They are absolutely killing my post-Brenna-sex high. “You all have women who are part of ‘the group’ as you call it.”

“They weren’t part of the group when we started. And they weren’t working with the band—”

“Sophie was.”

Scottie raises his eyes to the heavens and mutters under his breath before trying again. “She wasn’t attached to us at that point. Not in the way you and Brenna are attached.”

“We’ve been a family for over a decade, Rye.” Jax’s expression is earnest now. “You two get together and then break up and it’s like a divorce. We’ll all feel it, and it will hurt. A lot.”

A small, hard lump of disappointment and resentment sits in my chest. I can’t help who I want. I’ve tried to ignore it, and it never went away. But I’ll be damned if I say as much to them.

“Look, I don’t want to fight with Bren anymore, all right? But we’ve been stuck in this…thing. It’s like we can’t help it. Whenever we’re around each other, we react like…”

“Angry alley cats?”

“Vinegar and bicarbonate?”

Jax grins. “Way to science it up, Scottie.”

I glare at both of them.

“What I want to know,” Jax says, “is why Brenna hates you so much. I know you asked me not to bring it up again, but considering you two are now getting into it, maybe it’s no longer an issue.”

Slumping in my seat, I eye my two friends. Despite their meddling, I know they care. They wouldn’t be here bugging the ever-loving hell out of me if they didn’t.

“I don’t know how it got so bad. I mean, I know it started when you all insisted on that stupid interview…”

“Not our best hour,” Scottie murmurs dourly.

Back when we were about to go on our first world tour, Brenna made a bid to become our official PR manager. She’d been doing PR for us since the beginning, but given that she was eighteen, we had some reservations. Sure, we were only twenty, not much older than her, but she was Killian’s little cousin; we wanted her safe and at home. But Brenna wanted her shot, and who were we to stop her? So we decided to go over a few ground rules. All understandable, until the meeting somehow turned into making sure Brenna could contain her obvious crush on me.

What a bunch of asshats we’d been. But I’d been the worst. Embarrassed and more than a little tempted by Brenna, I’d gone into total shithead mode. I wince at the memory, the exchange clear as a bell even now.

“I know you’ve had a little crush on me, Berry.” God, the ego on me.

A lovely shade of raspberry had washed up all the way to the dark red roots of Brenna’s hair. “Of all the…I do not have a crush on you!”

I could have stopped there, but no, I had to make certain she hated me, thinking back then that it was better that way. Safer. “You really shouldn’t. I’m a terrible bet. Total player. No offense, Bren, I like you but you’re not my type. At all.”

“Likewise,” she’d gritted out.

Again, I could have stopped. But the guys had been watching. Killian had laughed, a relieved sound like he knew all along Brenna couldn’t have been so foolish. It dug at a sore spot I never knew I had. And I lashed out. Like a jerk.

“I mean the very idea is laughable.”

“Laughable?” She’d drawn herself up then, lifting her chin, fire flashing in her amber eyes. It was at that moment I truly saw the Brenna I know today. Cool, confident, and oh so disdainful of me. “Listen here, buttercup, I could twist you around my finger if I so choose. But you’re not worth the effort.”

She’d been magnificent in her rage. And I’d eaten it up, getting off on it in a way I couldn’t explain. We’d gone another few rounds before the guys shut us both up.

I wince at the memory and rub the back of my stiff neck. “It should never have happened that way. She didn’t deserve it.”

“Hey,” Jax protests. “We were just trying to keep her safe.”

I sit up a little straighter. “No, man. We should have given her the same space to make mistakes. We all were players, young and stupid. We shouldn’t have put her on the spot like that. We didn’t have to make it about her and me. Aside from Killian, she could have ended up hooking up with any one of you…” I don’t want to think about that. I’ll get too pissed and have to hit something.

“Ah, hello?” Jax starts with a laugh. “The only one she had a massive crush on was you.”

Hearing him say it aloud has my heart thudding with a weird mix of pleasure and regret. For a brief moment in time, I’d had Brenna’s regard. And then I lost it.

“Yeah, well, I killed that crush forever.”

“Like I said,” Jax mutters. “Not the brightest penny.”

“I had to do it. She kept looking at me that way…” Tempting the hell out of me. “Even if I’d wanted…Shit. No. You both know Killian had laid down the law and told us in no uncertain terms to stay the hell away from his cousin.”

“He shouldn’t have done that,” Scottie says. “It wasn’t his decision to make.”

“No, it wasn’t.” I pick at the edge of the table where the black enamel is peeling off. “But hooking up with her would have led to hurt feelings and messed with the band.”

“You’re right about that.” Scottie looks at me with something close to hesitation before his expression smooths out. “Brenna and I kissed once.”

“What?” Jax and I shout together. Although Jax sounds scandalized while I’m just pissed.

Scottie shrugs. “It was still in the early days when we’d started working closely together. We got drunk and decided to try it.” He smiles fondly. The fucker. “A colossal failure. It was like kissing my sister, honestly.”

I should feel relief, but my petty side is sticking to the point that Scottie got to sample Brenna’s lips before I did.

He catches me scowling and lifts a beleaguered brow. “And we both realized how stupid it was because we both had to continue to work together.”

“It’s only stupid,” Jax says thoughtfully, “if Rye’s sleeping with Brenna to scratch an itch. Somehow I don’t think that’s why.”

They both turn their eyes on me. Dissected and left open in front of them, I fight the urge to cross my arms over my chest. When the silence grows, and I can’t stand it any longer, I let out a breath. “She’s the one that got away.”

I clear my throat and give them a belligerent look. “I know we bicker and snipe at each other. Honestly, it’s some messed up form of self-defense for me at this point. But you think I don’t know the risks in trying to change things? That I haven’t tried my hardest to stay the hell away from her all these years, when she’s the…Fuck it. She’s the only woman I’ve ever wanted to be around for more than a few hours, even when she’s hating me.

“So, yeah, I know. I know the risks better than you chuckleheads. But she’s finally let me in. And I’m going to take the chance, for however brief it might be. Even if I crash and burn and don’t survive the wreck. Because I can’t do anything less and still comfortably breathe.”