“Sis, baby,” Dom cajoled, giving her one of his killer smiles.

Sissy shot him a look, clearly immune to Dominic Vincetti’s killer smile. This made me smile.

“Tomorrow, after Ava’s recovered from the drama,” Uncle Vito ordered.

“Uncle Vito,” Dom said.

“Tomorrow,” Vito snapped.

Dom turned to Sissy, the killer smile gone. His face, I was shocked to see, looked serious. “I f**ked up. I admit it, all right? I f**ked up. It won’t happen again.”

Sissy kept on giving him the Sissy Glare.

Dom turned to me. “I f**ked up, with my wife and with you. It was a shit thing to do.”

“You got that right,” I told him.

He turned back to Sissy and promised, “I can make it good between us again.”

She continued with the Sissy Glare and against my will I began to feel sorry for him. He had a huge audience but he seemed not to care. Any man would be humiliated, except maybe a man who genuinely wanted his wife back.

Wow.

I couldn’t process this and didn’t try. Instead I looked at Sissy to ascertain if she needed bestest best friend assistance and I saw she wasn’t backing down.

“Just think about that,” Dom urged quietly and it sounded like he sincerely wanted her to think about it and he wasn’t lying through his men-are-jerks teeth.

And, somehow I suspected, he wasn’t.

Then he and Uncle Vito were gone.

I watched as Sissy deflated right in front of me all the bravado just leaked right out of her.

“You okay?” I asked.

She shook her head.

“I think we’ve moved on to Tequila Time,” I said.

She nodded her head.

“My place!” Shirleen yelled. “I got tequila. I got rum. I got vodka and I got mixers. I even got popcorn. Someone should bring some tortilla chips and guacamole because I haven’t had breakfast and I’m definitely peckish.”

“I’ll bring cashews,” Indy said.

“I’ll bring the chips and it’ll only take a minute for me to mix up the guac,” Jet put in.

“I’ll bring turkey, swiss and rye. We’ll make sandwiches,” Roxie offered.

“Fucking hell,” Hank muttered

More offers were called as Luke curled me into his body. I looked up at him and his face was soft.

“You goin’ to the party?” he asked.

“How’s Noah?” I queried instead of answering.

He hesitated, pulled his lip between his teeth then let it go and shook his head.

I did not take this as a good sign. I sucked in air then breathed, “Is he dead?”

Luke shook his head again. “Broken neck. Bone pierced the spinal column. He’ll be paralyzed from the neck down for life.”

I shut my eyes tight. I really hated Noah, he conned me, stole from me, beat me up and worse. Still, even after all that, being paralyzed was a high price to pay. This hit me hard and even though he was a jerk, I felt bad for him, bad enough for my throat to get tight.

“Look at me, babe.”

I opened my eyes, caught his and told him, “I don’t feel like partying.”

His other arm went around me and got tight. “I didn’t think so.”

“That sucks for Noah,” I whispered.

“It sucks for Noah,” Luke agreed.

“Why do I care?” I asked.

“Because you’re a good person,” he answered.

“Do you care?”

As usual, brutally honest, he replied, “Nope.”

I rested my forehead on his shoulder. His fingers slid up and curled around my neck.

“It’s over,” I murmured.

“Yeah,” he said.

My arms went around his waist and I pressed in close. His fingers started kneading the muscles at my neck.

“What do you want to do, beautiful?” he asked.

I thought about it, an idea came to me and I tilted my head back to look at him.

“Do you have a bike?” I asked.

He watched my face. “Got three.”

Of course, he had three.

“Can we ride?” I requested.

Luke grinned. “Absolutely.”

Chapter Thirty

Bliss

The elevator doors opened and I flew through them.

“Late!” I shouted, running to the dining room table. “I’m late!” I repeated unnecessarily.

I threw the shopping bags I was carrying on the table and scanned the loft.

Luke was sitting in the recliner. He was tipped back, footrest up, hands behind his head, watching the Rockies on the flat screen (even though if you stopped to listen you could hear the damn game through the windows we were that close to Coors Stadium). The new blinds were mostly closed all around so as not to let the glare of the sun hit the TV.

Mace and Matt were sitting on the couch with their feet up on the coffee table and hands curled around bottles of beer. Big Bobby, now fully recovered and back at work, had one of the new dining room table chairs (black lacquer, gray suede upholstered seat and back, sweeping lines, kick f**king ass) turned backwards and he was straddling it. Hank was sitting on the kitchen counter and he was holding a beer by its neck. Eddie’s head was in the fridge.

All the men had turned, eyes on me, as I ran across the loft to the dresser.

“Olivia came by, we got to talking and got behind on the decorating. Then Olivia, as she always does, invited herself to the party. Then Tod and Stevie decided everyone needed new outfits so, even though we had no time at all, we took a trip to the mall.” I stopped at the dresser, babbling on, like they were actually listening to me (which they probably were not) and I looked over my shoulder at Luke. “I think I spent too much money.”

I heard a phone ringing and Hank moved to answer it as Luke’s eyes cut to the dining room table, he took in the bags then his eyes moved back to me.

“An outfit takes six bags?” he asked.

“I also bought shoes,” I told him as I heard another cell phone ring.

“An outfit and shoes take six bags?” Luke slightly amended his question.

I turned back to the dresser and started digging through it, half in a panic. “I might have bought some other stuff.”

“I’ll be there in fifteen,” I heard Hank say to his phone.

“I’ll pick it up on my way home,” I heard Eddie say to his.