“Why are Sid’s boys here?” Lee asked, standing by Luke.
“Who’s Sid?” I asked in return.
Lee’s head inclined toward the new bad guys.
“Oh, they were after Dom,” I replied.
“I know that. Why are they in my fiancée’s bookstore ordering coffee?” Lee went on.
Ee-yikes.
He sounded pretty unhappy.
“The situation is cool,” Dom put in and Lee’s eyes moved to him and they were even less happy.
Luke’s arm slid around my shoulders and he pulled me into his side. Without delay, I relaxed and put a hand to his abs, hooking my other thumb in the middle back belt loop of his cargoes.
“Ava settled it,” Ren informed Lee then, done with this topic, his gaze came to me. “You’re okay?”
I nodded. “Thanks for the cookies.”
He smiled and said quietly, “Anytime.”
Luke got tense beside me at the very mention of Ren ever buying me cookies again in this lifetime. Ren’s eyes moved to Luke and I got tense.
They had a Badass Faceoff for several beats then Ren jerked his chin and Luke did the same. Ren’s eyes came back to me, he gave me another smile, this one softer, less cocky and very sweet.
“Take care of yourself, honey,” he said.
Then he, weirdly, gave Ally a swift, unhappy look. Then he was gone.
“That’s our cue,” Uncle Vito stood.
“But we haven’t sorted things out with Sissy,” Dom protested.
“We’ll do it tomorrow,” Uncle Vito walked around the coffee table and bent to give Sissy a kiss on the cheek.
“Hang on, my shit’s sorted now. I want to talk to Sissy,” Dom pushed.
“Piss off, Dom,” Sissy said, standing and walking Uncle Vito to the door.
“Sis, baby,” Dom cajoled, giving her one of his killer smiles.
Sissy shot him a look, clearly immune to Dominic Vincetti’s killer smile. This made me smile.
“Tomorrow, after Ava’s recovered from the drama,” Uncle Vito ordered.
“Uncle Vito,” Dom said.
“Tomorrow,” Vito snapped.
Dom turned to Sissy, the killer smile gone. His face, I was shocked to see, looked serious. “I fucked up. I admit it, all right? I fucked up. It won’t happen again.”
Sissy kept on giving him the Sissy Glare.
Dom turned to me. “I fucked up, with my wife and with you. It was a shit thing to do.”
“You got that right,” I told him.
He turned back to Sissy and promised, “I can make it good between us again.”
She continued with the Sissy Glare and against my will I began to feel sorry for him. He had a huge audience but he seemed not to care. Any man would be humiliated, except maybe a man who genuinely wanted his wife back.
Wow.
I couldn’t process this and didn’t try. Instead I looked at Sissy to ascertain if she needed bestest best friend assistance and I saw she wasn’t backing down.
“Just think about that,” Dom urged quietly and it sounded like he sincerely wanted her to think about it and he wasn’t lying through his men-are-jerks teeth.
And, somehow I suspected, he wasn’t.
Then he and Uncle Vito were gone.
I watched as Sissy deflated right in front of me all the bravado just leaked right out of her.
“You okay?” I asked.
She shook her head.
“I think we’ve moved on to Tequila Time,” I said.
She nodded her head.
“My place!” Shirleen yelled. “I got tequila. I got rum. I got vodka and I got mixers. I even got popcorn. Someone should bring some tortilla chips and guacamole because I haven’t had breakfast and I’m definitely peckish.”
“I’ll bring cashews,” Indy said.
“I’ll bring the chips and it’ll only take a minute for me to mix up the guac,” Jet put in.
“I’ll bring turkey, swiss and rye. We’ll make sandwiches,” Roxie offered.
“Fucking hell,” Hank muttered
More offers were called as Luke curled me into his body. I looked up at him and his face was soft.
“You goin’ to the party?” he asked.
“How’s Noah?” I queried instead of answering.
He hesitated, pulled his lip between his teeth then let it go and shook his head.
I did not take this as a good sign. I sucked in air then breathed, “Is he dead?”
Luke shook his head again. “Broken neck. Bone pierced the spinal column. He’ll be paralyzed from the neck down for life.”
I shut my eyes tight. I really hated Noah, he conned me, stole from me, beat me up and worse. Still, even after all that, being paralyzed was a high price to pay. This hit me hard and even though he was a jerk, I felt bad for him, bad enough for my throat to get tight.
“Look at me, babe.”
I opened my eyes, caught his and told him, “I don’t feel like partying.”
His other arm went around me and got tight. “I didn’t think so.”
“That sucks for Noah,” I whispered.
“It sucks for Noah,” Luke agreed.
“Why do I care?” I asked.
“Because you’re a good person,” he answered.
“Do you care?”
As usual, brutally honest, he replied, “Nope.”
I rested my forehead on his shoulder. His fingers slid up and curled around my neck.
“It’s over,” I murmured.