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I scowled at her. She held my gaze.

Ugh.

She could get so annoying when she refused to back down.

“That clip is all over social media.” Sergio grinned before plopping down next to me. “He’s going to hate it.”

There was glee in his eyes. We hadn’t really talked about how he felt with me fucking Tony—or about Tony’s visit—but he hadn’t banned me from talking about him, and he didn’t look squeamish about it. He was going to therapy now, too.

Kara had mentioned it. She’d rushed in to say it wasn’t a secret and Sergio had explicitly told her she could tell me. She was sweet.

“Be nice to him,” I growled playfully. “He’s clearly trying.”

Sergio blinked before he stared at my face all weird. It was unnerving. I pulled my legs closer to my body.

“You really have a crush.”

Ugh.

In hindsight, I should’ve seen it coming. “So what? He’s good.”

“Even after the spanking?”

I shivered. My ass was still a bit sore. Tony had applied Arnica, and a bunch of other shit, but I could still feel the shadow of his hand. I liked it. It made me feel strangely warm when I forgot about it and sat too fast somewhere.

“What about it?”

Playing it cool was as good a strategy as any. I didn’t get what Sergio was talking about, anyway. He hadn’t raised his hand once after the demo was done, and we hadn’t talked about it since, either. Did he think Tony took it too far or something?

I frowned. Did anyone else think that? One glance around the room told me nothing—mostly because people weren’t paying attention to us. They were either munching on food or talking about cats.

“Nothing,” Sergio rushed out, swallowing quickly. “I mean, I just thought you’d freak out after.”

“You did?” I tried to keep my voice even, but the words bubbled up my throat. “Why on Earth would I do that?”

In my defense, Iwastrying not to be in attack mode all the time. I just wasn’t successful. Maybe I was more susceptible than usual lately. Between not really knowing what had happened to Cece and what was on her mind half of the time, the blurriness around what I was doing with Tony, and what that meant to my relationship with Sergio—and everyone else, for that matter?

Yeah, I was more prone to taking things personally. Sue me.

“Don’t kill me!” Sergio yelped. “But it’s kind of your MO?”

“Uh?”

“I mean…” Sergio chewed on the inside of his cheek. “The admittedly few times you’ve gone out with a D-type? It’s kind of been your thing. You have a more serious scene with them, and you flee.”

“That’s not?—”

It was. It was true.

“When did you become the smart one?”

“Hey!” Sergio pouted. He whipped his head around before I could tease him further. “Daddy, Jaime says I’m not smart!”

“I didn’t?—”

Abel quieted us both. He had a Daddy way about him that was different from everyone else in the club. He was quiet, but not broody, and he wasn’t scary, but something about his calmness kind of washed over me whenever he focused his attention on me.

“Care to explain what happened before Jaime said that?”