Page 69 of Asking for Trouble

“I better get back to it,” Blue murmured, excusin’ herself ’fore I could keep her at my side.

Still, it gave me the opportunity to turn the full weight’a my scowl on my brother. “What the fuck, Curtains?”

He just pulled a full pint Blue had laid down on the table into the bracket’a his arms and glared into the amber surface.

I looked up at Dane and Bat for a second, but they were sharin’ one’a their damn looks no one else had the key for, so I ignored them.

“Dude,” I said, tryin’ to control myself. “You get I’m into this girl, right?”

Curtains rolled his eyes. “I’m not blind or deaf, and you won’t stop talkin’ about her, so, uh,yeah.”

“Is that a problem for you?” I asked, incredulously.

I didn’t date seriously, but I had a rotation’a woman through my life over the years, and Curtains was never anythin’ but his usual dumbass, awesome self with them.

So I didn’t get this.

And the tension made my teeth ache.

“This is it for me,” I told him, an edge’a desperation like a blade cuttin’ into each word. “You get that? Blue’s mine.”

“She’s fuckin’ married, man, to a member’a the White Raiders,” Curtains reminded me, knuckles white around the glass. “She’s the kid daughter’a Rooster Cavendish. The man who put Axe-Man away for three years and who’s actively gunnin’ to take down the club. She isnotyours; she’s theirs.”

“She’s as much theirs as an animal in a fuckin’ cage, and you know it,” I seethed, seein’ red and not just ’cause Curtains was a ginger.

For the first time ever, I wanted to hit my best friend in the fuckin’ throat.

“I’m just sayin’, you’re jeopardizin’ the club by doin’ this secret affair shit with her. Especially when it’s not that fuckin’ secrets seein’ as you’re flirtin’ with her in public and plantin’ those neon signs for her everywhere she goes.”

I blinked at him like I’d never seen him before. “What the hell, Curtains?”

He rolled his lips between his teeth, then cursed under his breath. “Never mind. I’m outta here.”

I sat numbly as he climbed over the back’a the both instead’a askin’ me to get out so he could storm outta the bar.

When I looked up at Dane and Bat, they were both watchin’ me with varyin’ expressions’a sympathy.

“What am I missin’ here?” I asked ’cause King was at home with Cressida and their kid, and Z had left with Loulou.

That left them, Wrath, and Kodiak playin’ pool on the corner, and Axe-Man and Mei who’d pulled out a sketchbook they were both drawin’ in as they spoke softly to each other.

Bat and Dane were my best option.

It was the latter who winced and offered, “He could be jealous.”

I gaped at them. “Jealous? What the hell’s he got to be jealous about?”

“Um,” Mei interjected. “Maybe the fact that the woman he’s loved is lost to him, probably forever, and now he has to watch his best friend falling in love?”

“Or he’s worried you’re gonna leave him or spend less time with him now that you’ve claimed an Old Lady,” Bat said over the rim’a his beer bottle before takin’ a pull. “I’m no expert on romantic relationships, but I get friendship, and this is classic.”

“Even though she was thrilled for us, Cleo had a hard time adjusting when Henning and I actually got our heads out of our asses and started seeing each other,” Mei admitted, and Axe-Man smoothed a soothin’ hand over her thigh. “We’re a family, all three of us, but obviously, it changes the dynamic.”

I blinked down at the scarred wood tabletop as I digested their words.

’Cause they made a fuckuva lotta sense when they laid it out like that.

Curtains and I had trauma bonded over savin’ Elsa only to lose her again, and even though I’d dated and Curtains fucked around to keep the edge off, there’d never been anyone we brought into our family’a two.