Page 137 of On the Line
“Then by all means, talk,” Nate said, settling back in his chair and propping his ankle up on his knee.
“Not here,” Mitch said. “Let’s go inside.”
“I think this is fine,” Nate said.
“Get up and come inside, pretty boy,” Mitch said, turning away. “I’m not asking.”
Mitch started across the yard and back into the house.
“What do you want, Mitch?” Nate asked once they were all inside the open concept kitchen-dining-living room, folding his arms across his chest.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Lexie asked Nate, and Mitch sat back, smug. Her ire was hot as fuck when it wasn’t turned on him.
“You’re going to have to be more specific. Emotionally unavailable, workaholic, so good in the sack I ruin women for everyone else…oh, is it that last one this little interrogation is about?”
“Why the fuck would you tell Mitch about us?” She asked. “When you left that morning, we agreed it would stay between us.”
“But it didn’t, did it?” Nate said. “Because you told your best friend, who told my brother, who gave me the ass chewing of a lifetime.”
Lexie was unmoved. “First of all, Brent and Berkley were there that night. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out where we disappeared to after leaving the Backdoor. And second, I don’t feel bad for you,” she said. “Why would you bring it up now, tonight of all nights?”
“Because I was bored,” he said. “Watching you two moon over each other from afar was exhausting. I was only trying to help. And from the looks of it—” he gestured between them, no doubt noticing their unkempt appearances and satisfied faces—“it worked. You two had your little reunion. Now we can all live happily ever after.”
“You expect me to believe that you told me about you laying your filthy fuckboy hands all over my girl because you wanted tohelpus?” Mitch asked, stepping into Nate’s personal space and glaring down his nose at him. At the moment, Mitch’s temper was a barely leashed thing, and the discomfort crawling under his skin needed an outlet. “Forgive me if I don’t believe you.”
Nate backed up a step, hands raised in surrender, before turning to stalk over to the fridge. He pulled out a trio of beers and passed them out before removing the cap and taking a pull from his own. “Anyone who looks at you two can tell you’re still in love with each other.”
Mitch glanced at Lexie, who appeared calm, and his heart swelled when she didn’t deny it.
“That doesn’t give you the right to fuck with other people’s lives, Nate,” she said. “For fuck’s sake, you’re 29 years old. Stop acting like a fucking child and get your shit together.”
For the first time since they’d entered the kitchen, Nate looked thoroughly chastised.
“I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “I’m sorry for meddling. But I’m not sorry that you two are…whatever you two are.”
He continued to stare at them and, upon realizing no response from either of them was forthcoming, he spun and disappeared through the double doors onto the patio.
Several tense moments passed before Lexie said, “What are we, anyway?”
“I don’t know,” he said honestly. “I was hoping you could tell me.”
She turned to him, tucking her hand into his. He marveled at how perfectly they fit—two halves of the same whole.
“How about we don’t decide tonight?” She said, looking up at him, the twinkle lights outside making her eyes practically glow in the dark. “Let’s go out there and celebrate our friends, and we can figure it all out in the morning.”
“Deal,” he said, bending forward to press a soft, sweet kiss to her waiting mouth. “For what it’s worth, though…I—“
Lexie pressed a finger to his lips. “Don’t say it. Not yet. Tomorrow. It’s not that I’m not…that I don’t feel it too. I just want to make sure we do it right this time.”
He nodded, swallowing hard. He understood her hesitance, and he refused to push her.
And truthfully, he was standing on shaky ground himself. The way he’d left was shitty, yes, but she had pushed him away. He wasn’t afraid of his feelings for her, but he was afraid that hers for him could possibly be weak enough that she could run from him again. If that happened…he wouldn’t survive it this time. To live in a world without Lexie by his side would be like living in a world without the sun.
They rejoined the party, hand-in-hand, abandoning all pretenses that they weren’t here together, letting the gathered crowd guess at what had happened between them over the last few hours that they were glued to each other now.
On the dance floor later, Brent shot Mitch a knowing look over Berkley’s head when he wrapped his arms around Lexie’s waist and planted a kiss on the side of her neck.
“You better be careful,” she said, pulling back to look at him. “People might get the wrong idea.”
