Page 38 of Knockout (Whiskey Dolls 2)

I jerked back, my spine going stiff. “I’m sorry?”

“See? This! This right here is why I’m so pissed at that whole ‘we’re just friends’ bullshit the two of you have going on right now. You two areperfectfor each other. If only you’d get your heads out of your asses and realize what’s right in front of you.”

Well that certainly took an unexpected turn.

“Sybil, it’s sweet you think that, but there isn’t anything romantic between Jude and me.”

The woman blew out a raspberry through her pursed lips, the salty, sailor-mouthed woman I’d come to know and love having made a return. “What a load of horse shit.”

My eyes grew to the size of the saucer beneath my teacup, at risk of falling right out of my skull. “Excuse me?”

“You heard me. A load of Horse. Shit,” she enunciated. “You forget that I saw you two together. But I knew even before that.”

She stopped there, and I waited for her to explain further, but she didn’t. “Uh, knew what?”

She rolled her eyes dramatically and let out a huff like she was dealing with a clueless child. “About you,” she declared. “I knew about you. Hell, I’ve known about you since the day you moved into the building. Sure, pretty much everything he said didn’t paint you in the most flattering color, but that was all bluster on his part. I know my boy, and I know the antics you two were getting up to were the equivalent of him coming up to you on the playground and pulling your pigtails for attention.”

“Um, Sybil, I’m pretty sure half the stuff we’ve done to get revenge on each other could lead to jail time. I’m not so sure that amounts to a schoolyard crush.”

She arched a brow and, even in her fit, still managed to make it look elegant and cool. “Really? Tell me you didn’t feel a rush every time you pulled a prank on Jude. Tell me you didn’t feel even a hint of excitement while you anticipated what he’d do in retaliation.”

I opened my mouth to tell her just that, but the words died on my tongue. I couldn’t say it because it wasn’t true. Ididfeel all those things, and now that we’d put our swords away, I felt a whole hell of a lot more. But then I thought back to that scene in the laundry room, how he’d backed away from me when I could haveswornhe was about to kiss me. I remembered when he told me there was no reason whatsoever not to go on a date with Bax.

Reaching forward, I snatched one of the finger sandwiches off the tray and chomped down aggressively as that annoyance I’d been feeling the past few days came bubbling back to the surface. “Can we talk about something else, please?” I asked around a mouthful of egg salad. “No offense, but your grandson has an uncanny ability to dampen my mood. Even when he’s not here.”

She picked up her teacup and took a sip, that brow arching again. “Fine, but I maintain the right to say I told you so at a later date. I might be amazing, but I’m not above a good ‘I told you so.’ The world would be a much better place if people would just realize I’m right about everything.”

“So noted. I don’t foresee that day coming, but if it does, feel free to throw it in my face that you were right.”

A deep voice full of velvet-wrapped gravel spoke from behind me just then. “Right about what?”

Well shit.

17

Jude

I’d been beating myself up for nearly a week now for not telling Layla not to go on a date with that spray-tanned, teeth-bleaching, shit-for-brains George Baxter when I had the chance. It had been right fucking there, standing in front of me. All I had to do was reach out and grab it, but I’d let something stop me. And the kicker was, I didn’t have the first fucking clue what that thing was.

Now I was stuck stewing in a steaming pile of my own making, unable to come up with a way to fix what I’d screwed up. I’d buried myself in work all week long to try to keep my mind off the fact that the woman living beneath me, the one I could hear shuffling around every night after I got home, was going out with someone else.

When Saturday, the day of the date, finally rolled around, I woke up with a storm cloud hanging over me, making my mood dark and surly. I went for a run to try and beat back the thoughts of Layla, and when that didn’t work, I headed to the gym to beat the shit out of the heavy bag, ping-ponging between picturing Baxter’s fucking face and my own as I threw one punch after another.

Trying not to think about their upcoming date proved to be impossible, so I changed tactics and prayed to every higher power I could think of that the date she was going on tonight would suck in comparison to the one I’d taken her on. At this point, that was my only hope.

After wearing myself out at the gym, I went home and took an ice-cold shower, cursing my dick for stirring every time I thought of Layla Fox. The goddamn thingrefusedto cooperate.

After my morning full of exhaustion and self-flagellation, I knew it wasn’t going to get any better when I climbed into my Jeep and headed toward Gram’s house to take her for her weekly appointment at the salon. I could only hope the women there would sense my mood and leave me the hell alone, but I wasn’t counting on it.

I made the drive on autopilot, barely noticing my surroundings, until I pulled up in front of Gram’s enormous house and spotted a familiar cherry red Mercedes sitting out front.

“What the hell?” I grumbled to myself as I threw my car in park and shot out, feeling the skin tighten and tense around my straining muscles. Sure enough, as soon as I pushed the front door open and stepped into the foyer, I heard voices coming from the ridiculousthirdliving room Gram referred to as a drawing room.

I focused on the familiar soft, melodic voice, feeling that twitch in my dick again, and let it guide me through the house. Layla was sitting in one of Gram’s chairs with her back to me, all that long, silky, chocolate hair hanging down her back and around her shoulders. I listened to what sounded like the two of them arguing for a few seconds.

“Fine, but I maintain the right to say I told you so at a later date,” Gram decreed. “I might be amazing, but I’m not above that. The world would be a much better place if people would just realize I’m right about everything.”

I could hear the annoyance in Layla’s tone, something I’d become quite accustomed to, when she replied, “So noted. I don’t foresee that day coming, but if it does, feel free to throw it in my face that you were right.”

---