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“Thank you,” she whispers, her lips meeting mine for a sweet kiss.
Everyone slowly begins to trickle inside, a sense of relief on their faces from the time they’ve had to spend with their significant others. As crazy as it sounds that April and I have just been sitting on the sofa and chatting, I feel the same comfort from having this time with her.
I eventually get pulled away, Legend desperate to talk to me about a new bike he’s thinking about purchasing, but I keep my eyes on her. I notice her behavior is different. She’s no longer trying to shrink into the background when someone approaches her to talk. Her smile is quick and real, her eyes shining bright when she laughs. She’s grown over the last five days that I’ve been gone, and I feel a little pang of disappointment that I haven’t been the one to bring this change in her, but I’m also grateful for it. I promised her that Cerberus would welcome her with open arms, and it seems like they have.
I watch her, nursing my beer and making sure I’m available if she seems to be getting overwhelmed as the evening drags on, but when her eyes meet mine from across the room, she seems perfectly comfortable to be talking with everyone. She’s actually enjoying herself, and it lights something unexplainable up inside of me. Cerberus is my family, the one I chose and who chose me, and one day, I hope she’s able to feel the same way. If she doesn’t, it won’t be for a lack of effort on their part.
I lose sight of her for ten minutes while talking to Jinx, Rocker, and Cannon. It says a lot, the level of need I have for this woman that even being in the same room, I feel a little lost without her in my line of sight, but then I turn and find her with her head bent low while Gigi talks to her.
“That can’t be good,” I mutter.
There’s nothing wrong with Gigi. She’s incredibly sweet, an amazing mother, and she makes Hound stupidly happy, but the woman has no filter. Her mind is always on sex, and honestly, I’m surprised to see the two of them over here rather than at their house across the street in the middle of marathon sex.
Seeing her talk to April with that devious smile on her face makes the skin on the back of my neck tighten. I’m reaching up to grip there when Jinx notices my discomfort.
April’s face is almost as red as her hair, but she’s nodding her head, listening intently as Gigi talks.
“You better be careful,” Rocker warns. “If they keep talking, you’re likely to end up with a sex toy in your ass.”
Cannon chuckles. “Don’t knock it until you try it.”
Jinx and Rocker laugh, but this is no laughing matter. I’m worried about the fallout when I watch Hound approach his wife and mine. Gigi is so animated when she’s talking that she doesn’t even notice him approach. She continues talking for several more minutes before Hound taps her on her shoulder, bends low, and whispers something in her ear. I don’t know what he possibly could’ve said to make Gigi stiffen, but I watch his mouth as he apologizes to April before escorting Gigi away.
“Shit,” I grumble.
April looks up, her eyes landing on me for the briefest of seconds before they dart elsewhere.
The guys are laughing at my back as I cross the room. She looks like she wants to run when she notices me making my way to her.
Chapter 23
April
My feet are urging me to take off, and if disappearing were humanly possible, I’d do it.
I know my face is flame red. I can feel the heat of embarrassment on my cheeks and working its way down my neck. Everyone that warned me about Gigi were insanely accurate. She just said things to me that weren’t even whispered back at the compound. We’ve only once chatted in a group, and that conversation was about babies. Get the woman alone and man does she hold nothing back.
I can’t look at Nate as he inches closer, and I’m thankful when he pulls me to his chest. At least this way I don’t have to look him in the eyes. His scent is different, like he doesn’t use the same soap while he’s gone that he uses here, but it’s pleasant and comforting all the same. Maybe we won’t have to have a conversation. Maybe I can forget Gigi’s words and never have to think of them again.
His chest is shaking under me, and I know he’s laughing. I no longer feel like he’s laughing at me, so that sense of disappointment in him no longer finds its way into my mind. I also know the laughing means a conversation that I’m going to be very uncomfortable with is going to happen.
