Page 117 of Under Pressure

This is approval.

“I’ve never seen my sister happier.”

Wes leans against the table and watches Roman’s eyes finally shift to where Brielle’s standing at the bar. Her attire made me laugh for the first time in days. The short pink skirt and the matching stiletto heels are completely her style. It’s the custom Shore jersey that pulled that foreign emotion from me. I remember how she always wore mine but stopped when Roman got jealous and all but demanded she wear literally anything else.

Making him jealous was one of my favourite pastimes.

Aubrey pulls her in for a tight hug and smacks a kiss to the top of her blonde hair. The glittering pink lights above the bar reflect off the giant rock on Brielle’s finger, making it the centre of attention. I look away, nearly wincing at the throb of longing in my chest.

It’s pathetic. I’m nearing thirty, yet here I am, yearning for a woman who has never wanted me. At least not the way I need her to.

“I plan on keeping it that way,” Roman declares.

“I know. That’s the only reason I let you marry her.”

“Let him?” Finn snorts when he joins us at the table.

The rain on his Havoc jacket makes a small puddle on the floor when he shrugs out of it and hangs it on the back of an empty chair. I busy myself with my beer, the taste of it turning my already upset stomach. Everything about being here iswrong. I want to be at home, locked away from all of these knowing eyes.

“Hey, if I’d said no, he wouldn’t have done it,” Wesley argues.

Finn folds himself into the chair claimed by his jacket and looks in the same direction as Roman. His eyes find Aubrey instead, lingering there without a care in the world that doesn’t involve her.

Without saying a word, I quietly slip away from the table. I shove a rough hand through my hair and release a tight breath. Beside them, I linger at the next set of empty chairs and pretend to check my phone. There’s too much going on here. I want to scream just to see if it releases some of the tightness from my chest.

Call her.

It would be so easy. So simple. She already tried to do the same to me earlier, and I forced myself to ignore her. If I heard her voice, I’d have cracked like an egg and broken myself beyond repair. For a relationship that was never labelled as such, losing her hurts just as badly. I’ve never felt pain like this before.

Kellan’s voice hits me, so low and soft I nearly don’t hear him. “What do you need?”

I try to keep my expression blank and fail, too aware of the way my best friend has always been able to see right through me. Turning to look at him, I flare my nostrils and swallow.

“Just don’t say I told you so.”

“That’s the last thing I’m thinking, Beck. Tell me what you need, and I’ll get it done.”

My throat tries to strangle the words I say. “I couldn’t get the girl.”

“Bullshit. Yes, you did.”

“Then why did I lose her?”

His pause is heavy, loaded with thoughts I know he won’t tell me now. I almost wish he would, if only so I could get angry about something else.

Yanking a chair out from the empty table, I ignore the curious eyes on my back. Kellan doesn’t wait for an invite to join me. He plops his ass down beside me and gives my shoulder a squeeze.

“You love her, yeah?” he asks.

“That obvious?”

His snort is rough. “Yeah. Been obvious for a long while now. I didn’t understand it at first. You know what I thought about all this. She’s always had you by the balls, yet you didn’t seem to give a shit how hard she yanked on them as long as she didn’t let go.”

I can’t argue with him. He’s right.

“Do you think she loves you, too? Or was this just a passing thing to her?”

“I don’t know.” I dig my fingers into the glass beer bottle. “She let me get close, but there was still so much she wouldn’t tell me. The night we got back from the road trip, she looked so . . . happy to see me. I’ve never seen her look so vulnerable before. It was like she’d decided that she wasn’t going to fight this anymore.”