Ritual - Palm South University

Erin shoves his chest with a roll of her eyes, still smiling when she looks at me. “We met at therapy.”

The girls all laugh, and Amber holds up her glass to Gavin. “You had me going. I was leaning in like oh my God, what did she say to that?!”

“I was just about to start taking notes, see if I could pull the same stunt on Perfect Pam here,” Josh added, which made the group chuckle again. Well, except for Pam, who blushed and hid behind her hair.

And except for me, too, because I couldn’t find it in me to so much as smile.

“What are you in therapy for?”

The room goes silent at my question, and Becca pinches me under the table. “Bear,” she warns.

“Do you have to be in therapy for one specific reason?” Gavin asks, taking a sip of his wine, completely calm and cool and collected.

“Isn’t that kind of the point?”

“The goals of therapy differ greatly, depending on the person. It can be focused on healing, growing, resolving issues, surviving trauma.”

“So what’s yours?”

“Bear,” Erin says this time, her eyes wide.

“A little of everything, I suppose. Do you go to therapy, Bear?” Gavin asks.

“Of course not.”

“Oh, so you’re perfect? Nothing wrong with you at all, huh? No shit to work through, nothing holding you back from being your best self?”

I don’t have an answer to that, which makes me grip my glass harder as I lift it to my lips and drain the last of my beer.

“I think it’s great,” Becca says, somehow managing a smile when she finally peels her murderous glare away from me.

“Me, too,” Amber agrees. “And I think it’s awesome that you two met at your most vulnerable. Not a lot of people can say that, you know? We all play games when we first start dating. We hide who we really are in the name of being who we think the other person wants us to be.”

Becca sips her champagne silently, glancing at me with a sullen look in her eyes as Erin and Gavin smile at each other.

“It is pretty awesome,” Gavin agrees. “There’s a side of this girl that she doesn’t show to anyone but me. And I’ll admit, I’m a greedy bastard when it comes to that pile of gold.”

The girls visibly swoon, but I just grind my teeth, not able to hold back my sarcastic grunt.

Gavin turns to look at me, arching one brow. “Something else to say, Bear?”

“Not to you.”

“Whoa, bro,” Josh says, smiling at everyone to try to make the moment lighter. “What’s with the hostility? Gavin, did you steal the last of the cranberry sauce or something?”

“Actually, I think I stole the girl he never thought to make his. And now he’s regretting his inaction and thinks he can piss on her to scare me off.”

My chair grinds against the wooden floor when I stand, towering over Gavin as everyone jumps. I point my finger straight into his chest. “Listen here, you disrespectful little fuck.”

“Oh, I’m listening. Go on. Tell me I’m wrong,” Gavin challenges with a smirk, not even so much as puffing his chest back at me. He’s not threatened, and that somehow pisses me off more.

“I think we should go,” Erin says, standing and folding her napkin primly before laying it carefully next to her plate. “Becca, I hope you don’t mind if we don’t help with clean up.”

“Not at all,” Becca says, standing too. Only she doesn’t fold her napkin — she bunches it in her fist and throws it down on the table with her eyes on me. “In fact, I think Bear can clean up this mess on his own.”

She storms out of the room without another look at me, her friends on her tail, Pam looking at me with pity, while Amber’s glare matches the one Becca had been giving me all night.

Gavin stands slowly, helping Erin put her camisole sweater on before grabbing her hand and leading her toward the door. “Thanks for dinner,” he says to me, winking. “It’s been a real treat.”

My muscles work before my brain does, and the only thing that stops me from launching at that motherfucker and beating his face in is Josh’s hands wrapping around my arms and quickly holding them behind my back in a stiff lock. I shrug against it to no avail, which makes Gavin shake his head with a look like he pities me.

Then they’re gone, and it’s just me and Josh.

“Damn, bro,” he says when they’re gone, releasing me. “What the hell was all that?”

And I just breathe like a bull, chest heaving, wishing I knew the goddamn answer myself.I HAVEN’T BEEN TO Cup O’ Joes since Grayson and I broke up, and sitting here for the first time in almost a year, I remember why.

Everything about this place reminds me of when we dated.