She whipped around swinging. “Do. Not. Touch. Me.”
Mack held up his hands, truce-like. “I’m sorry. Jesus, just wait. Talk to me. What happened?”
She scoffed. “What do you think happened?”
“Oh, shit. You got fired? Just now?”
“No, yesterday. I just decided to come in and work today for free because I knew you were going to be there and wanted to make something extra special to throw in your date’s lap.”
He probably deserved the sarcasm. She turned again and started walking.
“Liv, wait.” He was saying that a lot tonight. “Jesus, let me do something. Come to my club. I’ll get you a drink.”
“No thanks. You’ve done enough.”
Gavin was going to kill him over this. “At least let me walk you to your car.”
“Why?”
“It’s not safe this late at night for you to walk to your car alone.”
Liv stopped in the middle of the street and faced him head-on. “Are you kidding me right now?” It was clearly a rhetorical question, because she plowed ahead. “I don’t need you. I’ve been walking into that parking garage by myself for a year now. So why don’t you run along and do whatever it is you do when you’re not spending a thousand dollars on a stupid cupcake.”
“Liv, I’m sorry.”
She whipped around again, and this time it hit him. He could fix this.
“Wait.”
She groaned. “What?”
He jogged to get in front of her and started walking backward. He’d be lucky if he didn’t wipe out. “I’ll hire you.”
Liv stopped so fast that her bag fell off her shoulder. There was a pause, and then she tipped her head back and laughed.
“What’s so funny?”
“I am not going to work for you.” She hoisted her bag back onto her shoulder. “Get out of my way.”
He slid left when she slid right.
“Liv, I feel terrible about this. Please—”
She shoved him sideways, and for the second time that night, he watched a woman storm away from him.
CHAPTER FOUR
The last thing Mack wanted to do the next morning was face the guys at a damn book club meeting, especially at Gavin’s house. But if he didn’t show up, they’d just hound him with text messages and obscene gifs. There was no avoiding it. So just before noon, he parked in front of Gavin’s house, grabbed his book and the pizza box, and trudged up the porch steps to bang on the front door.
A boisterous bark from inside greeted him seconds before the door swung open. Gavin’s wife, Thea, smiled and held back their dog, a golden retriever named Butter Ball.
“Hey,” she breathed. “Come in.”
Mack held back for a split second, studying her face for any signs that she was going to pound him for what happened with Liv last night. When no signs of violence emerged, he bent and brushed his lips across her cheek. “Hey, Thea. Thanks for having us.”
“Of course. The guys are all out back.”
“Where are the girls?” Gavin and Thea had twin daughters, Ava and Amelia, who had recently turned four.
“Napping, thank God,” Thea laughed. “They almost never do anymore, but Gavin wore them out this morning teaching them how to hit a curve ball.”
The picture that painted—of domestic bliss and family—brought a pang to his chest that soured his mood even further. Gretchen could have been the one he shared that with. He was sure of it.
Mack carried his pizza through the living room to a set of French doors leading to Gavin’s backyard. They opened to a covered brick patio, which is where he found them—Malcolm, Del, Derek, Gavin, and the Russian.
Gavin looked over his shoulder at the sound of the door. “Dude, you’re late,” he said over a mouthful of what looked like a grilled chicken sandwich. During the season, he tended to eat as healthy as possible. Which also pissed Mack off. Because he wanted to indulge in some fucking pizza and beer.
Mack dropped the pizza box on the patio table and plunged his hand into the pocket of his shorts. He withdrew the five hundred dollars he owed Del and shoved it at him.
Del wiped a napkin across his face. “What’s this?” he asked, wary and curious at once.
“What do you think it is? You won the fucking bet.”
The guys got quiet for a moment.
Del gathered the money. “So . . . you and Gretchen?”
“Congratulations,” Mack grumbled. “I think I got dumped last night. Happy?”
Malcolm cleared his throat. “You think you got dumped?”
“I swear I’m not making fun of you,” Gavin said slowly, “but how does one not know if he got dumped or not?”
Mack tossed his hands in the air. “Because I’ve never fucking been dumped before, okay?”
This time, the silence was followed by a burst of collective guffaws that vibrated windows and shook the table. Gavin laughed so hard he fell forward onto his arm on the table.
“Yeah, real fucking funny, assholes,” Mack said, yanking a chair away from the table so he could slump into it.
Del clapped a hand on his shoulder. “I’m sorry, man, but damn. Welcome to the real world, Mack. How’s it feel?”
“Like shit, thank you very much.”
“What happened?”
“I don’t know. One minute things were fine, and the next, Liv dropped the stupid cupcake, and then Gretchen was backing away from me with some lame excuse—”
“W-w-wait,” Gavin interrupted, his stammer revealing his sudden tension. “What did you just say about Liv? What does she have to do with any of this?”
Oh shit. That’s why Thea hadn’t mentioned anything about it when he’d arrived. She and Gavin didn’t know. Shit. Mack swallowed hard and looked around the room. “She, uh, she didn’t tell you guys?”
“No,” Gavin said. “She didn’t. And you have about thirty seconds to start from the beginning, or getting dumped is going to be the least of your worries.”
Mack gulped. “She, uh . . . she got fired last night.”
Mack had faced some intimidating people in his life, but Thea Scott would go down as one of the scariest. She stood barely five three and weighed less than one of his legs, but if she so much as twitched right now, he’d shit himself.
Gavin had dragged him inside the house to tell her what happened. He gulped again. “I swear to God, Thea, that’s all I know.”
How the hell was Mack supposed to know that Liv wouldn’t have told her own sister by now that she’d been fired last night? It was almost one o’clock for fuck’s sake. He looked at the other guys for help, but they all suddenly found something super interesting in the carpet or on the walls or in the backyard. Lotta fucking help they were.
“She said she’s on her way here?” Gavin asked his wife cautiously.
Thea nodded, arms crossed and jaw clenched.
“Uncle Mack, come play with us!” Ava and Amelia ran into the room trailed by Butter Ball. Ava threw her arms around Mack’s legs. He hoisted her upside down in the air and tossed her over his shoulder. Ava shrieked in delight. Amelia hopped up and down, screaming, “Me next, me next!”