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Kian nodded, then steeled me with a glare. “You would have gotten her off though, right? I taught you at least that much before you up and married—”
“Shut up.”
He raised an eyebrow. “About your wife or how I taught you all about getting off?”
Heat flushed my face. “Don’t be a fucking dick, Kian.”
“Don’t be so in the closet, Vaughn. Nobody cares if you used to like me jerking your cock.”
I wasn’t doing this with him. Because people did fucking care. People had cared and people had gotten hurt. He was opening up old wounds, and I wasn’t in the fucking mood after everything that had gone down with Rebel during the night. I stormed off down the next aisle, even though it was clearly marked ‘ropes and pulleys,’ neither of which was on Kian’s list.
Caleb Black stood in the middle of the aisle, a length of thin rope in his hand. He glanced up when I entered, and I felt like I’d stepped right inside a pressure cooker. If he’d heard what Kian had said…
“Caleb!” I overcompensated with a wide smile and pointed to the rope. “Planning to rob a bank and take hostages?”
Caleb frowned and shook his head. “What?”
I chuckled. “Sorry. Bad joke. I’m looking forward to your party tonight. It’s okay if I bring a date and a couple of friends, right?”
He squinted at me. “Your date hot?”
She was, but I didn’t get why he’d ask. “Yes?”
“Good. She can come. No uglies. Your friends too, if you want, whatever. We’ve got plenty of beer.” He held up his length of rope. “Gotta get back to the house and tie down some of the inflatables. They were flapping around a bit when the breeze kicked up this morning. See you tonight.”
“See you then.”
Caleb stalked away, and Kian appeared.
“Where were you?” I asked.
“Giving you a minute to cool down, then I heard you say Caleb and I thought I’d better not interrupt. That was Caleb as in…”
“The piece of shit who hurt Rebel? Yeah, that’s him.”
“He reminds me of a snake. Was it me or were his eyes too close together?”
“It wasn’t just you.”
Caleb walked away to pay for his rope.
“You believe he’s using that to tie down inflatable skeleton decorations?” Kian asked.
We both stood in silence, our earlier argument forgotten against a common enemy.
“I’m not taking my eyes off Rebel tonight,” Kian muttered.
Neither was I.
30
REBEL
In the middle of a messy kitchen, half-made cake batter sitting in a bowl waiting for my attention, all I could think about was storming upstairs to Kian’s room. I wanted to search through his things and find some sort of proof that backed up the things Sasha had said.
Or better, proved she was wrong.
But Kian had been nothing but a friend to me since I’d moved in here. He’d gone out of his way to make me feel at home when everything had felt unsettled. He’d helped me with my training out of the goodness of his own heart. He’d cooked and cleaned and never asked for anything in return.