“You haven’t had sex in a year?” she asked in complete disbelief.
“Not once.”
“Because of me?” she whispered.
“Because you’re the only chick I want.” I bent my knees so that we were on a more even eye level. “Because I—”
“You got any beer?” Sin grumbled as he walked into the kitchen.
I jerked my head around to glare at him. His eyes barely flickered at finding me like this with Kassa.
“We’re out,” I snarled.
“I’m not picky. I’ll take a soda.” He opened the fridge, which was right beside where we were standing, and removed a can of Diet Coke.
Kassa ducked under my arm, leaving me standing there with my dick so hard that I could have hammered railroad spikes with it. “I-I have to go,” she muttered in a voice that slightly shook. “I’m meeting Angie and Jenna to get my nails done.”
“Kassa, we’re not done talking.” I tried to catch her hand, wanting to keep her with me so we could finish this conversation, but she quickly moved away.
“We are for now.” She gave Sin a smile and squeezed his arm as she left the room.
As the door shut behind her, I turned to glare at my friend. “Did you not see that we were in the middle of an important discussion?”
“You mean you finally stopped being a pussy and were telling the girl how you feel?” Sin leaned back against the counter where Kassa had just been standing and took a drink of his Diet Coke before shrugging. “Sorry, bro. Didn’t realize.”
TWENTY THREE
Kassa
The Vietnamese woman working on my toes spoke to her sister, who was sitting beside her in another small rolling chair, the two of them working on Angie’s and my feet. I couldn’t understand a single word she was saying but somehow knew she was talking about us. The one painting Angie’s toes kept laughing at whatever her sister was saying and nodding.
It was the same thing they did every time I came into this nail salon with my friends, but it amused more than annoyed me. I could only imagine what they were saying about us though, considering so
me of the conversations I’d had with any number of my friends in this salon. They probably had enough subject matter to talk about us for decades to come.
“Are you packed for the tour?” Jenna asked from where she was sitting at one of the twelve other nail stations, getting her hands massaged by a grumpy-looking older lady. Grumpy she might have been, but that old lady gave the best damn hand massages and was the real reason I kept coming back to this particular nail salon.
“Mostly. Half the things I pack, though, Gray hangs back in my closet.” Which was annoying as hell, but kind of cute in a way. He had turned into an even bigger Neanderthal over the last year where I was concerned, and I liked it, even if I sometimes pretended I didn’t to get on his nerves.
More and more lately, it had gotten out of hand though. He was only two steps away from beating on his chest—or beating Travis in the face. I hadn’t realized that I had been sending the road manager signals until he had commented on letting me share his roost with him on the bus. That Gray hadn’t done something then and there had shown me that he was trying to be good, if for no other reason than to make me happy.
What had happened in the kitchen when I had followed after him, however, was beyond anything I had ever expected. Sure, Gray had dropped subtle hints over the last few weeks that he wanted things to change between us, but I didn’t trust him to not pull a one-eighty all over again. If I gave in this time and he did decide he only wanted us to be friends, then I didn’t know what I was going to do, because I couldn’t do that all over again. I couldn’t push down what I felt for him, fight everything inside me that wanted to be with him, and just accept being his friend. So I had pretended not to notice those hints he was dropping.
But I couldn’t ignore what he had said earlier, and I wondered what the hell he had been about to say before Sin had interrupted us. As curious as I was, however, that wasn’t even close to outweighing how scared I was to explore this with him again. Fuck, yeah, sure, I wanted him so badly that it hurt to breathe at times, and there were nights when I spent a little extra time in the shower because I couldn’t go another minute without easing the ache deep between my legs. But I’d had to reprogram my body and my heart after he had rejected me the last time so that I only let him and the rest of the world see that I loved him as a friend and not as the man I had once seen myself growing old with.
“Kick him in the balls and tell him to mind his own business,” Angie advised. “You’re a grown woman and can wear whatever the hell you want.”
“Truth,” Jenna agreed.
“We’ve already had that conversation, at least a hundred times. Trust me when I say, it doesn’t work.”
“I don’t get why women like alpha males so much,” Jenna said with a frown, making her blue-gray eyes darken.
I bit my lip to keep from grinning at her. Jenna didn’t get the alpha male thing because she was a lesbian. She was an alpha in her own right though. Anyone who spent more than an hour with her could easily see that.
“Alphas are hot,” Angie defended. “I like when they take charge and want to take care of those they love.”
I lifted an eyebrow at her. “Then you understand why I put up with Gray.”