“I think I can stand without the risk of falling on my face now.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah.” She lifts her head, putting her hand to my cheek to run her thumb over my lip where she bit me. “Sorry about that.”
“I’m not complaining.” I kiss the tip of her nose, watching her face soften.
“We should probably get out to your friends before they think we’re being rude.”
“Since they showed up uninvited, they can stay out there all night by themselves for all I care.”
“Now, that would be rude.” She grins before leaning up to place a kiss on my jaw and then steps away from me. “I’m just . . . umm . . . I’ll be right back.” She hurries to the small room where the toilet is and closes the door, while I go to the sink to wash my hands and will my cock to die down as I adjust my erection. After she comes out and washes her hands, we leave the room together and head to the kitchen, where Margret and Cammy are cutting up vegetables and the guys are nowhere in sight.
“Cybil.” Margret smiles when she spots us. “This is my best friend, Cammy. Cammy, this is Cybil.”
“Nice to meet you.” Cybil gives her a wave, then looks around. “Do you need help with anything?”
“You can be in charge of skewering the veggies for the kabobs.” Margret passes Cybil a pack of sticks, then looks at me. “The guys are out starting the grill. I don’t know why three of them need to start it or why they haven’t come back in. Maybe they need you to go out there to sing ‘Kumbaya’ while holding hands.”
“I’ll go help them.” I hook Cybil around the side of her neck, and she looks at me. “Are you okay in here with these two?”
“She’s fine.” Margret laughs and Cybil glances at her, smiling before meeting my gaze once more.
“I’m good. Go hang with the guys.”
“Wait.” Margret holds out a beer toward me. “I think you’ll need this for your fire-starting ritual.”
“Thanks.” I take it and kiss the side of Cybil’s head before I leave out the back door.
When I step outside, Mav turns my way. “Leave it to you to purchase the most fucking complicated barbecue around.”
“It’s not complicated. You just gotta know how to use it.” I flip up the switch on the wall that’s attached to the gas hidden under the deck. “Now turn the knob.”
He does, and the middle row of flames comes to life, followed by the others.
“Well, that was easy,” Mason mumbles before taking a swig of his beer.
I twist the top off mine, flicking the piece of metal toward the garbage in the corner, then look at Blake, noticing the annoyed look on his face. “You still pissed about Cybil and me?”
“No.” His gaze meets mine.
“Then what crawled up your ass?”
“Margret told him that Cammy’s boyfriend is going to propose,” Mason says, and Blake shoots a glare his way, and he holds up his hand. “Just saying, I know that’s what’s had you in a shit mood all day.”
“I couldn’t give one fuck about Cammy marrying some douchebag banker from Missoula.”
“Right,” Mav mumbles into his beer before tipping it back, and I do the same with mine, knowing it’s pointless to even broach the subject of feelings and emotions with Blake. He would rather pull out his nails one by one than admit he’s jealous, which I know he is.
Cammy is probably the only woman who could ever take his attention away from work, and I’m guessing that’s the problem. The issue with that is that she’s pretty, educated, and too smart to wait for him to realize there’s more to life than making money. Case in point—her man getting ready to put a ring on her finger.
“When is Cybil heading home?” Mav asks, and even knowing the question is meant to change the subject, my jaw clenches on the word home, and my chest feels funny at the mention of her leaving. Two things that don’t bode well for me when the time does come for her to go back to Oregon.
“We haven’t talked about it.”
“We have a new set of clients coming in next week.” Blake takes a seat on one of the folding lawn chairs stacked against the wall. “Mav is scheduled to take them out, so I’ll need you to help me with the runs and office shit.”
“Do you think I somehow forgot how shit has gone for the last two years and suddenly need you to remind me of what my job is?”
“You’ve been distracted, so maybe.”
“Christ, Mason’s right. You are in a shit mood. But you know me, brother, and you know I’m not the one. You wanna act like a dick, then you can take that shit somewhere else. That or you can grow a pair and actually deal with whatever it is that’s got you fucked up,” I say, and his teeth grind.
He opens his mouth like he’s going to say something, but then he shuts it, and I know why a second later when the door behind me opens and the girls come out.
“I really hope you four were able to start the grill, because I’m starving,” Margret says, then stops and looks around. “What happened, and why do you two look ready to kill each other?” She motions between Blake and me.
“Guy stuff,” Mason says as he takes the tray Cammy’s carrying and places it next to the barbecue.
“Well, cheer up,” she orders, “because I can’t drink myself into a state of ‘I don’t give a fuck,’ and I really have no desire to spend the night watching you two glare at each other.” Mason laughs while Cybil drops a plate with steaks on it next to the grill before she comes over and tucks herself under my arm.
“We’re all good,” Blake tells her, getting up from the chair he was in and motioning for her to sit. “And you really do need to stop cursing so much all the time.”
“Don’t even start on that again.” Margret rolls her eyes at him as she falls into his seat, rubbing her belly. “I don’t curse that much, and the little miss can’t make out anything I say right now.”
“You curse more than your brother,” Mav tells her, and she flips him the bird. He grins at her, shaking his head.
“The problem is I shouldn’t have let you hang with me and my friends all the time when we were kids,” Blake mutters while unfolding a few more chairs.
“They weren’t your friends; they were mine.” She smirks at him. “Or at least they all liked me more than they liked you.”
“Smart-ass.” He smiles for the first time since he got here, which makes me relax slightly.
“Someone’s phone is ringing,” Cammy says, and Cybil looks up at me.
“I think that’s me. I’ll be right back.”
Once she’s inside, I take a seat in one of the chairs and raise a brow at Margret when I find her watching me. “What?”
“I love her, like . . . love her, love her. You’d better not mess this up.”
“I wasn’t planning on it,” I say as the door behind me opens, and I turn to watch Cybil come out. “Everything okay?”
“Yeah, it was the girl who runs my website. She just wanted to give me a heads-up about a glitch on my site that might mean I receive some weird emails until she gets it sorted.”