“Hey, guys. Gloria wanted to join us for pizza, so do you want to stop playing with yourselves?”
We both turned to face the women, but I didn’t miss the way Ice gently nudged the door closed again, leaving it flush with the wall and invisible once more.
“You’re showing me later,” he murmured as he stepped out from behind me.
“Hi Gloria. I’m Ice, one of Henley’s club brothers. We uh… brought a few things, so hopefully you like something we have here?” He didn’t even hesitate, going straight to lifting theboxes and reading out what the contents were; Meat Explosion, Chicken Supreme, Hawaiian… wtf. Hawaiian?
“Who the hell eats pineapple on pizza, you sicko?!” I blurted, setting Ice and Lissa off laughing, but the great part? The part that made a glimmer of hope appear among the shards of what used to be my heart? Glory laughed too. She fucking laughed.
As soon as she realised I was watching her, she ducked her head again, that damn hair hiding her face. The urge to fucking grab it and tuck it over her ear was literally making my hand twitch, but a quick tutting sound from Lissa made me back off. An almost imperceptible head shake from her when I glanced up was more than fucking clear to me. Hands off. Don’t spook her.
We settled around the table, after I bustled around getting plates, napkins, and drinks, and started tucking into pizza. As it turned out, Gloria liked everything they’d brought along, and insisted on starting with the Hawaiian, since none of us even liked it. I swear she never used to like it before, but the second she took a bite, I saw her wince. Was it too hot? Was it too disgusting?
She grimaced as she swallowed, and that was it for me.
“Jesus fuck, Glory, don’t eat that shit.”
“Henley! Leave her to eat what she wants.”
I pointed at the way she was woodenly chewing at it. “She doesn’t fucking like it. Is this what he was like? Did he force you to eat stuff you don’t fucking like?!” I snatched the whole pizza away, folding the box closed as she dropped the slice on her plate.
“Henley, take a breath and put the pizza down,” Lissa practically ordered, and as I obeyed, because apparently that’s what I do now, I caught Ice’s smirk.
I sat back down, and took a deep breath. “I’m sorry, Glory, it’s just… eat the ones you love, please. I just want you to enjoy things again.”
Lissa delicately mopped at her mouth. “It’s not about what you want, Henley. This is about Gloria. Hey,” she caught Glory’s attention, “what say we load up our plates and go sit in the other room to girl talk? Away from all this testosterone.”
Gloria nodded hesitantly and picked up a single slice of pizza. One fucking slice. My mouth opened, as I reached for the boxes, and it slammed shut again at a glare from Lissa.
“We can always come back for more.”
They left the room and I fell back against the seat with a groan.
“I’m just fucking everything up.”
Ice grabbed another slice of the meaty pizza. “I mean, we’re men. We get tons of shit wrong. That’s why Lissa’s around. She fixes what we fuck up.”
“I’m pretty sure that’s not her job.”
He shrugged.
“Just saying, she’s done a lot of good at the club. More of our brothers speak to her than I ever thought possible. Even the really meatheaded ones are talking shit out with her. So yeah, let Lissa do her thing, but if you think for one minute she isn’t the boss of everyone in this house, you’re so fucking delusional. My woman owns every room she’s in. It’s sexy, really. This one time, she was so bossy with Reacher, that I had to drag her back into the-”
“Okayyyy… why don’t I show you the basement?”
“I thought you’d never ask, man.” The shit-eating grin on his face told me he set the trap, and I blundered into it, but what the hell. Clearly there were no secrets from the nosy bastard anyway.
Gloria
Iliked Lissa, andnot just because she was the only other woman in the house right now, and certainly not because she was up front about the fact that she was a damn therapist. No. It was the fact that she seemed to calm down everyone around her. She had a kind of ethereal serenity that I couldn’t get enough of.
She sat down on the leather sofa with her plate, and waited for me to do the same. It was strange to be comfortable sitting so close to a stranger, but she only gave off good vibes. If it was some kind of therapist trick to make me talk, it just might work.
“Men can be so pigheaded, I swear,” she said first, watching me as I set my plate aside. My appetite was gone, even though the pizza smelled so good.
“He wasn’t wrong,” I whispered, eyeing the doorway fearfully to check Nate wasn’t hovering.
“Henley?”
