Bros
Chapter 39
“Well, you two look good together,” Anderson said with a smirk.
“Don’t we? Told you she fits. See the way she fills all my negative spaces? It’s perfect.”
“You have it bad.”
“Not as bad as an i*** who told a woman she’d be having his brown bables within a year,” Cruz frowned at Anderson. “Did you actually think it would work?”
“I blurted it out. First time in my life I ever panicked in front of a woman. I flirted with her, and she wouldn’t even respond and I f*****g panicked and now I’ve been hiding from her brother. Have you ever seen him?. The man is jacked. I mean he’s not as big as you, but they could use you as a body double for Dave Bautista. Few men on earth are as big as you but fairly sure Halima’s brother weighs a hundred and five kilos, easily. He’s also been arrested multiple times for running with a motorcycle gang.”
hit.”
“I thought for sure you’d take the hit.”
“I’m a lover not a fighter Cruz. I need this face to convince her I’m pretty enough to be with her.”
“You’re an idiot.”
“And you’re not? Did you tell her the truth yet?”
“Shut up,” Cruz hissed and looked over his shoulder in the direction of the restaurant.
“You f*****g pansy. I’m still shocked you hid it from me until yesterday and you still didn’t tell her?”
“No.”
“It might change things for you.”
“She admitted she crushed on me since she was a little girl. Let me bask in the glow of it for a bit.”
“Cruz. You were the reason her heart got broken when she graduated college.”
“He didn’t deserve her.” Cruz looked away sheepishly.
“You need to tell her.”
“She’s going to hate me.”
“Make the wedding real. You texted me when you were meeting with the wedding planner for the right price you could get licenses and make it all real. She doesn’t even have to know until you get home. Move her in with you. Done and dusted.”
“I’m not tricking her, Anderson. I want her to want to marry me for real.”
“Cruz. You need to tell her then. She might want to do it for real if she knows.”
“Or she’ll punch me in the balls because she’s the right height,” he held his hand to waist, “then she’ll stomp
on my barely healed feet, leave me at the altar and likely have it livestreamed to f**k me over again, and then, she’ll kill me off in every book from now until she stops writing.”
“Kill you off?” Anderson laughed.
Bros
“She kills Odin off in every book.
“She does not!” Anderson threw his head back and laughed. “I mean if I could, I would. He’s been such a douche lately.”
не
“He was plotting with Ramona to f*****g drug me and let her abuse me,” Cruz gave a shudder of rage. When I threw him from the room, I told him I knew all his secrets. He didn’t know what secrets I meant but I told him I was going to tell his whole family in retaliation for trying to get me assaulted. The look on his face was pure panic. I almost took it back but then remembered what he’d done. When did he turn so f***** evil?”
“I don’t know,” Anderson took a breath, “but you’re changing the topic. Cruz, you never told anyone until yesterday the one time you saw her naked, riding the skinny kid in the dorm room changed everything for you. You sure as f**k didn’t tell anyone you made your friend hire him in Texas with all the bells and whistles a young single man would run towards. You knew he’d leave her behind.”
“He wasn’t good enough,” Cruz mumbled,
“Then you f****d off to Toronto and met Ramona!”
“I tried to forget her,” Cruz groaned and rubbed his forehead. “needed to forget her but I was the first person in the room that night and she was,” he gave a shake of his head, “she was like an ethereal s*x goddess, completely naked, head thrown back, red hair everywhere, eyes closed, perfect body and then Odin who was coming down the hall behind me slammed into me and jumped onto my back. The sound made her eyes open, and it was all over. Those ten seconds were burned into my eyes forever.”
“Your exact words were my retinas will never be the same!” Anderson mocked him, “no f*****g wonder she thought you hated her.”
“They weren’t the same.”
“I didn’t see what you saw. I pushed into Odin a microsecond too late, or it was perfect timing. She was already on the floor, the guy was screaming, and she was yelling at us to get the f**k out.”
“She told me she got hurt. When she fell off his d**k riding reverse cowgirl, she bent him the wrong way and it ripped her. She said she couldn’t pee without pain for weeks.” Guilt hit him again. “T**k we were bastards to her. Why did we do all those things to her?”
“That was the last one” Anderson said quietly.
“Yeah, because I saw her naked and f*****g. She was f*****g some scrawny little guy who could pass as a woman.”
“A guy you got rid of.”
“She doesn’t need to know.”
“It’s not a good basis for a marriage,” Anderson said bluntly.
“It’s not a real marriage.”
“You want it to be.”
“No s**L. She gets me, man and damned if I don’t become an oversized guard dog when she’s around. I want to rip throats out. Wait until you see the damn bartender in the lounge later. He makes you look ugly. He flirts with her and gives her top shelf without even asking for it. He’s even asked her to stay and sit to keep him company while he works. I get her the f**k out of there as soon as I can every time. I’ve been trying to get her
224
Bran
to come with me to the other bar on the resort for no other reason than to avoid him completely”
“Sloane told me Presley has it bad for you, Cruz. She also warned me if you hurt her, she’s going to do something to you so horrible what Presley did an pranks will look amateur”
Cruz made a face, “It’s fine. I won’t hurt her”
“You think keeping this secret isn’t going to hurt her?” Anderson reached out and grabbed his bicep, “tell her the truth before you lose her. I can see it in your face you’re in love with her. It hasn’t taken long for you to fall hard because it started the minute you saw her riding reverse cowgirl. You were at her damn graduation Cruz. Even I didn’t know it”
“I heard the little punk telling his mother he was going to propose to her, and I freaked out.”
“Tell her.”
I can’t
“She might be flattered,”
“She told me she cried for months after he left. I did that to her. I made her cry.”
“All’s fair in love and war.” Anderson quipped.
“Except I didn’t stick around for the love part. I broke her heart by shipping the little nerd as far away as I
could think and then I hightailed it back to Toronto.*
“Ramona moved in with you not long after.”
“I know. What an i*** I was.” Cruz grumbled. “She was here in the lobby earlier and I made security drag her away, I threatened to use all the s**t I saw her do when we were together to make her friends all hate her if
she didn’t f**k off.”
“Did it work?”
“I have no idea, but her folks are due here soon.” He frowned, “how the f**k did you guys all get on flights from Vancouver so easily, but her parents can’t get in from Toronto yet?”
“I have no idea. It wasn’t me or Sloane. We were laughing because when we got to the airport, there were several people on our flight who’d been bumped, and it wasn’t us who got on last minute.”
“It’s strange,” Cruz commented. “Did you want to run your bags up to your room and meet us in the
restaurant?”
“Yes. I’m damn well starving. They fed us breakfast on the flight and I’m not one to gag but the consistency of the eggs was suspiciously like someone jizzed all over them.”
“Never eat the airplane eggs.” Cruz made a face. “I’ll meet you in there.”
“Where is Odin? You haven’t seen him at all?”
“Nope.”
“I’ll find out his room number shortly and we’ll drag him out if we have to.”
“Great. For now, meet me in the restaurant.” Cruz and Anderson exchanged their typical half hug and clap on the back and then went in opposite directions.
Entering the restaurant, he stopped to watch Presley with her family. Despite her saying how much she and
Bios
her father fought all the time, it was so clear she was a daddy’s girl. Her head was on his shoulder, and she was laughing at something Halima was telling her. Surrounded by her family, she appeared relaxed, not uptight and high strung like she’d been the last couple of days and looking content.
Her eyes met his across the room and he gave her a smile and slowly sauntered over, taking the empty seat
next to her.
“Everything okay?” she asked him not moving from her father’s shoulder.
“Yes. Just doing a quick catchup with Anderson. He’s dropping off his bags and he’ll be right down.”
“How unfortunate,” Halima griped.
He chuckled, “he’s not so bad, Halima.”
“On the plane over here, I got stuck seated between him and Sloane. Now, I love Sloane but he’s a filthy sneaky bugger. I was terrified to fall asleep in case he impregnated me through osmosis or something. He actually told me he’s going to tie us together forever with our love child.”
Cruz shook his head, “you’ve captured his attention, Halima. I’ve never seen my friend take on a battle he hasn’t won.”
“He’s not winning this time.”
“Why not?” Cruz played wingman for his friend. “He’s smart, funny, gorgeous though not my type,” he earned the chuckle from Gavin, “rich and there is one thing Anderson won’t do, is lie or cheat on you. He’ll fight dirty but lying is off the table. If you ask him if he poked the hole in the condom, he’ll admit it.”
“What about you Cruz,” Sloane asked with narrowed eyes. “Do you lie, cheat and fight dirty?”
The conversation he shared with Anderson echoed in his brain and he shook his head, “of course I’ll fight dirty. It’s Ladybird and I want her with me.”
“Don’t do anything stupid, son,” Gavin muttered. “If you hurt her, it won’t only be Sloane and Halima you need to watch out for. Scarlett and Marsha will be pissed if you make her sad but if you make her cry, I’ll rip your insides out the way a bear does to fish during a salmon run,”
“Dad!” Presley blinked at the cool tone of her father.
Cruz shifted in his seat and nodded at the man, Anderson’s demands for him to tell her his secrets weighing
heavily on his mind. “Understood, sir.”
With that, he realized he was f****d.
Tatienne Richard
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