Page 137 of Making Choices

“So, you expect me to what?” I retort. “Just mosey my arse back to the stadium and party hard like nothin’ happened. Act like I didn’t have a fuckin’ Maddison comin’ in and outta my house for months on end.”

“Like you didn’t fuck a Maddison?” Duke jokes.

“Not likely,” Toker goads me as he comes to stand next to me. He favours his barely healed arm, hisses with each step after riding like hell to get here in time to save my arse, and that’s the only reason I don’t elbow him when he adds. “That little redheaded spitfire’s gonna haunt him for a long time.”

“Fuck you.”

“It’d probs be safer for the club if you did. Least we know I ain’t a Maddison.”

Guilt and regret surge through me.

Strip me of any retort I could muster.

My misstep has created yet another problem for us.

Offering the dozen men who turned up a split second before my life was going to end a sharp nod, I climb back into my Range Rover and speed back to the arena. After parking my car in the VIP parking lot, I jog over to the side entrance where I left everyone.

It feels like no time has passed, yet I’m irrevocably changed.

Humbled.

My stride falters when I see that Venom has his arm around Cherub’s waist. My gaze is laser focused on the way they’ve orientated themselves with the other as their gravitational pull, until I see Cherub’s face, and realise that there’s something else at play here.

They’re faking it.

Slipping my hand into hers, my ex-best friend and I sandwich the woman we both love.

I’d like to say this situation changes my mind about potentially sharing her.

But it doesn’t.

If anything, it makes my vision for the future—the same future I came close to losing tonight—even clearer.

She’s mine.

Only mine.

With that thought at the forefront of my mind, I remain by Cherub’s side when Apollo approaches. His gaze dips down to our linked hands, then drifts over to Venom, and back again. I stand taller refusing to hide from his scrutiny, only to find myself confused when he breaks into a shit-eating grin that seems out of place.

“Slash, my man. It’s good to see you.” We slap palms, then he pulls me in for a one-armed hug. “I’d ask you how it’s hangin’ but I do believe you once told me it was ‘low, loose, and full of juice.’”

“Sounds like somethin’ I woulda said.”

Apollo’s gaze darkens. “Fuck, it’s good to be back home.”

“I’m sure it is,” I tell him. As the jovial shield he’s been using to hide his feelings starts to disintegrate, I lower my voice to ask, “Have you heard from her recently?” The lines fanning from the outer edge of Apollo’s eyes deepen as he frowns. He presses his lips together tightly and shakes his head. “It’s been years. Surely, she’s gotta be movin’ past it by now?”

As soon as I speak, I realise that I’ve planted my foot in my mouth.

It would take an exceptionally understanding woman to get over her man having twins with another woman. Especially when that woman is her twin sister. Having met Seraphina Noguera-Tomás dozens of times, I’m aware that the strong-willed, prideful woman will take her anger toward Apollo for the part he played in the fiasco to the grave.

Her stubbornness is one of the things that bonded her so tightly to Cherub.

Grudges are their stock in trade.

“Haven’t laid eyes on her since I ambushed her at Venom’s two years ago.” The memory of the wild Moscato and Monet party Cherub had thrown to celebrate our allies and their women being gathered in Perth for the first time since her ill-fated eighteenth birthday party flits into my head. It was a great night—one that’d ended with me passed out in bed with Venom and Cherub… and Toker curled up at the bottom. While I’m biting back a grin at the memory, Apollo huffs and malice flashes in his eyes. “Know that she’s been seein’ Remi. Pretty fuckin’ sure Pax’s been sniffin’ around her again too.”

“Ah, yeah…” Trailing off, I struggle to find the right words to commiserate with Apollo over finding both his bandmates in bed with his ex-fiancée the day after she found out that he was the father of her sister’s babies. “That’s, um, tough.”

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