Page 14 of Wrecked Rose

Laughter ripples from both Scarlett and Daphne.

“Rough night, Max?” Scarlett pulls a hair elastic from her pocket and scoops a mountain of red hair onto the top of her head and arranges it into a messy bun.

I grumble, “No,” as I step toward the kitchen island and rest my elbows on it, propping my chin in my hands.

“What do you remember from last night?” Micah gives a little snort before clamping his lips shut.

“Not a lot, and I think I’d prefer to keep it that way.” I rub my hand over my face, and give them my bestcrazy eyesexpression, trying to make them laugh like I always do.

Beau snickers, shaking his head as he holds up a pan with egg in it. “What do you want, Max. Cheese? Onion? Ham? Bacon?”

“Yes.”

Xander nods. “Good man. That’s the way to cure the hangover. Beau’s omelet with everything but the kitchen sink.”

Glancing over his shoulder, Beau says, “Gimme like four minutes.”

“Great, thanks.” Sinking my teeth into my lip, my eyes connect with Daph’s. I jerk my head toward the living room.

“Hey, Max? I forgot, I have something for you. Come with me a sec.” She holds out her hand to me.

I have no idea if everyone bought that, but I’m grateful for the subterfuge. I want to ask her if I did anything asinine last night. Only I need to do it in such a way that she doesn’t really realize why I’m asking. Because I’m not ready to divulge my crush on Griff to anyone yet—not even Daph. I can’t, especially not now when I know Griff heard me moaning and groaning in his shower.

Huffing out a breath, I follow her out of the room. It strikes me that most people become a little secretive when worried about getting hurt. It’s kind of like putting up walls to protect ourselves. Scarlett kept quiet when she first started seeing Xander—poor girl probably figured we’d think she was crazy to want the guy who’d been taunting her. Turned out he had a decent enough reason, but still. It must have been hard for her. And then with Daphne, it’d been rough—really rough—to realize she was caught up in the middle of Alora’s scheming simply because she liked Micah. Of course, that wasn’t his fault either. But it made her very quiet about the situation unfolding, too. Lyla kept her relationship with Beau on the down low so long it blew up in their faces. So yeah. I’m familiar with this. Only it’s not usually me keeping things from people. I’m Max—Mr. Openly Gay and Always Happy.

And now here I am, about to hide something from my bestie because I’m fucking embarrassed as hell that I’ve gotten all mixed up over someone I obviously can never have.

When we get to the far side of the living room, Daphne whirls around, crossing her arms over her chest. “Spill.”

I grit my teeth and grab the back of my neck with my hand. I look down for a few seconds before meeting her gaze. “I was pretty drunk last night.”

“Yep.” She nods, studying me.

“I was wondering… if I did anything I should be embarrassed about.”

Her brows draw together. “Seriously?”

“Yeah?” I cringe.Fuck. Did she see me kiss him? Did I do worse—or say worse—later?“I don’t remember anything after going inside after midnight to drink more whiskey with Griff.”

She chews on the corner of her lip for a second. “I don’t think I’d call it embarrassing.” She shrugs. “Not really, anyway.”

“Tell me.” All sorts of heinous visions crash through my mind—all the things I wish I could do to him or with him.Did I grab his ass? Grind up on him? Talk dirty to him? Try to kiss him again? Fuck, does he remember whatever I did?

“Once we got rid of everyone who wasn’t staying over, we decided to watch a movie, and when we got downstairs, you decided it would be fun to make it like a campout and lie on the floor to watch—which my back doesn’t thank you for, by the way—so a bunch of us did exactly that.”

Not awful so far. “Then what?”

“Well, you kept saying you were sleepy and needed a pillow. That’s when Griff came downstairs to join us.” She covers her mouth, trying to hide a giggle.

“And?”

“And you said Griff would do, and zonked out on him.”

I cover my face with my hands, concentrating on breathing, but it’s hard with my whole body wigging out.

“It was cute, Max.”

I lower my hands from my face, mumbling, “Cute is not what I usually go for. Did he freak out?”

---