Page 70 of Angels & Whiskey

I wanted to break down and cry. This wasn’t happening.

Trista nodded her head and said thank you. Rich turned to me, silently asking me to get him a drink as well.

I nodded back with a smile. “I’ll go with you,” I said as I fell in step with Gabe.

He looked over his shoulder then whispered as he leaned closer to me. “You mean to tell me that your husband is Major Dick?”

“Why do you care? You have a girlfriend,” I hissed.

“She’snotmy girlfriend,” he groaned.

“She just introduced you as her boyfriend, Gabe.”

“I’m her date, not her boyfriend.”

“How—”

“You need to trust me, angel.”

I paused as we stepped in line for the bar. I loved when he called me angel, but now …

“Please,” he begged, “she’s not my girlfriend. She wanted me to come with her tonight, so I came. I had no idea we were coming to your house.”

“I didn’t know you and Rich knew each other,” I mumbled.

“Oh, we know each other all right. And since I know he hurts you—”

“No!” I shrieked, then lowered my voice back to a whisper. “Please, don’t do anything. There are cops here and all of his friends. I don’t want anything to happen.”

The line moved up a step. “You have no idea how badly I want to go over there and beat the living shit out of him, Autumn,” he groaned. “I care too much about you. And now that I’m face to face with him and have wanted to kick his ass for years—”

“Please,” I whispered.

“If I would have known this entire time your husband was Major Dick, I would have come up with another a plan. A plan where he ended up not breathing.”

We took another step forward. “You can’t. We need to stick toourplan.”

“Fuck our plan, angel. When Paul finds out who your husband is, he’ll agree with me. We didn’t call him Major Dick for nothing.”

We stepped up to the bar and ordered our drinks. I needed a drink.Bad.My heart and head were hurting and I didn’t know if the pain would ever go away.

“By the way,” Gabe started to whisper in my ear. “You know how much that dress turns me on. You’re breathtaking in it, but I want to see it pooled on the floor of my bedroom.”