Natalie, being Natalie, took one look at me, guessed the situation, and didn’t have any problems throwing it out there.
“Shit, seriously? Did I walk in on the aftermath of you gettin’ banged by a biker? Let me guess, you did it,” she leaned in, “dawgie style.”
Her meaning was clear and Shy actually growled low in his throat and I felt him begin to move. I put up a hand and planted it in his chest, keeping my glare pinned on Natalie.
“I love you, you know I do. But one more word, Nat, I’ll confiscate my key, kick your ass out, and you’ll never see me again. Are you feeling me?” I asked softly.
Her eyes bore into me, her jaw clenched, then she jerked up her chin.
I twisted my neck and looked up at Shy. “Darlin’, please? For me?”
That muscle ticked in his jaw, his eyes were locked on Natalie, but he also jerked up his chin.
I heaved a sigh of relief and dashed to the bathroom. I cleaned up in record time, snatched a pair of panties out of my drawer, yanked them up, and tripped on our clothes that were strewn all over the floor on my way out.
They were mostly Shy’s clothes, since his entire limited wardrobe was lying there considering his brother had been in Denver for two weeks before going back down to Fort Carson and he’d crashed at Shy’s pad, so Shy had crashed at mine and hadn’t quit crashing there even after Lan left.
Vaguely, it occurred to me it was time to do laundry and, considering his wardrobe was severely limited, go shopping.
I righted my feet even as I settled my panties on my hips and my nightie was still falling over my behind when I skidded to a halt in the living room to see my best friend and my guy in a scary staredown.
“Right, you’re back,” Natalie stated, not tearing her eyes from Shy. “Can we speak now?”
“You do, you watch that mouth of yours,” Shy shot back instantly. “You say somethin’ that pisses Tab off or hurts her, you answer to me.”
“Answer to you? Who talks like that?” Natalie returned swiftly with not a small amount of sarcasm.
“I do and you don’t, bitch, you’ll find your coked-up ass out in the goddamned breezeway.”
Uh-oh.
What did he mean?
My eyes narrowed on Natalie.
Oh crap.
Her eyes were bright. Too bright.
Crap!
“Fuck you!” she screeched.
Shy leaned slightly toward her, and he’d done that to me when he was angry, so I knew he was in the danger zone.
“Do not even think of comin’ into your girl’s house who, by the way, is my woman, high off your goddamned ass and spoutin’ your mouth, so stoked on blow, your brain is a fuckin’ whiteout,” he growled. “Calm your ass down.”
“Natalie,” I verbally pushed into the fray and then carefully asked, “Are you doing cocaine?”
Her eyes swung to me. “We’re not talkin’ about me. We’re talkin’ about you hookin’ up with Shy fuckin’ Cage when I warned you not to do that shit.”
Shy moved, my eyes went to him, and I asked, “Darlin’, please, let me handle this.”
His gaze cut to me, he took me in, rocked to a halt, gave me an unhappy look that I endured but fortunately cut his eyes back to Natalie and stood firm, crossing his arms on his chest.
I looked back at my friend. “Nat, are you doing blow?”
She ignored me and declared, “You said it wasn’t like that with you two when I fuckin’ knew it was and now he’s sayin’ you’re his woman, Tab, which means you didn’t listen to me. You listened to his bullshit lines and now you think you’re his woman when you’re just like any other woman he’s had, and there have been lots, Tabby, and you fuckin’ know it. You’re just pussy.”
“Tab, babe, she didn’t hear me,” Shy clipped his warning, but I didn’t move my eyes from Natalie.
“Natalie, maybe we can talk about what happened with me and Shy when Shy’s not around. Let’s talk about something important, and that’s the fact that I’m a nurse and I can see quite clearly you’re high.”
“How about we talk about the fact that not weeks ago I know he was bangin’ a bitch named Rosalie?” she returned.
More unhappy growling from Shy but I again ignored him. “I know. Now he’s with me.”
She threw up her hands as her eyebrows went up. “So he dumps that bitch and now you’re his woman?” She looked at Shy. “Congratulations, sport. Record time. One down, the other one set up, good to go. How long’s Tab gonna last?”
Considering more unhappy thunder was rolling off Shy, I knew he was about to lose it but I’d already lost it. I, however, did it a whole lot quieter which meant they both felt me. I knew it because the air in the room stilled and I felt both their eyes on me.
But I only had eyes for Natalie.
When I had her attention, I said only one word:
“Don’t.”
“Tab—”
I shook my head, she processed the look I knew I had on my face, and she shut her mouth.
I carried on talking.
“You put me in the middle of you and Jason. He did too but he’s dead now, so he can’t right that wrong. You’re alive and you’re doing it again. Don’t.”
I saw her jaw flex.
I kept going. “Jason and you rubbed each other the wrong way. This time, starting right out of the gate, you are makin’ it impossible for Shy to like you, much less eventually be able to forgive you for the stuff coming out of your mouth. You know him, who he is, what he is. You go head-to-head with a brother of Chaos MC, you won’t come away unscathed one way or another. Don’t do that either.”
I watched her swallow then kept right on talking.
“He means something to me, you already know that, but what he means to me has changed. The reason you don’t know how it’s changed is demonstrated precisely with how you charged in today and behaved.”
“Right,” she hissed.
I ignored that and kept going. “If you’ll calm down, we’ll plan a time when we can talk like adults about what went down with Shy and me. Once we do that, it’s up to you to decide if you feel me or if you feel I’m making a mistake.”
I gave that a moment to sink in and when Nat made no response I kept right on going.
“You also gotta be you, so be you and tell me then, rationally and without being a pain in the ass, why you feel that way. But I expect you to respect my decision, since I’ll warn you now you won’t change my mind. I’ll also expect you to suck it up and get along with my man instead of putting me in the middle. You pull that crap on me again, Nat, like last time, you know you’re gonna lose. And this is not because I don’t adore you. You’ve never had a man”—I powered through her flinch—“when you do, you’ll get it. If you have a partner who grows to mean the world to you, I’m sorry, girl, but he’ll win every time. The thing you gotta get is, a sister’s any sister at all, she stands by her sister’s side or takes her back no matter how she feels about her sister’s man or the shit that goes down between her sister and that man. You have got to learn that but learn it now. I’m not going through that bullshit again.”