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Face Off

Page 266

by Melanie Walker

Lyric glances at Briggs. “Nothing happened.”

“I watched you put your number into his phone.”

“I’ve already explained that.”

“No. You gave it a word you thought would make me sound controlling if I questioned it.”

Her eyes narrow. “You are being controlling.”

Briggs recoils as though she struck him.

My anger sharpens into something clean and familiar. “No,” I say as I approach the bar. “He caught you giving your number to another man. Asking what the fuck you were doing is a reasonable question.”

“Stay out of this, Ryan.”

“I’ve tried. You make it difficult by being a piece of shit.”

“Ryan,” Briggs warns.

I look at him. “No. You don’t get to protect her from the consequences of what she does to you again.”

Lyric’s mouth opens, but I point at her before she speaks. “And you don’t get to turn this around on him. Answer the fucking question.”

“I did.”

“Then answer the one you avoided. Why did that guy believe you were available?”

Lyric looks toward the fire. Temple stands beside Rider with the blanket gathered around her shoulders and worry written across her face.

Lyric sees it too.

“Maybe Temple should learn to stop looking at taken men,” she says.

Temple blinks. “I was sharing a marshmallow.”

“You were throwing yourself at my boyfriend.”

Briggs’s expression hardens. “Don’t drag her into this.”

“Why? You’ve been staring at her all night.”

“She’s funny.”

“She’s pathetic.”

Temple stiffens.

Rider steps in front of her before she can answer. “Enough.”

Lyric’s gaze moves from him to me, and something ugly settles across her face. She knows she has lost control of Briggs. She knows every person surrounding her sees exactly what she did, and instead of facing it, she reaches for the sharpest weapon she can find.

“Taken men has never been her issue before,” she says. “Isn’t that right, Temple.”

The hand Charm still has wrapped around mine becomes perfectly still.

My voice lowers. “Be very careful.”

Lyric smiles and that is when I know she intends to do it. “Did he never tell you?” Lyric asks Charm. “Ryan and Temple fucked in Detroit in November.”