Page 182 of Dirty Like Dylan

I clenched my teeth and stuffed down my irritation. I was not getting into a fight with him in the street in front of Jessa’s house on a Sunday afternoon. Her neighbors were out, walking their dogs and puttering in their gardens. And besides that, we’d been getting into too many fights lately. And not good fights. These weren’t You-annoy-me-so-much-I-just-want-to-fuck-the-shit-out-of-you fights. More like We-aren’t-compatible-and-this-isn’t-going-to-work-out fights.

Still, I’d invited Taze to this little party, and it wasn’t his fault I was all tense and surly about it. He didn’t know I’d only asked him to meet me here because I didn’t want to show up alone.

I sighed and shoved the tray of samosas I’d brought from my favorite Indian restaurant into his stomach. “Just carry this, okay?”

By the time we made our way into the house and started doing the rounds, I was feeling a little less surly, though a lot more tense. I didn’t exactly want to be here today. I told myself I didn’t have to stay long. It was a meet-the-baby party, and even though I’d already met the baby, Jessa had always been a great friend to me. So maybe I didn’t have to stay long, but I wasn’t going to completely miss this.

Even if Jude might be here.

He wasn’t. And it’s not like I was disappointed about it.

I definitely didn’t keep looking around, gazing at the doors, waiting for a glimpse of him.

Fuck. When did I become so fucking pathetic?

I needed to get the power back.

Since when did I let Jude Grayson have so damn much of it over me?

I grabbed myself a glass of bubbly from the tray on the bar and went to find Jessa. Thankfully, I’d already managed to lose Taze at Brody’s Donkey Kong machine.

I found Jessa on a couch with Katie on the other side of the party room and settled in next to her, half-listening as they talked about baby stuff. I held out my finger to the baby in Jessa’s arms. He was half-dosing, but he wrapped his teeny, tiny little fingers around my fingertip.

I watched Taze across the room, playing arcade games with Zane and Dylan, and sighed.

After we left this party, I was definitely gonna have to break up with my boyfriend. I’d have to do it in a way that made him feel like it was his doing, though. Shouldn’t be too hard to orchestrate; Taze wasn’t exactly the sharpest knife in the drawer. However. I knew, from experience, that breaking up with a biker wasn’t always the world’s easiest task.

Especially if he didn’t want to break up with you.

It was the entitled, bossy, alpha male thing. No matter how smart they weren’t, they still felt like they owned you. Saw you as their property. I didn’t always mind—in bed.

But sitting here in a house full of Jude’s friends with Taze thinking I was all his? It suddenly rubbed me wrong.

Or maybe it wasn’t so suddenly.

Jesus. When did I start selling myself so damn short?

The moment Jude Grayson decided I wasn’t worthy of him?

I only realized Katie had departed the couch when Jessa started filling me in on the trials of breastfeeding as a new mom, in detail. Something about a blister? Sounded horrendous, but I really wasn’t listening all that well. I was thinking about men, while one of the best friends I’d ever had was unloading on me. She’d just had a baby, for Christ’s sake. Probably the single biggest event in her life. This was a definite sisters-before-misters situation, and I was shitting the friendship bed.

So I took the baby from her arms and said something I hoped was compassionate and comforting, but shit, I knew next to nothing about breastfeeding or babies.

Jessa sighed and smiled at me gratefully. “Thank you. Sorry to vent. I’m exhausted. Never thought I’d meet someone who wanted my boobs in his mouth more often than his daddy does, but damn, he feeds for like forty-five minutes at a time. Every hour. It’s draining. Literally.” She looked at her newborn son’s scrunched, sleepy little face and her eyes turned into two giant pupils, like some anime unicorn. “God, I love him so much.” She cooed over him a minute, then collapsed back on the couch and gazed around the room. “Let’s talk about something else. How’s Taze?”

“Taze… is Taze.”

“Oh.” She studied him for a minute. “He’s hot,” she offered, probably trying to be supportive. Looking at the brightest side.

“Trust me, he’s hottest when he keeps his mouth shut.”

Jessa smirked. “Sounds like love.”

“It’s not.” I was eying Dylan and his new girl, Amber, across the room. She was leaning into him while he played Ms. Pac-Man. “Speaking of which,” I muttered, “I give them a month.”

“What? Why?”

“Because they hooked up in a kinky threesome situation with Ash. Those never work out.” I’d been in enough threesomes of my own that I felt like I could speak with some authority on the subject.

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