Page 85 of Chad's Chase

My mouth popped open. “I didn’t—”

“Say you didn’t,” Roman Prince dared, narrowing his eyes at me.

Sticking my middle finger up at him, I looked to Chad and explained, “I grabbed his balls, Chad. Hisballs.”

When Chad bit his bottom lip to hide a smile, and the Roman Prince doubled over in a bout of laughter, my cheeks flamed from embarrassment, then got redder from anger.

“Unless a man’s hard, you can’t grab his balls without grabbing his dick,” Roman Prince said. “It’s just not possible.”

“Yes it is,” I defended, just short of stomping my feet like a toddler. He was making me feel like a dunderhead. “You know I didn’t grab your dick. I don’t even like men!” I turned to Chad, who was just standing there with his arms crossed, lips folded. “I thought—I thought he was—who is he?”

Flicking his gaze over my head to Roman Prince, Chad shook his head in frustration as he spared, “That’s JK. My best friend.”

“Well, you need a new best friend, Blood,” I fumed, “because this one’s a despicable asshole.”

Like a petulant adolescent, I stomped out of the room, down the hall and into the kitchen. There was no sign of Vivian so I grabbed myself a cup of coffee, plopped down at the breakfast bar, and stewed. Not long after, I heard the two men ambling down the hall and talking about some hill house.

They entered the kitchen and the JK dude took residence on the bar stool beside me. Retrieving a box of raisins from his pocket, he shook out a palmful, then began popping them into his mouth while he stared at me. Blatantly. Unapologetically. Impertinently.

Doing my best to ignore him, I focused on Chad instead, who was puttering about the kitchen, doinghisbest to ignore me.

He was still mad. Could he be any more unfair? How could he compare what he did to me and what I did to him, and thinkmysin was greater?

As much as he didn’t have a choice, I didn’t have a choice either. And once I learned the truth behind the whole thing, I forgave him. Easily. Why couldn’t he forgive me? He didn’t kill my family and I didn’t kill his aunt. His father did.

Sipping at my coffee, I stared him down. I wouldn’t stop staring until he looked at me. Apparently I was going to be left here again today, because he was fully dressed, not in his usual semi-formal fashion, but in black on black: black boots, black jeans and a tight-fitting, muscle-hugging black T-shirt, his silver cross pendant dangling on his chest.

The man was so fucking hot it was unimaginable.

“Are you leaving me here again?” I asked his back as he fished for the bowl of washed fruits from the fridge.

He kneed the fridge door shut, set the bowl on the countertop, plucked a strawberry and popped it into his mouth, still ignoring me.

“Whoa,” JK mumbled from beside me. “Snowflakes in hell.”

A bitter scowl twisting my features, I shot him a sidelong glance. “Didn’t you say your wife was waiting for you downstairs?”

“Yeah, but she also loves couple talk. So if I go back down there without some sweet news about Chad’s new…whatever this is…she’s gonna be more pissed at me than if I tell her you grabbed my dick.” He shook out more raisins into his palm. “Go on,”—he motioned at me with the raisin box—”kick him in the nuts, strip him down and fuck him on the countertop, coldcock him with a gun. Dosomething. For two heartless monsters who kill people for a living, you’re kinda boring me. Ya-a-a-aw-wn-nnn.”

Oh Jesus, I hated this guy. “If your wife’s so interested in our biz, why isn’t she up here with you?”

Something passed over his arresting features, but it was fleeting as he quickly donned that cocky-boy expression. “‘Cause my boy Chadrick over there fucked her. And the three of us bein’ in the same room is just fuckin’ awkward.”

That bit totally caught me off guard, and I swung my gaze back to Chad. “You fucked your best friend’swife?” I asked in disbelief. “Oh my God, do you just have a penchant for screwing over the people you say you love?”

Chad fired a death-glare at JK. “Do you always have to be such a fucking dick, man?”

JK held his hands up in defense. “I told the truth.”

“Why are you still friends with him?” I asked JK, while still looking at Chad.

“‘Cause he needs me,” he said simply. “I’m the only one who’ll put up with his constant betrayal.”

Saying nothing, Chad kept his head down, as though he either was ashamed or couldn’t be bothered trying to refute that.

I turned to JK, seeing him in a different light, because if he knew all of Chad’s ugly, dark tales and still stuck by him, his loyalty deserved to be commended. “You know, like,everything?” I inquired. “About me? About what he did? About—”

“Everything,” Chad voiced. “I tell him everything.”