Page 27

The elevator dings, signaling we’ve arrived on the lobby level. I thrust my hand toward Jax. “Hi, I’m Leenie. Nice to meet you.”
He grunts in response. Ignoring my outstretched fingers, he moves around me and out of the elevator. He walks across the huge white tiles of the tower lobby with decently long strides and is already at the exit before I even step out of the stainless-steel box.
“Would it help if I said he’s actually a good guy?” Finn asks, frowning at his brother’s back.
“I mean, he’s not wrong about Cole,” I shrug. “I can’t get mad at him for it.”
Despite the fact that he walked away like a toddler having a tantrum, Jax is waiting for us outside with his hands crammed into his pockets. When we get to him, he turns and falls in line next to his brother. “You’ll move in with us until Cole gets back.” He checks his watch. “We can stop by for some of your stuff tonight, but we need to hurry.”
“Whoa,” I say, stopping where I am in the middle of the sidewalk. I peek at Finn. “I have a perfectly fine apartment. I’m not moving in with you guys.”
He pulls his shoulders back, and the pensive look on his face dissipates to stone. “I agree with Jax. It’ll be easier this way.”
“For you, maybe,” I counter, placing my hands on my hips.
Finn drops his head to the side, struggling to cover up a smile, which makes me even more mad. “I mean it’ll be easier for us to keep you safe at our place since we already know the lay of the land, so to speak.”
“But I don’t know what kind of shithole you guys live in.” My lip curls up in disgust unwillingly. “Ugh. Boy apartment. It sounds awful.” Plus, I really just love my apartment with Jaz, and holy shit, she’s going to be so pissed if I move out, no matter if it’s temporary or not.
My sexy trainer chuckles. “My brother’s a straight up clean freak, obsessive compulsive tidier. You can probably eat off the floor.”
“It doesn’t matter what you want, anyway,” Jax grinds out. “We’re not upheaving our lives because you need to be babysat.”
The brother is really starting to annoy the shit out of me. I can only let his pissiness at the situation go so far before I start speaking up.
Finn must see it on my face because he spins his brother around and pushes him to continue walking down the sidewalk. “Come on,” Finn says to me, motioning with his head to follow his brother. “I promise we don’t live in a pigsty. We’ll go get your things, and then get you settled before we have to be back at the Ring.”
I blink at him. “The Ring? Again?”
“Fridays and Saturdays are fight nights,” he explains. “We have a lot of up-and-coming fighters that want their chance to show what they got.”
“And people are filling in for us right now,” Jax calls over his shoulder. “So can we get a move on, please?”
I glare at his impressive back. “How long until he realizes he has no idea where I live and won’t know until I tell him?”
“Actually,” Finn grimaces. “Your brother told us.”
I close my eyes, regaining my cool, and refraining from already sending my brother a nasty text even though he probably isn’t even out of the tower yet.
Instead, I pull my shoulders back and keep trudging on, following Jax to the bus stop, and then sitting squished between the two until we get to my stop. They follow me off, and we walk the half block to the dress shop. When we were on the bus, I sent a quick text to Jaz to let her know what was up. She hasn’t responded yet, but that only means that she’s waiting to freak out on me in person.
I trudge up the stairs with a heavy heart, not wanting to get in a fight with my bestie about something I’m definitely not happy about either.
“Where the hell’s the light?” Jax mutters from behind.
“It blew when we left last night,” I throw over my shoulder, probably bitchier than I would have, if you know, I wasn’t being uprooted from my life right now.
I turn the key in the lock and come face-to-face with a tight-lipped Jaz. She grabs my hand and immediately drags me into my bedroom, slamming the door. “What the fuck, Leenie?”
She’s hurt more than pissed. Or maybe hurt but pissed at the situation? I sit on the foot of the bed with a sigh. “It was either them or have my brother’s guard-slash-second-in-command follow me everywhere while he’s gone.” I’d been thinking about what to say to her the whole bus ride, so I hope I’ve found a way to spin it so she doesn’t get super mad. “At least you won’t be put out this way. If it was a Dragon, he would’ve been all up in both of our businesses.”
Jaz groans in frustration. “Is it bad then?”
“I don’t know. Cole seemed iffy about it. He was worried enough to get help, but he also wasn’t sure it was legit. Instead of Dempsey—the guy who was going to watch me—following me everywhere, he’ll be verifying the threat instead. Who knows, maybe this won’t even last that long? And hey,” I add for good measure, “You get the apartment to yourself to have all the wild sex you want.”
She drops onto the bed next to me, softening. She places her arms around my shoulders, giving me a quick squeeze. “I’m not happy about it, but I’m sure Cole’s concerns are reasonable. He would know how to handle things like this. Are you mad at him?”
That’s a loaded question. One I’m not sure how to answer. “We had the best day since he’s been back,” I offer, trying to muster up a thread of long-lasting anger, but I just don’t have the energy. “No, I’m not. What I’m mad at is that I have to do this, but I’m not going to blame Cole for it.”