Page 95 of Receiving His Mercy
“Why are you noticing his muscles?” Jace grumbled at her.
Rory rolled her eyes at him.
“Oh, uh, sorry,” Caren said, flushing red. It had been a while since she’d been around the guys. She remembered now that they did like to tease each other.
She hadn’t understood it then. Seemed she still struggled to recognize when someone was teasing versus when they were being mean.
What an idiot.
“I think I should go?” She attempted to stand but Travis stepped forward, blocking her.
“Stay. You still look pale and you’ve eaten nothing.”
“Yes, eat, while you tell us how you can attest that Travis isn’t all fat,” Jace said.
She could feel herself growing bright red.
“Stop teasing her,” Travis told his brother while kneeling in front of her. “You good, Goldie?”
“I think I need the bathroom.”
“Jace,” Rory hissed at him.
“Ahh, shit,” Jace said. “Hey, Caren, I was just teasing. Sorry, hon. Didn’t mean to embarrass you.”
“It’s fine.”
“It’s really not. I’m used to teasing my brothers, but I forget that not everyone is used to us.”
“Caren, there you are,” Oliver said, coming up to them, a tight smile on his face. “Can you please stop hiding and come talk to your fans?”
Fans?
Right. Like she was a rock star or something. Most of these people didn’t even seem that interested in the photos. She’d been explaining how she’d managed to get a certain image and one lady had yawned.
But she guessed she’d better get back out there. A tired sigh escaped her.
“She’s not hiding,” Travis told Oliver firmly, surprising her. “She’s resting. She’s clearly exhausted and she hasn’t had a chance to sit down and rest and drink some damn water because you keep dragging her around to talk to people who don’t really deserve her time. So, no, she isn’t coming back out until she’s ready.”
Seriously.
He was fast becoming her hero.
Caren actually found herself blinking back tears. Obviously she was more tired than she’d realized.
“I . . . I . . . who exactly are you?” Oliver demanded.
“Caren’s boyfriend,” Travis stated. “I thought I already made that clear.”
Lord. She wished he would stop calling himself her boyfriend. Because she liked the way it sounded far too much.
“Boyfriend? Caren, you never mentioned having a boyfriend to me before,” Oliver said.
“Well, we don’t always talk about our private lives,” she said, not wanting to out-and-out lie to him. But also not wanting to expose Travis for making all of this up. “And this is relatively new.”
“Well, in a way,” Jace said without missing a beat. “It’s like a second-chance romance. They knew each other years ago, then met up again, and you know . . . just clicked.”
A second-chance romance?
