“I won’t argue that, but Hutch, we’re not entering utopia here. There’s going to be arguments. Hell, with Sawyer and Reggie in the same house? You’re talking two bulldogs who don’t know the meaning of the words ‘back down.’ You can’t let it get to you.”
He leaned further toward Hutch. “And I’ll tell you something else. You can’t worry about my relationship with Reggie or Sawyer’s with Reggie. You can’t make it right for the rest of us. We’ll fuck up, but you can’t go around picking up the pieces of other people’s mistakes.”
“Yeah, I got you,” Hutch said in a low voice. “I just don’t want to screw this up, Cam. I don’t think we’ll get another chance.”
Cam swallowed against the panic caused by Hutch’s resigned statement. It mirrored his own thoughts too precisely. No, he didn’t think they’d get another chance if they screwed this one up. But damn it, Reggie had to be willing to meet them halfway.
Sawyer ran through another repetition of curls before he finally set the weights down. His chest heaved with exertion and sweat soaked his clothing. Work out. Yeah, this was supposed to help burn off the frustration, right?
All he’d gotten for his time was a good case of exhaustion and a need for a shower. Two of them.
He headed for the locker room to scrub the dozen layers of sweat from his body.
He shouldn’t have popped off at Reggie like that, but damn, she made it hard. Stubborn as a pack mule. He ought to know. They were two peas in a pod. Which is why they butted heads so damn much.
He rested his arm on the shower wall and laid his forehead against his wrist as the water sluiced over his back. Reggie going back to her job. Her house. Her life. Without them?
What about her promise to stay? To try and work things out? Or had they just been a temporary diversion?
No, Reggie wasn’t like that. She might be scared to death, but she wouldn’t use them like that. Not intentionally.
He scrubbed his body and rinsed then stepped out of the shower to towel off. His muscles ached like a son of a bitch, but at least he was a little calmer now.
Bolting like that was probably a bad idea, but if he would’ve stayed, things would have just gotten tenser. They didn’t need more tension. There was already enough of that simmering between them all.
He didn’t know whether to kiss her senseless or kick her ass. Both options held a certain appeal.
Stubborn, ornery, beautiful woman. Mouthy, sassy, sexy-as-hell wench.
What would he ever do without her?
He didn’t want to find out. He’d already spent way too much time away from her. Not by his choice, but at some point, it all had to end. Whether they decided to give it a go or they said to hell with it and went their separate ways.
As much as the latter tore a hole in his gut, he couldn’t go on this way, hoping and reaching for something that might never happen.
“Mountain out of a molehill,” he muttered as he climbed into his truck.
It was one frickin’ argument. Not the end of the world. The day he and Reggie stopped bickering would be the day they buried one of them. Yeah, he’d overreacted, but so had she. Not that it was anything new.
He drove home knowing he’d have to eat some serious crow, but then wasn’t that what life with a woman was all about? He grinned. Men humbled themselves all the time at the altar of woman. If they didn’t, the population would have died off a long time ago.
When he pulled into the driveway, he noticed the house was mostly dark. Probably all went to bed without him. He tried real hard not to be jealous of the fact that Reggie was probably all tucked in between Cam and Hutch or that they’d probably already screwed her six ways to Sunday.
“Down, boy,” he muttered as his dick surged to attention.
But when he walked into the darkened living room, he saw that Reggie wasn’t upstairs with Cam and Hutch. She was curled up on the couch asleep. In just a T-shirt. Had she waited up for him?
All smart-ass remarks aside, the idea that his woman had waited up for him sent a bolt of pure pleasure through his veins. Humbling himself at her feet didn’t seem quite as bad as it had a few minutes ago.
He dropped his gym bag on the floor and walked over to where she lay.
He knelt beside her and trailed a finger down her arm. Little goose bumps puckered and jumped up on her skin in the wake of his touch.
She stirred and did one of those little sleepy snuggles that he loved so much. Of course he liked it a lot better when she’d done it on top of him. But damn, she looked so darn cute. Sweet even.
Well she damn sure wasn’t going to sleep down here, and if Cam and Hutch had been dumb enough to let her sleep alone, that was their problem. He was taking her to bed with him.
He slid his arms underneath her and hoisted her up. She landed against his chest with a soft thud, and he stood there a moment, just enjoying the feel of her warm body all tucked up against his.
