Page 49 of Combust (Everyday Heroes 2)
“This Dylan chick,” Grayson carries on as if Grant never spoke. “She’s seen your scars. She hasn’t run. She still lives with your ugly ass for some godawful reason when she’s more than welcome to rent a room in my place if you get my drift. So get over it. What happened was horrible. To Shelby and Brody. To you. But Christ, Grady, to go through something like that and not want to live life to the fullest is a shame. Sleep with Dylan. Don’t sleep with her. But for fuck’s sake, don’t use the excuse of your burns as your way out. You’re a bigger man than that.”
I shove back from the table, my stool scraping against the concrete floor of Hooligan’s, and glare at my brother before I grab my beer and head toward the bar.
Fucking Grayson. He’s the quiet one of all of us, so when he says shit like that, I know he means it. And I hate that my head’s so fucked up I can’t even screw a good-looking woman without overthinking all this bullshit.
I grab an open stool at the bar and take a seat. I don’t want to deal with Grant and his fairy-tale wife or Grayson and his I-only-want-the-best-for-you bullshit. They mean well, but I still don’t want to hear it.
But every goddamn word he spoke is the truth.
Fuck me.
“Another one, Dan,” I say as I keep my head down and my eyes focused on the stack of cardboard coasters in front of me. I don’t want to talk to anyone right now, especially since I’m on a first name basis with half the people in here.
A fresh beer slides in front of me while I feel the weight of my brothers’ stares on my back. I’m sure they’re chattering on like a bunch of cackling hens. I push the thought away. I try to shove all thoughts away actually, yet Dylan stays front and fucking center, preventing me from enjoying my beer.
I don’t know how long I nurse my bottle—and the whiskey chaser Dan puts beside it, compliments of the house—before the chatter of the bar around me slowly fades to a white noise so I can relax.
It’s Wes Winters’ distinct laugh that breaks through my thoughts. He’s the last person I want to see right now, considering he’s slept with Dylan while I’m sitting here trying to figure out why I haven’t.
Ignore him.
I do at first, but every time he laughs, the sound of it grates over my nerves and irritates me further.
“C’mon. It doesn’t even count,” Wes says.
“You’ve gotten more action than the rest of us,” another voice says. I slip a glance over to see it’s Mikey Peckham, a kid I used to play baseball with back in little league.
“Action? That doesn’t count in the least.” There is something about the tone in Wes’s voice that has me listening more intently.
“That? How about she, you chauvinist bastard.” There’s a round of laughter that I don’t find amusing at all.
Wes says something I can’t hear, and I think the conversation is over until Mikey pipes up again. “So, you’re telling me that you went to her place—”
“Malone’s place,” Wes corrects, and the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. He’s talking about Dylan. I grip the beer tighter in my hand and fight the urge to walk over there.
“Right. Malone’s place. That ought to have been interesting.”
“He wasn’t there,” Wes corrects.
Like hell I wasn’t.
“That’s beside the point. You’re telling me you went to her place and got busy, but you aren’t counting it as sex? Am I missing something?”
There’s more laughter as I stand from my seat, head still down, anger firing anew.
“You’re not missing shit. Nothing happened. We fooled around. We started to get to it and, dude, I couldn’t get fucking hard.”
“Good ol’ whiskey dick,” Mikey says through his laugh.
“It wasn’t that. It was . . . Christ, I feel like an ass for saying it.”
“Just say it.”
“She had a pretty face but when the clothes came off . . .” Wes says something else I can’t hear over the scrape of the stool beside me, and Mikey’s laugh rings out again. “I’ve never been into the chubby-chasing thing before and . . . shit, that was all I could focus on when we got down to brass tacks.”
“That’s fucking cruel,” Mikey says but continues to laugh. Still making fun of Dylan.
Every part of me riots. Chubby chasing? Is he fucking kidding? Dylan McCoy is a roadmap of curves and sexiness any man would be lucky to take for a ride, and he’s calling her fat?
