Collide (The Barker Triplets 2)

“Did you and Bobbi have a fight?”

“What?” He shook his head. “No.” He frowned. “At least I don’t think so.”

“You don’t think so?” Logan cracked another egg into a large red bowl. “How can you not know if you’ve had a fight? Shit, I look at Billie the wrong way and I hear about it instantly.”

“Excuse me,” Billie glanced over her shoulder. “It’s my duty as the girlfriend to let you know when you’re wrong.”

Logan cracked another egg. “Babe, I’m never wrong.”

“Really,” Billie said dryly, a slight smile on her face as she stared down into her mug. “So yesterday when you said that Easter Sunday was next week and I told you that no, it was in fact today, you weren’t wrong?”

“I was wrong on purpose.”

Billie rolled her eyes. “Wrong on purpose.”

“Yep.” Logan threw some cheese into the bowl and grabbed the milk off the counter, though his eyes kept straying to the woman across from Shane. “Wrong. On. Purpose.”

Billie’s face split into a soft smile. “And why would you want to be wrong on purpose

?”

Logan began to whisk the eggs, his grin as wide as the Grand Canyon. “Why else? Make up sex is the best, don’t you think?”

Billie glanced back at Logan, and Shane looked away, his gaze on the window. On the blue sky and bright sunlight. On anything other than the two of them.

Billie hopped off her chair—he saw the reflection in the window—and crossed the kitchen until she stood behind Logan and rested her cheek against his back.

Logan continued to make their breakfast and the two of them continued to talk, their voices low and intimate.

Something so powerful stirred inside him, that Shane dropped his head into his hands and stared down into his coffee mug. What was it exactly? Want? Need? Jealousy?

He realized in that moment that he and Bobbi couldn’t go on with the way things had been over the last month or so. How could they? He loved the woman more now, than he had before, and when she decided not to come home because she was tired, it was a goddamn problem.

A problem that he needed to fix.

“So, Shane, are you going to tell us what’s going on?” Billie was still attached to Logan, her grin crazy silly as she snuggled into his back.

“Bobbi didn’t come home last night.” He said the words without thinking and grimaced when Logan laughed—a loud chuckle that he was sure half of New Waterford heard.

“Christ, are you in trouble, Gallagher,” Logan managed to get out between the loud chuckling.

“She was cleaning up the kitchen when I left so maybe she was just tired and slept over?” Billie said hopefully.

“That’s what she said.”

“Oh, okay, so you’ve talked to her.” Billie took a step toward him. “You’re not fighting.”

“I wouldn’t know.” Shane said roughly, his mood once again dark. “She sent me a text message. I hate fucking text messages. They’re for goddamn teenagers.”

“Oh,” Billie said, her hand moving to her nose.

“Damn, are you in trouble,” Logan interjected, unaware that Billie had turned ten shades of pale.

“No shit,” Shane replied, though his eyes widened in concern. Billie did not look good.

“Oh,” Billie said again. “Crap,” she giggled nervously. “I don’t feel so good.”

“Hey,” Logan whirled around and grabbed her by the waist. “Shit, Billie, you look like you’re gonna—”