Page 2 of A Lick and A Promise
Then again, I was learning not to lead with the heart. Though, admittedly, I was learning this by messing up royally because I’d done something stupid at the edict of my heart.
My heart had me sitting right there, benched, because I meant nothing to Knox except being a member of his friend posse.
A distant one.
Someone he was around who he tolerated.
And that was it.
And my heart led me to pretend-flirt with and, okay, semi-kinda fake-date Brady (really, it was just two friends hanging out, but we wanted Knox to think it was something else) after Knox got together with Cheyenne.
We did this so he might feel a little bit of what I was feeling since Cheyenne was suddenly at all of our AAHS shindigs (Avenging Angel/Hottie Squad, for your information, of which I was a member of the former, and for more information, that former was unprofessional, unpaid chicks who stuck our noses in places they shouldn’t be, but someone had to do it, and the latter was professional, trained, skilled badasses).
And since Knox scraped me off, and he knew where I was at with him, he had to know how that would sting.
Sure, he’d made himself clear, and as such, I had no claim, so who was I to engage in some harebrained fake-dating scheme to make the guy I liked (right, okay, dammit…loved) jealous?
The idea was doomed from the start.
Why I couldn’t get a guy like Cap, like my bestie Raye did—a man who struggled with our whole Avenging Angels vigilante gig, but he got a lock on it because he knew how important it was to his woman—I did not know.
Or an Eric or Gabe, my other friends, Jess’s and Willow’s dudes, who were super chill and didn’t kick up a fuss at all.
Or even a Javi, who, like Cap, wasn’t all fired up about it, but he knew he could probably exert some pressure on Harlow and she’d totally cave, but he didn’t because being an Angel was an important part of who she was. And he wanted the woman she was, not the woman she sacrificed bits of herself to be for him.
But noooooooo.
It was me who got the one who gave me an ultimatum.
Give up the Angels and have me, or stay with the Angels and lose me.
I stuck with my bitches.
And lost Knox.
So, uh…yeah.
I shouldn’t be here.
I shouldn’t care.
What he did was messed up.
But here I was.
Because fuck me, I was in love with the guy.
It was on this thought that Cheyenne showed, returning from her visit with Knox (and it wasn’t a very long one), and the room went wired. Partly because she showed and everyone wanted news about Knox, but probably also because she had a look on her (very pretty, damn it) face that could curdle milk.
And it was aimed at me.
She stomped right up to me.
I braced.
Raye, on my right side, shifted like she was going to get up and shield me (or get in a catfight—with Raye, anything went). Cap, Mace and Brady started to move in. Jessie, on my other side, straight up took her feet, definitely to be my shield.
But Cheyenne just shot daggers at me with her eyes and spat, “He wants you.”
