Looking like he was dead to the world sprawled face first on the bed, Butcher started to pull off Arson’s boots. As he dropped the last one on the floor, the guy rumbled a groan and turned his head, grinning like a drunk moron.
Arson was never aggressive when he was drunk. Quite the opposite, the guy loved everyone.
“Fuck, did we party, Tad?”
“Nah, buddy, but you’re gonna be feeling it tomorrow. Go to sleep.”
“Wicked good time, brother.” He slurred, grinning. “Hey you hear?”
Tossing the blanket over him, Butcher headed to the door. “Hear what?”
“Saw that idiot Chains the other day.Fuck, what day was it? What day is it today? Ah, fuck, doesn’t matter anyway.” He rambled and then became silent. Butcher thought he’d fallen back to sleep. Until. “Yeah, he was bleating on and on. Celebrating, you know.” It was only because Butcher could translate drunken slur that he even understood a mumbled word Arson was saying. Not that he gave a damn about Chains or any of the Diablo Disciples.
Butcher flipped off the light, plunging the bedroom into darkness. “Sleep it off, fire starter. Check on you later.”
“Engaged.” He garbled.
“What?” Butcher didn’t give a fuck if the DD VP was taking an old lady. Poor bitch to be handcuffed to a guy like him.
“He said she’s engaged.”
It was then that Butcher stalled in the open doorway, his knuckles turned white from gripping the doorknob.
Soon as he processed those words, he fuckingknew.
His gut knew.
His heart knew.
Arson, already half unconscious with an arm slung over his eyes. “Ah, fuck man, your little girl is engaged to some other bastard.”
There was no wind battering the windows from outside and yet Butcher would swear on his grave that a whirlpool started in that very fucking room.
Sucking him down.
Drowning him in grief.
Engaged.
“Shoulda been you, man.Fuck,” Arson went on and then rolled onto his stomach, an arm flopped over the side of the bed. “Too good for thoseDiablosanyway. Butcher’s too fucking good for her.”
He closed the door and got his feet moving down the hallway.
A tick in his jaw and a maelstrom riot in his head.
Nearing eight months since he’d seen her, and now she was engaged.
Damn.
It was the wakeup call Butcher needed. That was for damn sure.
Forget the burning in his soul.
It was time to purge Roux Tucker from his mind.
He’d been a pathetic, pining little bitch for too long.
She was someone else’s problem now.