“YOU MISSED ONE.” East pointed with his martini at the lone pillow lying on Gavin’s stripped bed. He leaned casually against the wall as he watched the rest of us carry out boxes of Gavin’s belongings from his room, and if any of us had a hand free, we’d all be slapping him with it.
Daire growled in East’s direction. “You could lift a fucking finger, asshole.”
East cocked a brow and slowly lifted his pinky from his glass. “There.”
Good God, this was about to go from bad to worse if these two remained within a few feet of each other. The tension was already palpable, as none of us were used to doing much manual labor, and this was already our fourth trip down here.
Hoping to defuse things before Daire lost his mind or East threw the rest of his martini on his scowling face, I shifted the heavy box in my arms and stepped in between them. “East, just put it on top of my pile and then go oversee somewhere else, please.”
He pursed his lips and sniffed arrogantly, but strolled over to the bed and picked up the pillow between his fingertips. “Since you asked so nicely.” He dropped it on top of my already overflowing box, and I held it down with my chin.
“Think you can manage the door, or will that cause you to break a sweat?” West called out over his shoulder, already heading toward the living room.
“You really are a very needy bunch.” East rolled his eyes and moved past us. He opened the front door of the condo and leaned against it as we all filed out into the hallway. “Nice job,” he said, patting West on the head as he passed, and then doing the same to West’s boyfriend, JT. “Keep up the good work.”
“Touch me and die,” Daire said, not even sparing East a glance as he followed after JT.
“Looks like someone already did that,” East called after him, staring pointedly at the black and purple bruises surrounding Daire’s left eye that had mysteriously appeared since yesterday. “I never got a call to help you hide a body, so is whoever did that still limping around somewhere?”
Daire grunted in response, neither admitting nor denying culpability.
I brought up the rear, shaking my head at East. “Being an antagonizer isn’t winning you any favors.”
“Ah, yes, perhaps I should endeavor to be more like you, future statesman Preston Abernathy,” he said, letting the door slam shut behind him. “Pretend to abide by the rules while really being a total freak behind closed doors, get myself a fake arm-candy girlfriend, and kiss a lot of ass.”
“You’re just jealous he’s not kissing yours.” West smirked as the elevator doors opened and we all piled inside. It was a tight fit, but thankfully we only had a couple of floors to go.
“His loss, since I have a great ass.” East turned back to me and raised an appraising brow as he studied my face. “Although you do have nice lips. It’s a shame you waste them on Serena. Oh, wait, you don’t. You waste them on her dad.”
I shook my head. “For fuck’s sake, East.”
His smug grin kicked up higher on one side. “Let me know if you ever change your mind or want a third—”
There was a groan from outside the elevator, and I turned to see the doors had opened and Serena stood there looking a little…green.
“This is so not a conversation I want to be a part of,” she said.
East shrugged. “All I’m saying is I’m very good at bending over.”
“East, the only thing that’ll happen if you bend over is my foot up your ass,” she said, taking the top few pillows from the overflowing box I carried before they could tumble to the ground.
“You know what? I might actually enjoy that.” East glanced over my shoulder to look at her feet. “How big are we talking?”
“Oh my God, don’t even think about it.” I shoved him off and followed Serena to Daire’s condo—well, Daire and Gavin’s condo, which I still couldn’t believe was actually happening. The surliest in our group never shared anything, not his thoughts, not his time, and certainly not his home. But here he was, somehow agreeing to let Gavin take the spare bedroom to get away from the lovefest happening in his old condo between his brother, Donovan, and Kelly.
One by one we entered the condo and dropped the boxes by the entrance—which, from the scowl Daire shot us as he walked past and into Gavin’s new room, wasn’t where he wanted them.
Donovan, Kelly, and Travis were all gathered by the kitchen island with drinks in hand, and judging by the bottles of alcohol along the counter, it wasn’t water in those glasses.
“You three are just as bad as East,” I remarked, cracking my neck from side to side and then rolling my shoulders to ease the ache that hauling boxes for hours had caused.
Travis blinked, looking utterly bored. “We’re done, right? You brought up the last of it.”
“Uh, we’re missing my furniture, if you haven’t noticed,” Gavin said as he walked out of his room and surveyed the rest of the stuff we’d brought. “I need my bed, or did you expect me to sleep on the floor?”
West shook his head as he reached for an empty glass and the bottle of bourbon. “Nope. That’s where we draw the line.”
Gavin balked. “Excuse me?”
“We aren’t carrying your fucking furniture, and even if we wanted to, we couldn’t.”
A flush of angry red crept up into Gavin’s pale cheeks. “Why the hell not?”
“Because the only way to get it up here is through the service elevator,” Daire said, striding out of Gavin’s room and kicking at the boxes left by the entrance. “Management will deal with it this weekend.”
The way Gavin’s mouth fell open was comical. “Where do you expect me to sleep?”
“Maybe if you ask nicely, Daire will let you snuggle up to him,” Travis said, and Donovan snorted.
“I’m thinking Gavin would like to see the sun rise tomorrow.”
No lie. The probability that anyone would live to see the next day after a night in Daire’s bed was…unlikely. The guy barely tolerated humans as it was. I think we were probably the only few he bothered with, and that was only because we were forced on him through his parents trying to make him more social.
Daire hefted one of the remaining boxes into his arms. “Go fuck yourselves.”
And clearly that worked.
“How about we make up a bed for Gavin on the couch?” I suggested, trying to find a solution before a fight broke out.
“Is that what you used to do when you spent the night at Serena’s?” East’s lip curled. He was really on a roll tonight. “Or did you sneak into Daddy’s bed even back then?”
“Why are you suddenly so interested in other people’s relationships?” Serena fired back. “Feeling a little hard up over there?”
“Oooh.” I grinned, proud of the way she could always hand East his ass when he needed it. “I love when you get feisty.”
She winked at me like a co-conspirator, and it felt good to have my best friend back by my side. I’d given her some space like she asked, but when she texted wanting to hang out, I’d felt a sense of relief that we could be back on familiar terms. And there was nothing like giving East a good slap-down to get life back to normal.
Serena glanced at Gavin. “Do you have a set of sheets somewhere handy?”
“Sure, let me pull them out of my pocket.”
“Hey, don’t talk to her like that,” I snapped. “She’s trying to help you.”
Gavin said nothing, just rolled his eyes and turned on his heel to head back into the room that would soon be his. Jesus, maybe him and Daire would get along better than we thought. In the last couple of weeks, it felt as though Gavin had undergone a lobotomy. He was rude, surly, and short-tempered, nothing like the easygoing kid we were all used to.
“Ignore him, Serena.” Donovan let out a sigh and looked down the hall after his brother. “That’s how I’m dealing with him right now.”
“Not sure that’s working,” West said in all his wisdom.
“Yeah, well, every time I ask him what’s wrong, he says nothing and storms off.”
“Maybe ’cause it’s none of your fuckin’ business,” Daire said, popping the top off a bottle of beer.
“He’s my brother,” Donovan pointed out. “I’m just trying to help. But I guess he’ll talk when he’s ready.”
“Well, until then…” I looked at the both of them. “Tell him the next time he talks to Serena that way I’m going to do more than tell him to be quiet.”
“Reaaally?” Travis looked me up and down. “But aren’t you afraid that might snag your cardigan? Wait…where is your cardigan? Did you leave it at Filth’s house?”
Serena wrinkled her nose. “Filth? Do I even want to know?”
I started to shake my head, but Travis opened his big mouth.
“It stands for Father I’d Like to—”
I slapped a hand over his mouth, but not quick enough, because Serena groaned and said, “Yep, got it. Thanks so much for that.”
“You’re such a shit,” I said to Travis, giving him a shove.
“I’m the shit? Serena, how are you feeling about Preston these days?”
East chose that moment to insert himself back in the conversation, hopping up on the counter and fixing his gaze on her. “Yes, this is quite the incestuous little situation we have going on here. I’d love to get your take on it.”
“My take on it is: what they do in their private life should stay exactly that, private, as in I don’t want to know anything at all—ever—about it. So keep your horny, gossipy questions for when I’m not around.”
“Hold on.” West frowned. “So you’re still going to be around.”
“West. Shut it. They’re still friends, Jesus,” JT said.
“Yeah, but they’re not fuck friends.”
JT rolled his eyes. “They were never—” He cut himself off and gestured with his hand, too polite to say what his loudmouth boyfriend had.
“Nothing has changed here, guys,” Serena said, and Travis scoffed.
“I mean, something pretty big has changed.”
“I mean for appearances’ sake. We talked about it and decided that we’d still be here for each other for however long either of us wants or needs to be.”
East let out a long-suffering groan. “This is all so nauseatingly nice. Aren’t you at least a little bit annoyed he prefers your dad’s dick over your—”
Before East could finish, Daire gave his shoulder a hard shove, sending him tumbling off the counter.
“What the fuck, man?”
Daire rested against the vacated spot. “You were in my way.”
I took that as my cue to lead Serena away from the nosy assholes and over to the wide wall of panoramic windows overlooking Manhattan.
“Thanks for coming and helping out tonight,” I said.
“You don’t need to thank me. The second you said you and the guys were helping Gavin move, I knew you’d be down one.”
I smiled at her as we both said, “East,” and laughed.
“I’m surprised he even showed, to be honest,” I said.
“He wouldn’t have missed out on the opportunity to boss us around or be an utter dick.”
“That’s true.”
Silence fell between us then, and before it could grow and get weird, I asked, “What the guys said back there… Are we—are you—good?”
Serena smiled. “We’re good, I promise. It was a little tough at first to wrap my head around, but I’m good now.”
“Are you sure? I would understand if—”
“Preston. I’m sure. In fact, I wanted to ask how your, um, weekend was? Not all the details or anything, but how was the Plaza?”
I blinked, going still at the mention of our weekend retreat. “Uh, how did you know about that?”
“A pipe in my apartment busted, and me and the girls kind of took over Dad’s house. He couldn’t really handle more than one night of Victoria hitting on him, so when he said he was going to get a room at the Plaza… Well. I figured he might invite you.”
Heat burned my cheeks just from thinking about what we’d done on our little getaway, and I looked down at my feet so she wouldn’t notice.
But she did. Of course she did.
“Are you blushing?” she said, maneuvering her body to block the guys’ view of me. What was it about Carringtons that had me turning several shades of red around them?
“I’m, ah… It was nice.”
“Blushing and stammering. If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were falling in looooove.”
As I stood there trying to think of a response that made any kind of sense, Serena moved in closer and put her hand on my arm.
“Oh my God. You like him. Like, really like him.”
I swallowed around the sudden lump in my throat, not about to lie to her now. Not when there was finally nothing but truth between us.
“Wow.” She rubbed my arm and squeezed my bicep. “Hey, that’s great. I love you both. I just didn’t realize it was that serious.”
“I… Well, he doesn’t know I feel that, um. You know, that strongly. I mean, I don’t think he does.”
Serena nodded, the understanding in her eyes much more than I ever could’ve asked or hoped for. “Maybe you should tell him. That’s kind of important, don’t you think? Being on the same page?”
“I can’t tell him that. We’re just having fun. He’s Archer Carrington, and I’m just…”
“Just what? Because I’ve got to say, I’ve never seen my dad act the way he’s been acting lately.”
That had me feeling some kind of way, but it didn’t mean there was a future for us. I was still in the closet, for God’s sake, and he was this accomplished, well-respected guy who could have anyone he wanted. I…was still in college. I wasn’t exactly a good bet.
“I appreciate that, but we’re just seeing how this goes,” I said. I didn’t need to point out all my faults—she already knew them.
Her expression softened. “Okay, well, just be careful. I’m here if you need me.”
“Just not for the dirty details.”
“Especially not for the dirty details. That’s what you’ve got these morons for.”
A laugh escaped my throat. “Yes, I do.”
“Speaking of your morons, think they’d be up for drinks outside of Daire’s dungeon of doom?” She waggled her brows as she took my hand, pulling me back to the crowd in the kitchen.
“Hmm, let me think. If it’s between staying here and helping a miserable Gavin unpack or hitting up a club, I’m pretty sure they can be convinced.”
“And you, Mr. Abernathy? Can you be convinced, or do you have, uh…somewhere else to be?”
There she went again, with her teasing eyes and that knowing stare. “I think tonight I’m going to hang out with my best friend.”
“Damn right you are.” She turned around just as we reached the kitchen and aimed a look at the guys now staring at her. “All right, boys, go put on your sluttiest outfits. We’re gonna get East laid tonight.”
Yep, that’s my girl.
