Maybe I wanted proof he could still bleed.
Maybe I wanted him to stop making me the only one drowning.
“Bad idea,” Ryan said from the island, his voice even.
I didn’t look at him.
Easton did. “Switzerland has an opinion?”
Ryan’s mouth flattened. “Switzerland knows when both armies are about to be idiots.”
Briggs stepped farther into the kitchen, uncharacteristically serious. “Easton, take a walk.”
“No.”
Cade’s attention sharpened. “Don’t make me agree with Briggs this early in the night.”
Easton ignored them and looked at Gage. “Move.”
Gage lifted both hands. “I’m not trying to get in the middle of anything.”
“You put your hand on her in front of me. That put you in the middle.”
“She let me.”
Easton’s jaw flexed once.
I smiled because I was sick enough to enjoy it. “Funny how consent works when men listen.”
The words hit him wrong.
I knew it the moment his face changed.
Bliss whispered, “Aura, stop.”
Easton stepped toward me. “You want to talk about listening?”
I lifted my chin. “I want to talk about you acting like you own the air around me.”
His laugh was quiet and brutal. “I don’t own anything around you. I learned that lesson.”
“Then why are you staring at his hand like you want to break it?”
“Because he’s stupid enough to touch a loaded gun and not have the balls to pull the trigger.”
Gage muttered, “I am seriously reconsidering my involvement.”
“Then leave,” Charm said, her voice sweet and poisonous without her eyes leaving mine.
Gage looked at her and then at Ryan, and for some baffling reason, Ryan’s expression darkened when Charm spoke to Gage like that.
It was the smallest shift, a tightening around his mouth and a flicker of attention sharp enough to cut through the mess for half a second.
Charm noticed. Bliss caught her noticing, and somehow I clocked all of it without taking my eyes off Easton because apparently emotional carnage could multitask.
“You’ve had Brinley hanging off you all night,” I said. “But Gage touches my waist and suddenly we’re discussing loaded guns?”
Brinley straightened. “Excuse me?”
