Chapter 14

By the time Jared arrived at her place Olivia had managed to calm herself down a little. Enough to admit Luke was maybe a tiny bit right when he’d said she knew he hadn’t meant to try and impose his own will on her as her employer. That wasn’t the kind of guy he was. He had just been frustrated and trying to convince her to do something she wasn’t sure she wanted to—not an easy task by any stretch of the imagination—and she’d had a lot of pent-up frustration and anger to lay on someone… and he’d taken the brunt of it.

She didn’t really feel better though; she’d just traded misery and self-recrimination for frustration and anger.

On the other hand, wasn’t it about time she let herself have a good wallow?

Which was why Jared found her in her pajamas already working on her second glass of chardonnay. He raised his eyebrows as he raked his gaze over her red silk pants and matching button-down shirt but didn’t comment on them. Smart man. Olivia liked her old-fashioned pjs and she was definitely not in the mood to be teased about them.

“Patrick’s a little upset you didn’t text him when you left Marquis,” he said instead, entering her apartment and immediately making the entire place feel smaller. Jared was the tallest, broadest shouldered, just overall biggest of her friends and he took up a lot of space. He was just a big teddy bear though for the most part.

“Tell me something I don’t know,” she muttered, having already ignored multiple texts from Patrick. She’d sent him back one—I’m home and I’m fine’—and he didn’t need more than that. Dammit.

“So what’s going on?” Jared asked, heading for the kitchen like he lived there. After being friends for so long they didn’t really stand on ceremony and tended to treat each other’s places like they lived there. The whole group was like that actually.

“Luke.”

“I thought we liked Luke.”

“We did.” Olivia scowled as Jared poured himself a glass of wine. She wasn’t scowling at him though. Just at the situation. “Do. I think. I don’t know. I’m still mad at him right now, but not so mad I won’t get past it. Eventually. Probably. But right now I’m mad.”

“Makes sense,” Jared said amiably. He leaned his hip against the counter looking at her. “So Luke sucks.”

“Good boy.”

The look he gave her said she wouldn’t have gotten away with calling him that if he wasn’t feeling at least a little bit sorry for her right now.

Worth it.

******

“So what happened?” Adam asked, settling down across the table from Luke.

When he’d accepted Patrick’s invitation, he hadn’t realized the guys were all coming over for an impromptu dinner. Apparently Lexie had decided to go out for dinner and a movie with her mom and Patrick started calling his male friends up and inviting them to hang out and have a meal.

“I’m not really sure I should talk about it…” Luke hedged. Especially since he hadn’t gone into full detail with Patrick on the phone, even when he’d been really upset. He didn’t want Olivia to be even more upset with him for telling half of her friends what was going on. Especially since they were pretty much guaranteed to tell the other half almost immediately.

From his position rubbing Molly’s ears, Rick looked up and raised his eyebrow. Molly seemed to be totally in love with the blond man, her head resting on his lap as she went practically cross eyed from the affection. He looked tired, but an expression of amusement had crossed his face at Luke’s hesitation. “I bet we can at least make a good guess as to why you’re looking so glum.”

“Obviously it has to do with Olivia,” Liam said.

“And she called in Jared for reinforcements, which means she’s either upset or angry,” Justin added on. His dark hair and eyes gave him a slightly brooding look when he wasn’t smiling, which was right now. Not exactly reassuring.

“She did?” Luke had noticed the big man wasn’t there, of course, but he hadn’t realized that was why. Justin nodded confirmation as Andrew picked up the thread of deductions.

“Most likely angry, because she’s been brewing for days now,” Andrew concluded, nodding his head thoughtfully before taking a swig of beer. “Her temper has been ready to blow for a while, although she’s been keeping a handle on it.”

“Well, until now,” Chris pointed out. Although he and Justin looked very much alike and were part of a threesome relationship with their girlfriend Jessica, Chris definitely had the lighter, more playful personality.

“Thank you, Captain Obvious,” Andrew shot back at him and the two of them started elbowing each other like bickering little kids, proving why they were such good friends.

“Who let them sit next to each other?” muttered Patrick, eying them balefully.

Ignoring them all, Michael leaned forward on the table, resting his forearms on the dark wood. “Nick texted me about the menu finalizations, which he said you and Olivia helped with, which meant whatever happened occurred afterwards, which means it had to have been quick.”

“So most likely an argument,” Jake said giving Luke a sympathetic look. The former soldier leaned back in his chair, running his hand over his short, bristled hair. “Don’t envy you that; I do everything I can to avoid Olivia even being annoyed at me.”

“Don’t we all,” Liam muttered.

“Well not all of us,” Chris said with a grin, although he shot a look at Michael and Patrick too. Michael at least tried to look innocent.

“I’m probably going to guess it’s something to do with her stalker?” Adam asked, finally joining the conversation. His icy blue eyes pierced Luke, far too keenly observant for comfort.

Geez. It was like they knew her or something.

“Come on,” Andrew coaxed, leaning in towards Luke. It might have been unconsciously, but it seemed like every other man at the table did the same. “The more details we know, the more we can help you. And believe me, we so want to help you.”

The words were close to right. The tone was not. And neither were the almost-smiles on every expression around the table. Even Patrick looked like he was anticipating ‘helping.’ The only person who didn’t have the same predatory look as the others was Jake.

Luke narrowed his eyes. “Why?”

Blinking, his boyish face exuding innocence much better than the others, Liam smiled encouragingly. “Because she’s helped all of us in the past, of course.”

“And we have been very much looking forward to returning the favor,” Adam said, grinning widely. Strangely, in that moment, it struck Luke that the other man looked a lot like a Viking.

******

Spilling everything had taken longer than she’d realized. Her throat was kind of dry and she’d had to get another glass of wine just to get through it all. Now they were seated on opposite sides of the couch, Olivia with her back against one arm, Jared with his back against the other and their feet in the middle. Cocking their heads back and forth, they studied each other quite seriously.

“What?” she finally asked him after the silence had gone on for about a minute.

“I can’t tell if you’re turning sleepy drunk or angry drunk,” he said.

She frowned. “I’m not drunk at all, I’m just… thinking really hard. Trying to remember if there’s anything else.”

Jared raised his eyebrow at her. “How many glasses of wine have you had?”

“Just three,” she said, protesting. She really wasn’t drunk. Buzzed maybe. Tipsy. She always knew though. Even when she was wasted and behaving like an idiot, she knew she was wasted and behaving like an idiot. She just didn’t care at the time.

Right now, she was on the high end of tipsy. One more and she’d probably be drunk-ish. The very lowest end of drunk. If she didn’t have something to eat.

“That’s at least one less than I thought,” he admitted.

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Exactly how much did you think I had to drink before you came over?”

Shrugging, a small smile curved the side of his mouth as he took another sip of his own wine.

Olivia watched him.

Waited.

He lowered the glass.

Looked back at her.

Waited.

Asshole.

“You’re going to make me do it, aren’t you?” she asked grumpily, humphing.

Smiling innocently, he just sat there. Like a big ole couch lump. Just waiting for her to ask for his advice instead of handing it out freely without making a girl beg.

Bastard.

Olivia made an aggravated noise at the back of her throat. “Fine. What do you think I should do?”

“Well I’m so glad you asked,” he said, smiling even more broadly. Olivia rolled her eyes at him. “I think you should take at least a night to rest and relax. I also think you should let someone else look for a security system for you and choose one. For whatever reason, it’s definitely causing you more mental stress than relief and any of us are willing to help out.”

“Fine, you can do that,” she said, still feeling a bit grumpy about it. But he was right. Olivia didn’t want to choose a security system. She didn’t even know why she didn’t want to, but she did feel a small tinge of relief when he offered. Why she hadn’t felt the same way when Luke had said something… maybe it was because she was already calmer and not as wound up after venting her pent-up ire on him. Which just made her feel badly all over again. She needed to apologize.

Although she still definitely wasn’t letting Luke pay for her security system.

******

Tapping his finger against the side of his beer bottle, Luke realized he was at least two more in than anyone else. Dammit. Somehow they’d gotten him drunk.

Plying him with alcohol.

Asking questions.

All very friendly like.

They’d been a little more disapproving when he’d admitted how he’d talked to Olivia when his temper had risen. Just little frowns, but… he realized he would never have approached any of them the same way. Never talked to them the way he’d talked to her. Never gotten as frustrated with any of them as quickly as he’d become frustrated with her.

Then again, he didn’t want to fuck any of them.

Laughter broke out around the room.

“That’s good to hear, buddy, we don’t want to fuck you either,” teased Andrew.

“Who needs an interrogator with friends like these?” he muttered, causing another round of deep chuckles to fill the room.

“We are pretty good at it,” Michael said, grinning and leaning back in his chair. “That or you’re just really easy.” Luke glared.

“Can’t be that easy or Olivia wouldn’t be into him,” Chris quipped. Luke smiled smugly. And then his smile slipped as he remembered his fight with her.

“I need to apologize,” he muttered, and started to push up from his chair. The room dipped and swirled.

“Woah!” He wasn’t sure who had said it, but suddenly there were several hands pushing him back down in his seat. It wasn’t exactly hard since he was already pretty off balance.

They’d gotten him a lot drunker than he’d realized.

“You’re not going anywhere right now,” Patrick said, sounding amused.

“But I need to apologize.” He wasn’t exactly sure how he was going to achieve it, since he definitely was in no shape to drive and he recognized that (he didn’t even know for sure where Olivia was) but he could still do something. Call her? Text her? It didn’t seem like quite enough but it might be a good start. “I shouldn’t have pushed her… she knows what’s going on, she’s an adult, she can handle it.”

“Mmm, I’m not sure you went about it in the right way, but I don’t totally agree with you about not pushing her,” Andrew said, almost cheerfully. “Sounds like she was dragging her feet about putting up a security system.” His voice trailed off a little. “I wonder why…”

“I’m going to help Luke to the guest bedroom and then we can talk about that,” Patrick said.

Luke sighed but he didn’t protest. He wasn’t so stubborn as to realize he was definitely getting close to the point of needing a place to lie down.

“Don’t worry about Molly, we’ll take care of her,” Rick said, patting Luke’s shoulder. At least, he assumed it was Rick patting his shoulder since he was the one talking.

“Thanks,” he managed to say.

It ended up taking both Patrick and Liam to get him down the hall and into the guest bedroom.

******

The ringing of her doorbell made Olivia jump. She and Jared had ordered pizza, but they were already eating it. They definitely hadn’t ordered anything else.

“Be right back,” she said, frowning as she got up to see who was there.

When she looked through the peephole she sighed. Growled under her breath. Turned to glare at Jared.

“Did you call for reinforcements?” she asked suspiciously.

He shook his head as Patrick’s big fist hammered on the door.

“I hear you, Olivia! Open up!

Groaning, she reluctantly opened the door to admit her herd of friends—sans ladies. So at least it was only half the group.

Immediately, her apartment felt like it was half the size. Her friends were big.

Scowling, she looked around. “What? No Rick and Michael?”

“They’re taking care of Luke and Molly,” Chris said cheerfully, brushing past her and immediately heading for the pizza.

Olivia might have protested his food thievery but she was too distracted by the mention of Luke and his dog. Not to mention the seven men who had just invaded her space. Eight if she counted Jared, but he’d been invited so she didn’t. Even if he was now offering the pizza box to Justin.

Just because they’d already said they had too much pizza did not mean it should be offered to the invaders.

“Where’s Luke and Molly?” she asked, rather than focusing on the pizza.

Priorities.

“Luke is drunk and asleep in my guest bedroom while Molly is being thoroughly entertained and loved on by Rick and Michael. They decided to opt out of this portion of the evening,” Patrick said, settling himself down in her chair. She scowled at him. Funny enough, so did Adam who had obviously wanted to settle in there himself.

Crossing her arms over her chest, careful not to spill her wine, Olivia tilted her chin up at the men who had now all arranged themselves around her living room. All of them had little anticipatory smiles on their faces.

“No.”

“No?” Patrick raised his eyebrows at her.

“No, I am not interested in an orgy,” Olivia stated calmly.

The immediate looks of horror on every man’s face made her feel better. Yup, just gave them what they deserved.

Jared and Adam looked grossed out, like someone just suggested they sleep with a sibling. Andrew actually shuddered. Beside him, Chris winced, protectively covering his balls in an instinctive reaction, while Justin and Liam’s expressions turned from eager to almost haunted at the imagery suddenly thrust into their minds. Jake scrunched himself a little further back into her couch as if trying to hide.

“I think I just threw up a little in my mouth,” said Patrick, reaching for the pizza box. “I need something to cover the flavor.”

“Ew, seriously Olivia, why would you even say something like that?” Andrew whined. Olivia smirked at him.

“Uh, because you all invaded my apartment, are eating my pizza, sitting in my chair—“ she snapped her fingers at Patrick who glared at her but pushed himself up out of the seat nonetheless. He moved over to lean against the wall, looming as intimidatingly as possible. “And I’m pretty sure you’re about to stick your collective noses up into my business. Please explain why I shouldn’t mess with you.”

“Because we’re here to help you,” Justin said, even managing to keep a serious expression on his face.

“The same way you helped us.” Although Adam’s expression remained just as blandly serious as Justin’s, there was no disguising the smug amusement lacing his voice.

“Oh, I see,” she said sarcastically. She sighed, making her way over to her chair.

Sat down gracefully.

Sipped from her wine glass daintily.

Waved her hand regally.

“Go ahead.”

They all stopped and looked at each other. Glances shot back and forth across the room like pool balls, everyone waiting for someone to go ahead and say something.

“Come on, boys,” she drawled. “I’m all ears, so now what?”

“Actually, we didn’t really think it would be this easy,” Jake admitted sheepishly, giving her a little grin. “Andrew and Chris even talked about sitting on you while we made you listen.”

“Well what were you all going to say while you were sitting on me?”

“We didn’t get that far,” Liam confessed, starting to snicker. “We were too busy talking about how we’d get to you listen to us.”

The whole room cracked up. Olivia was laughing so hard her belly hurt.

Bunch of dumbasses. She loved them so much. As they ribbed each other about their lack of thorough planning, the chuckles slowly died down.

“Alright, just so you know, Luke has already told us that he intends to apologize,” Adam said, unsurprisingly being the one to start things off and reassert some sense into the situation. He raised his eyebrow at her.

“Yeah, I need to apologize to him too,” she said sighing and leaning back in her chair. “I might have been a little overly defensive.”

“Which is understandable,” Jared said. “You’re stressed out.”

“You had your car keyed and your door painted,” Patrick listed.

“A crush on your boss.” That was from Chris. She glared at him. He winked, unperturbed as usual.

“Watching Luke scene with another mistress even if there’s nothing sexual going on,” Justin said.

“Not knowing when or where the stalker is going to pop up again,” Andrew contributed.

Jake nodded. “And we’re not even one hundred percent sure it’s Roland.” He stretched his arms out in front of himself, cracking his knuckles like a bruiser getting ready for a fight and making Olivia snicker.

“I’m not quite sure why you’re procrastinating on getting a security system though,” Patrick said. He shook his finger at Olivia from his leaning position. “Don’t say you’re not, it’s been days. I would have expected you to have one ordered before going to bed that night, even with Luke staying over to distract you.”

“He didn’t distract me,” she muttered. They all looked at her, waiting expectantly. Olivia sighed. “Fine, I don’t know why I’m dragging my feet. I just look at them and I get so mad about needing one at all, and frustrated that none of them are going to be able to do more than let me know if the shit-gibbon comes into my house, and then I don’t even want to look at them anymore.”

“Shit-gibbon,” Adam muttered under his breath, his eyes unfocusing. Yup, he probably knew exactly where she’d gotten that term from. Olivia had a feeling Angel’s frustrated insults in relation to her husband were probably becoming more creative—which was probably why Michael had given her the book in the first place. He did enjoy fucking with Adam.

Everyone else ignored Adam’s muttering. They had all become pretty used to it after he met Angel.

“Makes sense,” Patrick said, surprising her. He chuckled at the expression on her face. “Trust me, I know all about wanting to ignore something you can’t control.” Ah, well, he would. Although he and Lexie were a great couple now, he’d done his best to ignore her obvious attraction and interest in her—and his returned attraction and interest—until he could talk to her brother, who was also his best friend. Olivia had been pretty integral in pushing them together in the end.

“It’s not exactly…” Her voice trailed off. Okay yeah, it kind of was.

She couldn’t control the situation with shit-gibbon at all. Olivia was a proactive, sometimes even aggressive person. Something as passive as a security system didn’t appeal to her, in part because it reminded her there was very little she could actually do. It made her feel more helpless rather than less.

“I already told Jared he could pick one out for me,” she grumbled, slouching back into her chair a little.

“Might be a nice peace offering to see if Luke’s still interested in doing that,” Chris said, staring up at the ceiling rather than meeting her eyes as he made the observation. Olivia scowled in his general direction.

“Well I’m not going to let him pay for it,” she snapped.

“Fuck no.”

“Hell no.”

“Duh.” That last was Andrew, while the rest just uttered their preferred curse word and supported her declaration.

******

Surprisingly, when Luke woke up the next morning he didn’t feel that bad at all. Which might have something to do with the water and pain pills Michael had pushed on him last night. He remembered being woken up for that.

Next to him, Molly panted, wagging her tail when she saw he was awake.

“Ready to go out, girl?” he asked, giving her ears a rub and making her tail start moving twice as fast. She made a little snuffling noise, trying to snuggle further into his body. His head hurt a little and he had cottonmouth, but overall, he was feeling pretty energized. It was time to get up. Get his shit together.

Things to do, a lady to woo, and all that jazz.

After all, he had a date tonight.

At least… hopefully he still had a date tonight.