“Well, that’s a good thing, considering here at Monty’s there is no shortage of beer.” She overstated it like she was auditioning for a commercial.
Mack laughed, and she patted his shoulder again. “I’ll be right back.”
Her expression was totally playful when she said it before it darkened when she glanced at me.
Clearly, she was trying to put me in my place. Get under my skin. Make it hurt. But that was the brilliance about not giving a fuck.
Nothing hurt. Nothing mattered. That was the way I had to keep it.
Mack watched her saunter away before he pushed out an exaggerated sigh and shot me a glare. “That poor girl is in love with you.”
“Pssh . . . the only thing that girl is in love with is my dick. Big difference.”
He barked out a laugh. “Cocky bastard.”
“That is what I just said.” I tried not to grin.
“You really are full of yourself there.”
“What can I say? We all have our talents.”
“You mean delusions. We all have our delusions,” he tossed out, grinning wide.
“Like the delusion you’ve been having for years that you’re as good as me? That’s just plain sad,” I razzed.
His tongue rolled around under his left cheek, fighting laughter. “You wish, asshole. I taught you everything you know.”
“See . . . that’s where you’ve gone wrong, Mack. It’s not about teaching. It’s all about the natural, raw talent.”
“Only talent you have is making all that bullshit rolling off your tongue sound convincing.”
A chuckle danced in my chest. “Again . . . raw talent. What can I say. I was born to hold court. Just like I was born to love the ladies right.”
We both sat back when Mirena returned and set Mack’s beer down in front of him. “There you go, tough guy. There’s more where that came from.”
She’d shifted her eyes to me when she said the last, sliding my scotch in my direction.
She walked off.
Mack took a gulp of the dark amber in his glass. “She doesn’t look like you did her all that right.”
“Seems to me you’re just pissed you didn’t get a go at her first.”
He shrugged his massive shoulders. “Maybe. She’s fucking hot.”
I took a swill of my scotch, relishing in the burn. “Go for it.”
With a harsh shake of his head, he sat back casually in the booth, one of those smirks riding all over his face. “Last thing I need is to go dipping my dick anywhere yours has been. No, thank you.”
“You act like you don’t love me.” Humor played around my mouth.
“Uh, yeah, no. Not even close to lovin’ you that much,” he teased, lips twitching all over the place before his demeanor shifted. “You really wouldn’t give two fucks if I went after her, would you?”
“Not even half of one. I don’t catch feelings. Don’t have the space for that.”
A huff of disbelief slipped from his mouth. “I think you have plenty of space in that hollowed-out cavern you’ve got going on right there.” He leaned across the table and poked me in the chest.
The asshole.
He sat back again. “Maybe if you started acting a little sweeter, you might sucker in one you actually might want to keep.”
I swirled the liquid around in my glass. “I think both of us know there’s nothing sweet about me, and the last thing I’m interested in is keeping anyone. You know better than that.”
“Do I?”
Discomfort pushed at my conscience as I looked at my best friend, who was heading in a direction he knew better than to go. We both got it. Understood it about the other. Didn’t need him to go changing his tune, digging up shit that definitely was better left buried.
“Maybe it’s time you stop thinking with your dick and do a little thinking with your heart.” There he went, pushing it farther.
Eyes narrowing, I cocked my head with the challenge. “That wouldn’t be so pretty, now, would it?”
“Not sure you’d know since you’ve never tested it out.”
“Got a whole lot of room to talk there, my friend,” I sent back, trying to keep the hostility from taking control of the words and failing miserably. He didn’t get to do this.
He choked out a laugh that held zero humor, harshness ridging his brow. “Circumstances are a little different, don’t you think?”
“Are they?”
Redness climbed up his thick neck. The guy tried to swallow around it, while I felt like a total dick again for throwing it in his face. Because the circumstances were different. But that didn’t mean they hurt either of us any less.
We’d both learned the hard way that loving someone, having faith that they were going to be around forever, that they wouldn’t completely break you, led to nothing but a demolished, desolated heart.
I hadn’t created that empty cavern inside me.
She’d left it there.
He edged closer to the table, gruff words a challenge as they rumbled from his mouth. “Yeah, they are different. Because at least I let myself feel it.”
My teeth gritted. Pain lanced through the middle of me. A million cuts that would never heal ripped wide open. “You think I don’t feel it?”
Did he think I didn’t remember, every fucking day?
He was clutching his beer so tightly I was surprised he didn’t crush the glass. “I think you’d prefer not to feel anything. I think you shut yourself off that day, and you haven’t let a soul in since. That’s gonna kill you, man. Emotionally. Maybe even physically. Because you roll without having a whole lot of fucks to give except for your climb to make partner and build your own fucking empire. One way or another, in the end, that’s gonna destroy you.”
“It’s what will save me.” It was out before I could stop it.
I suddenly felt seventeen.
Terrified and alone and promising myself it would never feel that way again. That no one would ever have the power to hurt me the way she had.
I’d break the entire fucking world before it got the chance to break me.
“Yeah, and how’s Bennet?” Mack’s words twisted with distaste.
I cringed, shifted in discomfort, took a sip of the scotch. “Bennet is just the same as he’s ever been. My ticket to the top.”
“Not if he takes you down before you get there.”
I fiddled with the collar of my shirt, suddenly feeling hot. “He was there for me when I needed someone most.”
Brow pinching up tight, Mack angled his head. “Dude is shady as fuck. You and I both know it. And you know I fucking love you, man. That I’d die for you. That I’ll always have your back. Help you in whatever way I can.”
He angled in farther, his voice dripping with a growled promise, “But what I’ll never be is a dirty cop. And you know as fucking well as I do that Bennet is as dirty as they come.”
“My shit’s clean.”
It was a lie I’d been feeding myself for so long, I should have believed it. But the truth of just how shady that shit went was impossible to ignore.
He sat back in the booth. “You better make sure it stays that way.”
I tried to tamp it down, stop it from boiling up, the old hatred for owing anyone anything. But Bennet had been there for me when I’d been that pathetic, scared kid.
He fed me and had given me a job. Picked me up and dusted me off. Told me he’d always be there for me, and he’d stuck by his word.
I’d owed him. Felt loyal to him.
But as the years had passed, the side jobs he’d had me doing for him became more and more warped. Darkness concealed by the light, feigned good deeds that were nothing but a cover.
Had to wonder if that hadn’t been the reason I’d been drawn to him all along. The reason I’d ended up at his feet. The lure of wickedness hidden inside him, the same kind of wickedness that thrived inside me.
Mack shook his head and swore, looking away for a second like he’d just heard every single one of my thoughts. “You’re one of the good guys, Ian. Fucking good, no matter if you want to be or not. It’s time to start living that way. Because I know you. I fucking know you better than anyone, and it will kill me if you let the grief you refuse to feel continue to own you.”