One of the Guys (15 page)

She gave him an innocent look. “About what? The phone? You disappearing?” 108

One of the Guys

“Where’s Jaynie?” he demanded through clenched teeth. He hadn’t raised a hand to his sister since he was twelve and she was seven. He’d punched her in the arm for losing his baseball and their mom had tanned his hide. Since then, he hadn’t ever lifted a hand against a woman in anger, but in that moment he was tempted to grab Kate and shake her until her teeth rattled.

Kate blinked. “Jaynie? She’s out looking for you.”

“No, I’m not.”

They turned as one to stare at Jaynie. She stood in the doorway, staring at Brian with unreadable eyes. Yeah, he was sure of it. His heart had stopped. There was blood on her shirt. For a minute, he forgot the pain slicing through him and he went to her, looking for injuries. “What happened? How did you get hurt—did Dean…?” She glanced down at her shirt and then back at him. Behind them, Kate quietly left the room, slipping outside. “The blood isn’t mine,” she said, her voice flat. “It’s Dean’s.”

“Dean’s?” He glanced back, looking for Kate only to hear her car engine start out in the driveway. “Kate said something about an emergency room.” Jaynie shrugged. “Kate exaggerates, you know that.”

“What is she exaggerating about?”

“Does it matter?” she asked softly. Then she looked away. “I didn’t invite Dean over here, Brian. I didn’t even want him here.” The anger came flooding back. “Could have fooled me.” He turned around and headed for the kitchen. On the way there, he ripped the bag off the bottle of whiskey and opened it. He grabbed a glass from the dish rack, making a pointed effort not to look at the island. Had it been just yesterday when Jaynie had looked up at him from there and whispered,
I trust you
?

Well, technically, it hadn’t been yesterday, since it was after midnight. He smirked a little and muttered, “Yeah, makes all the difference.” He splashed whiskey into the juice glass and then threw it back, hissing as it burned a path down to his belly.

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“What makes the difference?” Jaynie asked.

He glared at her. “Nothing,” he snarled. He poured some more whiskey into the glass and carried it and the bottle over to the kitchen table. “I’m trying to get drunk here, Jaynie. So why don’t you go on home?”

“Not until we talk.” She reached out, snagged the bottle of whiskey and then backtracked before he could grab it back.

“I’m in no mood to
talk
, Jaynie.” He shoved up from the table with a force that sent the chair flying. “Give it back.”

Coolly, she said, “No.” She turned away from him and went over to the counter where he’d dropped the bottle’s screw-top lid. He stalked over, intent on grabbing it from her but then he saw her right hand.

Her very ugly, very swollen right hand. The skin of her knuckles had split and it didn’t look like she’d cleaned the blood away. He stilled, staring at her battered hand, watched as she tried to pick the lid up only to wince and drop it back down onto the counter. “What happened to your hand?”

She shot him a narrow look. “I punched Dean.”

“That looks a little worse than just one punch.” She shrugged. He watched as she moved over to the refrigerator and filled a cup with ice. She carried the cup of ice to the island and took one of the hand towels that hung from pegs on the side. Awkwardly, she dumped the ice onto the towel, making an ice pack for her hand. “I didn’t hit him once.” A memory flashed through his head, Dean following Jaynie around the corner of the house as Brian pulled away, his face bright red with blood. A busted nose tended to bleed a lot—and splatter. Could explain the blood on Jaynie’s shirt. “I saw him kissing you,” he said, his voice stilted. “I saw him with his arms around you and you didn’t do a damn thing.”

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“He didn’t kiss me,” she corrected. “He tried, and I hit him.” She slid him another sidelong look and asked, “You didn’t see that part, did you?” He didn’t answer as he tried to figure out if he had been that big a fool.

Jaynie’s voice was soft as she asked, “You don’t have much faith in me, do you?” He glanced at her, startled. Affronted, he snapped, “What in hell would you think if you walked in and saw somebody you’re crazy about holding another woman?” Then he smirked. “Wait a second, that’s how we ended up here, isn’t it? You saw Dean with Kit and ended up jumping in bed with me. Oh, wait…let’s not forget the third party. I never did hear his name.”

Blood stained her cheeks pink. “So you know that part too, huh?” He gave her a mean smile. “Yeah. I know that part too. So was that a new thing for him? Is three a crowd for you?”

Jaynie opened her mouth to reply but she didn’t say anything right away. She turned away from him and Brian hoped that maybe, just maybe, she’d leave him in peace so he could get drunk.

But she didn’t leave. Instead, she looked back at him and the look in her eyes was one that would haunt him. He knew it. “Do you remember when I was in college and you had to take me to the emergency room?”

Thrown a little off balance, Brian stared at her. What was this? What was she up to?

“Yeah. I remember.”
That night still gives me a bad turn when I think about it
. Of course, he didn’t mention that part. She already had too much power over him. No reason to add more.

“Dean had this idea that I’d be good for a threesome with him and one of his friends. I told Dean no. He’s the one who slipped me the roofie. So yeah, three definitely counts as a crowd for me.”

Brian stood up. Without saying a word, he grabbed his keys and headed for the front door.

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Shiloh Walker

“Where are you going?”

He looked back over his shoulder and said in a conversational tone, “I’m going to kill your ex.”

Jaynie slid past him and planted herself in front of him. “No. You’re not. He’s not worth it.”

“Oh, yes. I am. But don’t worry. This doesn’t mean I’m still expecting you to fall head over heels in love with me, Jaynie. You obviously want a guy who’s going to treat you like shit.”

She balled up her left hand. “You know, it’s going to be damn hard to work with two busted hands, but I’m willing to risk it.”

He bent down and caught her fist in his own. His hand all but swallowed hers. “Go ahead. Feel free. You’re safe, you know. I don’t hit women back—or drug them.”

“Brian…” She looked down at their hands and then back up at him. “What do you want me to say? I didn’t want Dean over here. I didn’t want him to kiss me. I didn’t let him kiss me and I don’t want him back.”

“Right now, what I want you to do is to get out of my way so I can go kill him. And then…hell, you do whatever the hell you want.”

“You’re not going to let this go, are you?”

Brian cocked a brow. “Killing him? No. I’m not going to let that go.” She waved a hand dismissively. “I’m not talking about that.” She gestured between them and said, “I’m talking about us.”

Us
. Now that she’d ripped his heart out, she was willing to talk about
us
. She hadn’t once tried to do it before, he thought bitterly.
You haven
’
t really either
,
a small voice inside his head whispered. But he ignored it. Women always wanted to talk about relationships, didn’t they? Since Jaynie didn’t seem too interested in talking about it, he hadn’t really figured she had much to say.

“There really is no us, is there, Jaynie?”

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One of the Guys

Her mouth fell open and even through his own rage and pain, he could see her pain reflected in her eyes. “So that’s it?” she asked, her voice hoarse. “Just like that?”
Not just like that
. He was going to hurt over her every day for the rest of his life.

But
—
but what
? That sane little voice inside him hammered at him.
But what
?
She
’
s the
one
.
And you
’
re walking away
.
You don
’
t even know why
.
She just said she wasn
’
t kissing him
.

She doesn
’
t love him
.

But there was another part of him arguing.
But she doesn
’
t love me either
.

Torn, he turned away from her and slumped against the wall. “You don’t know what this is doing to me,” he muttered.

“The hell I don’t. I didn’t see Dean trying to hug some girl—I found them together naked. You only saw Dean with his arms around me, for what…all of five seconds?

Don’t tell me I don’t know what this is doing to you. I’ve already been through it.”

“That being the case, maybe you could try to see where I’m coming from,” he said testily.

“I am!” she shouted, her temper erupting. “Damn it, your head is like a rock.” Brian scowled. “Yours isn’t any better, sugar. You spent ten fucking years with him!

What in the hell was I supposed to think? Shit, screw what.
How
was I supposed to think? It felt like I’d just been sucker punched.” She cocked her head. A slow smile curved her lips and she said, “Believe it or not, I understand that. Very much.” She sighed and started to say something but instead, she grabbed the whiskey bottle. She didn’t mess with a glass, just lifted it to her lips and drank. One deep drink that led to a coughing fit. When it passed, she took a second drink and then put the bottle down. “I’m going to tell you what I told Dean earlier. I’m done with him. I don’t care if I never see him again. I don’t really care about him one way or the other. When he showed up, I figured I might as well just get that point across. He apparently thought I invited him inside the apartment with something else in mind.”

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Shiloh Walker

Then she gave him a dejected look. “Even if you weren’t thinking too clearly about Dean showing up, do you really think I’d get involved with a married man?”

“No.” Now that much he could answer honestly and without even thinking about it. He had to touch her. The ugly knot in his chest had receded just a little and he thought he might be able to actually breathe again, though he wasn’t completely certain. Her hand gave him an easy excuse to touch her too. He reached out and took her battered hand, examining it. He deftly probed her knuckles, watching her face and pretending a professional interest. “That didn’t make much sense to me, but honestly, I wasn’t thinking about him and Kit. I was too busy thinking about the fact that you had spent the past ten years of your life with him. You got history.” She hissed as he probed her swollen hand. “Would you stop it?” she demanded.

“You need an X-ray.”

Jaynie shot him a baleful glance. “Gee, really?” Instead of responding, he led her back to the kitchen and left her at the table while he got the first-aid kit from the pantry. Inside were a few emergency ice packs. He found the biggest one and closed his fist around it, tightening his fingers until he felt the little
pop
. Almost immediately, it started to chill and then he turned and took her hand, laying the fresh ice pack along the top of it.

“So what happened?” he asked cautiously. Fifteen minutes ago that would have been the last thing he wanted to hear.

“What, you’re willing to listen to me now?”

He gave her a baleful look.

She shrugged jerkily. “I don’t know if he just wanted a trip down memory lane or what. I don’t really care. He tried to kiss me and I punched him. Then I heard you outside with Kate and I knew you’d seen something. I went after you and Dean followed me. He ran off at the mouth again and I ended up hitting him in the mouth that time.” She wiggled her fingers a little. “Ended up splitting my knuckles on his teeth.”

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One of the Guys

“And the roofie?” Brian wouldn’t have just split his knuckles on the bastard’s teeth.

He would have knocked them clear down Dean’s throat.

Her lids drooped, shielding her eyes from him, but still, he caught a glimpse of the wounded, betrayed look in them. “Figured it would loosen me up. He’s had the ménage fetish for a while now. I wasn’t interested and he wasn’t interested in me saying no.” Brian gritted his teeth. Oh, he was going to kill Dean. “And he just now mentioned this?”

She sneered at him. “Gee, do you think I would have stayed with him if I had known before this?” Gently, she tugged away from him and circled around the kitchen to avoid brushing past him.

“I didn’t mean for anything to happen between us, Brian. When I came to you that night, I was just looking for some comfort. Some reassurance. I never meant for anything like this to happen.” She stood with her back to him, her shoulders slumped and her head low.

Brian closed the distance between them, brought his hands up to rest on her shoulders. “Me, neither,” he murmured. “Does that mean you’re sorry we ended up here?”

She slanted him a look over her shoulder. “I don’t know yet. I—” she blew out a breath. “I have feelings for you that I hadn’t ever expected to have. But I just went through the wringer with Dean. I’m not ready for an emotional roller coaster.”

“Is that what we are?”

“What else would you call this?” she asked, her voice self-deprecating. “You saw one thing and overreacted. Does that mean you’re going to be the kind who gets jealous if I so much as speak to another guy?”

Brian tightened his hands on her shoulders. “Come on, Jaynie. Give me a break.” He blew out a breath and wished he could just undo the last four hours. Wipe them out of both their memories. “It isn’t like you were talking to some guy in the store or at work. Dean is the guy you spent ten years with—the guy you found cheating on you—

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and then you ended up in my bed. I know about rebound guys. I told myself that wasn’t what was going on but…”

She turned around to study him thoughtfully. “Then you show up and find him there.”