Sasha’s neck before painting his jaw and cheeks a shade of red that rivaled his hair. “Um. Well.” His gaze flicked to Liam.
Telling my brothers to take a hike was painful, but his Alpha . . . inconceivable.
Before he could burst a capillary, I put him out of his misery. “It’s fine, Ads.”
