Liam
By Saturday night, I was resigned to the idea of going out with the guys. Gwen was right. I needed to get out more, and a night with the guys could be just what I needed to relax. I pulled on a thin black sweater and ran a hand through my hair. One glance in the mirror and I was ready.
I took a deep breath and headed out into the living room in search of my wallet. Gwen had commandeered the bathroom to get ready for her night out.
“You done in there?” I asked her through the bathroom door.
“Keep your panties on,” she said. “Just putting the finishing touches on the face.”
I laughed and shook my head as I fastened my watch to my wrist.
The door opened. I looked up and had to remind myself to breathe. She looked incredible. She wore a tight blue dress, the color so bright it looked almost electric. The skirt was short, really short. I was positive if she bent over even the slightest bit the real show would begin. The neckline was high, held there by a thin string tied around her neck.
“You’re not wearing that,” I said, eyes wide as I took in every gorgeous inch of skin the dress displayed.
“What? You don’t like it?”
“It’s not me I’m worried about, Princess. It’s every other douchebag who’s going to trip over his tongue after seeing you in that.”
She smirked and waved a dismissive hand at me as she reached for her purse.
“I’m serious, Gwen,” I said, my lips flattened into a thin line. No fucking way was I going to let her out of the house like that. A dress like that belonged on my bedroom floor, not on my girlfriend as she went out without me.
“I’m a big girl, Liam,” she said as she patted my cheek.
“I’m aware of that, but I’m not cool with every guy in the bar knowing what kind of panties my girl is wearing.
“Don’t worry, babe.” She pressed a kiss to my cheek and leaned closer. Her lips brushed against my ear. “I’m not wearing any.”
My dick was granite and a growl rumbled deep in my chest. She leaned back and winked at me before she headed to the door with a little extra sway in her luscious hips.
“Don’t wait up,” she called over her shoulder as she started down the stairs.
The door closed behind her and I balled my hands into tight fists at my side. Fuck, this girl got under my skin like no one I’d ever been with and tonight she was trying my patience.
My phone vibrated on the coffee table and I took a deep breath and unclenched my fists to answer it.
“What,” I growled.
“Hello to you, too,” Sean said. I didn’t respond. “We’re downstairs. Get your ass down here and let’s get this party started.”
I grunted, hung up the phone, and stomped my way toward the door, then all the way down the stairs as I tried to rein in my anger on the way.
I made a beeline straight behind the bar and grabbed a bottle of Johnny Walker from the shelf and poured myself a shot. I looked up at Sean, Drew, and David who all just stared at me.
“What?” I barked.
“What crawled up your ass?” Drew asked.
I poured myself another shot and ignored his question as I tossed the amber liquid down my throat.
“This have something to do with the hot blonde that just walked out of here?” Sean asked, wiggling his eyebrows.
I shot him a glare and he laughed, holding his hands up in defense.
“Gwen?” Drew asked. “This,” he said, gesturing to my less than sunny demeanor, “is about Gwen?”
Jason stepped up next to me and set down their drinks. “They’re dating,” he said, his tone flat and matter of fact. I shot him a look of pure death and he shrank under my gaze. “I…I thought everybody knew.” He stammered and backed away from me.
“You and Gwen?” Drew asked with a smirk. They knew. They all knew about Gwen and me. They were just trying to get me to admit it.
“Cut the shit,” I snapped. “You already know we’re together.”
“I’d heard rumbling,” Drew said. “Well, Sam said it was more like screaming, but…”
Sean burst into laughter and slammed his fist down on the bar.
“Asshole,” I muttered as Sean continued to laugh.
Drew narrowed his eyes. “But seriously, man, Gwen?”
“Fuck,” I growled. “I know she’s trouble, but goddamn it if that’s not one of the things I love about her.”
“Wait, you love her?” Drew asked. “When did this happen? I thought you guys were just…you know.”
“Fucking,” Sean said. “They’ve been fucking.”
Drew turned a glare at Sean over his shoulder.
“It’s not just about that. It’s…consuming.”
The three guys nodded their agreement. I don’t know why I was surprised. Each of them knew what it was like to meet that one girl who barged into your life and took over. She’s all you think about, all you talk about. The first thing you want to see in the morning, the last thing you want to see at night, and the only thing you see in your future.
“So wait,” Drew said, confused. “If you love her and you’re getting laid on the regular, what’s with the roid rage?”
“Did you see what she was wearing when she left here?” I asked.
“She looked hot,” Sean said. “So what?”
“So what? Every guy in that place is going to be all over her. I’m just supposed to be cool when my girl is out there shaking her ass for every random douchebag in the city?”
“Don’t you trust her?” David asked. My eyes snapped up to his. I didn’t know Drew’s brother all that well. Outside of a few poker games, we didn’t interact much, but that didn’t stop him from calling me out.
“I…” I ran my hand though my hair. “I don’t know.” I exhaled a long breath and leaned against the counter behind me, folding my arms across my chest as I thought about what he’d said. “It’s just she’s used to this extravagant life that I just can’t give her. Hell, it’s not even something I want. I had all that—the money, the status—but none of that shit is real, none of it matters. All I want is to run this place and go home to the woman I love. That’s all I need, but I’m not sure if that’s enough for her.”
“Do you really love her?” David asked. I nodded. “Does she love you?” I nodded again, swallowing the doubt that seemed to claw its way up my throat. She’d given me no cause to doubt her so why was I making such a big deal out of this?
“Then talk to her,” David said. “If she’s the one, talk to her. Tell her how you feel and what you want.”
He made it sound easy to just lay it all out there, but chances were that we didn’t want the same things.
Sean clapped his hands together. The loud crack grabbed all of our attention. “Okay, that’s enough of this feelings shit. It’s time to drink and celebrate Drew’s last week of freedom.” He slapped his hand down on the bar. “Barkeep, four shots of Jack.”
I laughed and set out the shot glasses, poured each of us a shot, and passed them out to the guys.
Sean raised his glass high and we all followed suit. “To marriage, the three-ring circus—first the engagement ring, then the wedding ring, then the suffering.”
We groaned in unison and tossed back the shot.
Sean slammed down his glass and threw his arms in the air. “On to the next, boys.”
I had a feeling this was going to be a long night.
***
Despite my initial reservations I was actually having fun. The night was pretty low key, just lots of booze and laughing, most of which was at Sean’s expense. He’d kept to the no strippers rule laid out by my sister, but my ban on boob necklaces and t-shirts fell on deaf ears.
After a couple of shots of Jack, Sean managed to talk me into a t-shirt with ‘We’re out of our wits so show us your tits’ written across my chest.
We were all feeling pretty good when we stumbled into bar number five. It was more of a club than a bar. Vibe was one of those super trendy places that only lasted about a year because it catered to the yuppie trendsetter crowd that was always looking for the next hot place. There was no loyalty in a place like that. You had to be constantly on your game and stay ahead of the next big thing or you were sunk. Who needed that kind of stress? It was places like this that made me thank God my bar was a dive—a clean classy one, but a dive all the same.
The flashing lights from the dance floor gave me a headache. I followed the guys as they weaved through the crowd. Sean managed to snag us VIP bottle service which was a total rip-off. The mark-up on the bottle was insane. I could stock my bar for a month on the cost of one bottle in this place. A fact that I pointed out to Sean who scoffed and said, “It’s about the experience.”
The hostess in a tight black dress unhooked the purple velvet rope and gestured for us to take a seat. I stepped down into the sunken area lined with dark purple couches that surrounded three clear cylinders lit from underneath, giving the entire place a warm purple glow.
I sank down into one of the plush couches and rested my arm on the back as my head continued to throb with the bassline.
Drew sank down beside me. “Hey, man,” he yelled over the music.
I nodded my response. Screaming would only make the headache worse.
“Having fun?” Drew asked.
“Not as much as Sean,” I said, nodding toward our friend who jumped into the crowd fist pumping with the rest of them.
“Yeah.” He laughed.
“You good?”
“I’m marrying my best friend in a week. I’m fucking great!”
I laughed. “No cold feet?”
“Nope.” He held his foot out in front of him. “These babies are nice and toasty.”
“Glad to hear it.”
“Red’s the one,” Drew said, his eyes misty with a combination of love and alcohol.
“How do you know?”
“I’ve always known. From the moment she poured her beer over my head, I knew she was special.”
“She what?”
Drew frowned. “Haven’t you heard that story?” I shook my head. “Huh,” he said. “I thought everyone knew.” He sat up straight and waved his hand dismissively. “Anyway, yeah. When I first met her she hated me. Thought I was a player and a douchebag, which I guess wasn’t that far from the truth, but fuck did I want her. She pushed and I pulled, until finally she gave in and agreed to be friends. It wasn’t enough, but it was a start.”
“But you’re together now.”
“Yeah, after years of her doubting me and herself. Alex had a lot of issues with trust.”
“Really?” I asked. “I thought you were friends.”
“Oh, she trusted me as her friend, but she didn’t trust in us. She was so afraid of losing her best friend and our family. She didn’t trust that what we had was stronger than that.”
His words hit me like a punch to the gut. “It’s different with Gwen and me.”
Drew just shrugged. “Maybe so, but the thing about trust is it’s a big part of making it work. You either trust her or you don’t.”
I nodded. I wanted to trust her. I really did, but she was this hurricane that blew into my life and changed everything. The excitement and unpredictability was something I didn’t even realize I was missing. It’s like we balanced each other out. I calmed her down and she wound me up.
She’d come so far and done so much to show me how she’d changed, refusing to let the mistakes of her past define her future. She’d shown me how strong she was, how brave she was, and now it was my turn to trust, to put her first and give her the benefit of the doubt.
Sean ran up to us out of breath, his eyes doing this weird shifty thing, with David right behind him. “We should go,” Sean said.
“We just got here,” Drew said.
“What’s going on?” David asked.
“Nothing,” Sean said. “This place is dead. We should head out. Find another party.”
I looked around at the packed club. An ocean of swaying bodies moved with the music as far as my eyes could see. What was he talking about?
“Seriously,” he said. “On to the next.”
Drew threw up his arms in defeat. “All right, on to the next,” he said as he got up from the couch. I just shook my head and followed them toward the door.
I made my way across the dance floor, watching for the guys as they parted the crowd on the way to the exit. Something came over me—call it an instinct or a higher power, whatever you want, but something inside me made me look to my right.
The crowd parted and what I saw stopped me dead in my tracks. There she was, Gwen, draped over some asshole’s lap in a VIP booth. His hand traveled up her thigh and his tongue was halfway down her throat.
Rage boiled hot in my blood. My fists clenched at my sides my nails bit painfully into the palms of my hands. The pain fueled my anger and I tightened my fist, my knuckles white from fury.
The noise of the club was faded and distant and my vision tunneled on the son of a bitch groping my girl.
Before I could even take a step toward them, arms wrapped around my chest and held me back. I pulled from their grip as more arms grabbed at me and held me in place. I had one goal, beat the living fuck out of that guy.
“Let me go,” I roared.
“Liam, let’s go,” Drew said. “Get out of here before you doing something you’ll regret.”
I glared at him and continued to struggle against his hold. Drew met my eyes, his face calm and his voice even. “Let’s go.”
I nodded and let them lead me out the door, what was left of my heart shredding with every step I took.