Page 132 of Shades of Grey & Gold

I’ll have to sit in there and go over all the shit I had to do today and make sure every fucking decision was exactly how he would have wanted it.

I can’t believe this shit.

Chapter Forty-Eight

Max

Thethingnobodytellsyou about going to your ex’s wedding with your dead boyfriend’s brother is that there’s no etiquette guide for it.

Becca had been the plan.

Becca had been the plan since the night the invitation landed in my kitchen, and she mailed the RSVP before I could stop her.

She’d had opinions about what I should wear for months leading up to the wedding, and she insisted we still go even in the wake of the explosion. Shehad prepared a whole speech for if we ran into Patrick at the bar—she’d workshopped it; she’d run it by me twice; she’d made small revisions.

And then Becca had to open her mouth to Gio outside of the apartment last week—where he was, in his normal spot, parked outside the entrance keeping an eye on things and my whereabouts just like always.

Then, Gio told Nico that Becca told him we were going to a wedding and, specifically, that, ‘Gio and Rudi were obviously not invited so they’d have to give up the stalking for a night.’

And that’s what brought us to tonight.

Where Nico is currently standing in our too-small apartment arguing with Becca in the kitchen.

I haven’t seen him since he peeled me off his mother’s bathroom floor weeks ago, and, mercifully, he does not smell like the penthouse today.

The island looks small with him standing in the room. Becca looks even smaller. Her blonde, shoulder length hair is moving back and forth as she shakes her head at him, the rainbow streaks faded out to just the tips now.

He towers over her and she has to literally crane her neck. It’s actually humorous to watch them standing next to one another because he is over a foot taller than her.

And judging by his expression, he’s about to throw her out the window.

“She’s not going alone, Nicolas,” Becca shouts up at his face.

“Fine, she’s not going alone, something we agree on,” Nico says with a smile and points down at her face. “She’s going with Rudi.”

“Good fucking God—” Becca rolls her eyes. “Rudi?”

“Rudi.”

“You want me to have my best friend, who is going to her ex-boyfriend’s wedding after the worst two months of her life, take a married man as her plus one?”

“Rudi is a professional—”

“Rudi ismarried!” She raises her voice and flings her arms out at her side. “What is wrong with y—”

“Gio, then.” He throws his arms up, mirroring her stance.

“Gio is a goon.” She holds a palm up and looks at me. “A lovely goon, and I have great respect for him, but he is a goon and I will not send her to a wedding full of snakes with one of your goons, Nicolas!”

Every time she says his full name he grinds his teeth together and his jaw tightens.

A pause.

I place my chin in my palm and sigh deeply.

I could do without going to the wedding, honestly, but Becca has been fired up about this all weekend. Or maybe she’s just extra fired up because Nico is the one telling her no.

Becca working at one of the family businesses has been great for Becca—great pay, great benefits, she loves the hours and the job. But she’s in the same warehouse that Nico is often in, and he gets on her last nerve. But I think he enjoys putting himself there.