Cupcake Overload (Cupcakes 2)

I looked up when I felt Cade’s body turn under my hands, and my body began to shake lightly when Cade turned his angry as fuck look on me.

“That true?” he spat.

“Um, technically, yes, we did go into the men’s room and confront him … but it was because we heard a woman who needed help, and I don’t appreciate us being called bitches,” I said, beginning to look around Cade to scowl at his VP again.

Cade stopped me with his hand, and his voice.

“Don’t look at him,” he ordered, and a not nice feeling began bouncing around in my gut. “Why did I not hear about this?”

“Uh,” I began, thinking back to that night and why I didn’t come home and tell Cade about our crazy night. “I was kinda distracted…”

“And later? All of the days that followed and you still didn’t say shit?”

“Well, I guess I didn’t really think about it. I mean, I didn’t intentionally not tell you, it just never came up when we were together. It wasn’t a big deal,” I said lamely, and the flash on his face told me that he did not agree.

“Not a big deal?” he seethed. “My woman and her crazy-ass friends barge in on one of my brothers in a bar and practically throw down. You don’t tell me shit, which means, what? You don’t think I need to know when you do dangerous shit, and now, that shit lands on my doorstep and I’m totally fucking blindsided?”

“Well, when you put it like that, it sounds bad,” I replied, not too happy about the crazy-ass friends comment, or the way he was making me feel right now, but not wanting to poke the bear.

“Take a walk,” Cade said suddenly, thrusting his chin toward the way we’d come in. “I need to talk to Sledge and sort shit out.”

“What?” I asked, certain that he wasn’t kicking me out, just like that.

“Take a walk, Lila,” he repeated, obviously exasperated.

“Why are you treating me like a child being sent to time out?” I argued, trying to mask my hurt feelings.

Cade’s face lowered scarily toward mine, and his tone brokered no argument.

“Walk.”

Swallowing back the sudden hot burn of tears, I swirled on my heel and walked out, keeping my head held high and my face as blank as I could manage, as humiliation filled me.

Did I really just think I was in love with that jerk?

The words I wanted to say to Cade in that moment ran in my head on a loop as I made my way through the compound, shop, and out the door.

Motherfucking jerkface, asshole, prick. How could he not even listen to my excuse? Just kicks me out and takes Sledge’s side over mine? Seriously?

I took a deep breath to try and calm myself once I reached the outside, but instead a sort of choking sound came out and the damn broke. I stood there and cried, letting out the humiliation, disappointment, and rage that Cade had managed to bring up in just a couple minutes.

“You okay, sugar?”

I lifted my head from my hands to see a tall, skinny brunette in a tight skirt and tube top standing before me, her face full of concern.

I shook my head pitifully in answer to her question.

No, I am not all right.

“You got a way home?” she asked kindly, and I realized that no, I didn’t have a way home, and started crying even harder.

“There, now, don’t you worry. Peaches will get you home,” the brunette, who I guess was named Peaches and talked about herself in the third person, put her arm around me and let me toward where the cars were parked.

I let her usher me into a beat-up old Pinto, then looked at her gratefully when she settled into the driver’s seat.

“Thanks, Peaches,” I said softly, feeling a little silly calling a grown woman Peaches, but going with it.

“Anytime, sugar. Us girls got to stick together, right?”