Her Best Men

“Enough, you two,” Blake said as he got between them. “Holy hell, the two of you are hotheads. The old man and the baby. Harper could write a book on this shit.”

“I really could,” Harper said.

“Stop acting like children,” Blake said. “This isn’t about us. It’s about Kyra and what she’s going through.”

“We can’t just let her go back to that fucking asshole, Blake,” Rowan said. “He treated her like shit. She wouldn’t have left otherwise. We don’t need her to talk about it for us to see the look on her beautiful fucking face when we ask her to talk.”

“She’s a grown woman, Rowan,” Harper said. “She’ll do whatever she wishes.”

“Obviously,” I said.

r /> “Don’t you fucking dare,” Rowan said as he stuck his finger in my face. “What we all did with her was wonderful. None of us can deny that. But just like we don’t wanna fucking address it, she doesn’t want to, either. She’s probably petrified she’s fucked up something. You know how Kyra is.”

“She made us all believe she was free,” I said. “I don’t know about you guys but I’m not about fucking some other dude’s woman.”

“I believe her,” Harper said. “And we don’t know what they were talking about in that diner. For all we know, he was begging for her back and she was telling him no. We just don’t know. Do you know, Owen?”

Everyone turned toward me and all I could do was shake my head. I hadn’t heard anything, only seen. I saw the way she let him take her hand. I saw the way he was manipulating the fuck out of her. I saw the way she looked at him, both wary and with this pondering look in her eye.

Like she was considering taking him the hell back.

“Nah, I didn’t hear anything,” I said.

“Then we all need to settle down,” Blake said. “And just talk to her when she comes to us.”

“But what if she doesn’t ever fucking come to us?” Rowan asked. “We’re in this now. We deserve answers.”

“In her time, yes,” Blake said.

“The fuck does that mean, ‘in her time’?” Rowan asked.

“It means we don’t fucking pressure her, Rowan,” Blake said. “That’s what the fuck it means.”

“Oh, so now you wanna get on the aggressive train, Mr. Peacekeeper?” Rowan asked. “Mr. I Gotta Be The Good Guy? Mr. I Gotta Solve Everyone’s Problems?”

“Why don’t you shut the fuck up and talk about why you’re really pissed?” Blake asked. “And that’s the fact that she won’t talk to any of us.”

“No, I think we all need to talk about the other night and figure out where we all stand with it,” Harper said.

“I say we kill that asshole while he’s in town,” Ethan said.

“Don’t you fucking joke about taking someone’s life,” Chance said.

“You’d fucking know, wouldn’t you?” Ethan asked.

Chance raised his fist at Ethan and Blake stepped into the middle as the doorbell rang. I took a deep breath and stalked out of the kitchen, leaving those assholes to tear each other to shreds. What was happening was insane. We all deserved answers and I was determined to keep an eye out for Kyra and catch her before she got home.

But when I opened the front door and saw her standing there, I was rooted to my place with shock.

My chest flared up with hurt. My heart felt like it was being squeezed in a vice and beaten with a hammer all at the same time. I didn’t see a ring on her hand but I did see guilt in her eyes and that could’ve only meant one thing.

That she was about to disappoint us.

“Could I… um… maybe… come in?” she asked.

Never in my life had I seen Kyra this nervous around me, or any of us, for that matter. Even though I was aching at the idea that she was gonna take that shithead back, I still wanted to wrap her up in my warmth and keep her safe. I wanted her to know that everything was going to be okay. I wanted her to know that she was strong and graceful and too fucking good for that manipulative, conniving asshole.

But seeing her with another man after what we’d just done two nights ago prevented me from scooping her up the way my soul screamed for me to do.