“Ty! Tyler Davis, you stop.”
He glanced back and Lucy was stepping off the front porch. She was wearing the dress they’d shopped for last year, the one that made her skin glow and clung to her every curve.
It struck suddenly and forcibly that she hadn’t dressed for him. If it had been the two of them, she’d have changed into pj pants and a T-shirt. She wouldn’t have carefully put on makeup and done her hair. She’d dressed for Michael.
She wanted Michael. She’d gone along with this date thing so she could be close to another man. Michael had been worried about being the second dick, but it appeared Ty was the one in that particular position.
He’d wanted her for so long, loved her for as long as he could remember, and she wanted someone else.
Humiliation swirled through him. Why had he thought Lucy might want him as anything more than a friend? She’d made herself plain. He’d thought giving her time would change things, but it hadn’t. “You don’t have to say anything, Luce. I know when I’m not wanted.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Don’t you play that way with me. You are the one who started this. You’re the one who said you wanted to be more than friends, and you’re the one who invited Michael in.”
“Well, I wouldn’t have if I’d known the only reason you would agree to it was because you wanted him,” Ty shot back.
“That isn’t the only reason.” Lucy’s hands were fists at her sides. “I wanted to try with you, too, but I can’t lie and say I don’t feel something for him.”
“Yeah, I saw exactly what you felt for him.”
“Don’t you try to make me feel bad about kissing him.”
“You weren’t just kissing him.”
“No. I wasn’t. I got carried away.” She seemed to deflate. “How did you think this was going to work, Ty? Did you think I would watch a couple of movies with him and decide I didn’t really want to be with him? Did you think I wouldn’t kiss him or touch him?”
“He thought he could handle it, but it seems like he can’t,” a deep voice said.
Oh, great. Michael had followed her. He stood on the porch, leaning against one of the posts and looking like a man who was about to get everything he wanted.
“I thought we had an agreement,” Ty corrected. “I thought we were going after her together, not that you would jump on her the first moment you had a chance. I thought Lucy cared about me enough to not fuck you behind my back.”
“We have two different definitions of fucking.” Michael sighed and stepped off the porch. “Come on. Let’s go to Trio and the three of us can sit down and have a beer and talk this out. What you saw wasn’t what you think you saw.”
“I have two eyes.” He wasn’t about to let Michael turn this thing around on him. “I know exactly what I saw. The minute Lucy had a chance to let you in her panties, she took it, and I didn’t matter at all.”
“Are you kidding me?” Lucy crossed her arms over her chest, a sure sign that she was pissed and defensive. “This is not the way the whole threesome thing works, and now I’m pretty sure you never wanted it to work at all. This was all some kind of joke to you.”
How could she possibly think that way? “You are never a joke to me.”
Lucy sighed, a weary sound. “Good night, Ty. Michael, I’m sorry, but I think I need some time and space. I’ll see y’all around.”
She turned and started to walk back inside.
Michael frowned his way. “Well, that didn’t go well.”
“It seems like it went real well for you,” he shot back. He knew he should run after her and try to fix this situation, but there was an ache in his chest he wasn’t sure he could work around. “I’m the one who takes care of her. I’m the one who’s loved her for all of our lives.”
A brow rose over Michael’s eyes. “So she owes you what? The first kiss? The first fuck? Do you think you earned it from her? Do you have a punch card? Every time you do something nice for her, you’re one step closer to fucking her? Because that’s not how this whole thing works. You don’t get to have her simply because you think you worked for her. She’s a person, not some trophy.”
“That’s not what I meant.” He didn’t like how that accusation made him feel. He didn’t treat Lucy like that. Hell, most of the time Lucy didn’t even realize he’d helped her because he didn’t want to make her feel awkward about it.
“But it’s how you sound right now.” Michael crossed his arms over his chest, shivering a bit as he approached. “You sound like a little boy who thought he’d earned his toy only to find out someone else already took it out of the box and played with it.”
“Yeah, I get it.” How had he ever thought this could work? It had been another stupid idea in a long line of stupid ideas he’d had over the last several years. He needed to wrap his head around the fact that he’d had his chance with Luce and he’d blown it, and she wouldn’t give him another one no matter how hard he tried to take care of her. “I’m some dipshit little boy who doesn’t deserve the time of day from you.”
A low growl came from Michael. “You are going to make me wish I’d never come off my mountain.”
Ty turned because he got it. Michael thought he was a little shit. He’d told him time and time again, but Ty never learned. Well, he would learn this time. He strode toward his Jeep, opening the driver’s side door. He had barely welcomed River back and now she would likely take Lucy’s side and he would be out. He would lose the best friends he’d ever had. It was everything he’d feared all those years before. It was precisely why he’d turned Lucy down when she’d asked him out in high school.
He was about to back the Jeep up and drive away when the passenger door opened and Michael hopped in.
“Hey, what the hell are you doing?” Ty wanted to leave. He would go back to his place at the resort and he would stay there for at least a week. Maybe two. He had no delusion that Lucy wouldn’t go back to Michael and finish what they started. He didn’t want to watch them as they started their happy coupledom.
“I’m doing exactly what you did to me, asshole.” Michael settled his big body on the seat, slamming the door. “You pulled me into this situation. I didn’t want to be here. I didn’t want the damn responsibility, which is precisely why I stayed away from her. But now I’m here and I have to be the reasonable adult, and that means getting into this Jeep to talk some sense into you, and I don’t like it at all. In fact, I’m pretty pissed about it.”
“Then feel free to get the fuck out.” He was pretty pissed about everything.
“I can’t, you asshole,” Michael replied with the huff Ty had started to understand meant he was resigned to something. “You brought me into this, and now I realize why you and Lucy haven’t gotten together.”
“I’m sure it’s because I’m not half the man you are.”
“No, it’s because the two of you don’t fucking communicate for shit. I thought it was fine, Ty. I thought it would be fine to kiss her. I didn’t realize you had some rule against how she and I should act when you aren’t around. I needed clear guidelines because I thought my relationship with Lucy was controlled by me and not by you.”