Page 133 of The Right Kind of Wrong

Holland rolled her eyes and laughed. “Oh my god. You two are just the cutest.”

No one had ever referred to Monroe as cute. Especially not Monroe in a relationship.

Not that she was in a relationship with Blake. Only yesterday had she gotten herself to the place where she could admit she actually wanted to date Blake.

But that was the natural progression, she supposed, if things kept going well. If Blake didn’t get tired of the fact that Monroe was twenty-eight going on sixteen when it came to her ability to communicate effectively.

She’d thought that she was being so mature, being honest with Blake from the beginning when she’d said decidedly that she wanted to keep things simple. Needed to keep them simple.

The reality was, it was just a way for her to absolve herself of the responsibility that came with going deeper with Blake.

Just because they weren’t calling it something didn’t mean they hadn’t kept moving forward. Flirting. Kissing. Sleeping together.

Honestly, Monroe wasn’t even sure what the order of operations should be.

And that was all outside of the emotional relationship going deeper. Letting Blake in. Relying on her. Feeling comforted just by her presence.

Not in this moment, though.

In this moment, Blake’s face, body language, whole vibe, really, shifted. She stared toward the door, wide-eyed, and her hand was suddenly clammy in Monroe’s.

Monroe followed Blake’s eyeline to where Noah had just walked in the door, flanked by two other men. He was swaggering with all the pomp and circumstance of Cypress Falls’ Second Coming, complete with little spurs on his cowboy boots that Monroe could tell had never seen a speck of dirt.

Gag.

“We can ignore him,” Holland supplied, as Blake’s hand squeezed Monroe’s even harder.

It was so fucking unfair that Blake had to put up with him. Watch him walk around like he could do no wrong.

And even if there was nothing, reasonably, that Monroe could do to put him in his place, she wished desperately that that wasn’t the case.

More than that, she knew Blake very likely wouldn’t want her to do anything overt anyway.

She’d have to subsist on the feeling of satisfaction that still rolled through her whenever she thought about dunking his ass at the Fourth of July fireworks.

Blake was healing from her relationship wounds where Noah was concerned in her own time, and the most important thing Monroe could do was show her the same support that had already been given to her.

“We can also leave,” she told Blake, squeezing her hand gently as she caught her frantic stare.

“I wish I didn’t feel like this whenever I saw him. And it’s not because⁠—”

“Hey,” Monroe cut in softly. “I know that it’s not. No one wants to have to see the person who treated them terribly. Especially prancing around in all his flat-assed glory.”

Just like Monroe had hoped, that earned the smallest of smiles from Blake.

With the way Slider’s floor plan was set up, the front doors opened into a large room. In the back, against the side wall, was the bar, which, during the day, was the café counter. The band was to the right of the entrance, with a makeshift dance floor starting to spill out into the seating area.

Where Blake, Monroe, and Holland sat, high-top tables dotted the area in two straight rows, with their own against the left-hand wall, halfway back.

If Monroe understood Noah like she thought she did, he would almost certainly walk through the throngs of people swaying to the music since it gave him the best chance to be seen by all his admirers.

Monroe wondered if most people in this town hated Noah as much as she did. It wasn’t hard for her to believe that they did. She was sure that, if he had something to gain—or, hell, maybe just for the fun of it—he’d fuck anyone over without thinking twice.

Look what he’d done to his own wife. And that was someone he had supposedly vowed to love and cherish.

Asshole.

“Of course he’s coming this way,” Holland said, clearly annoyed.