Page 67 of Done with You

Aiden tried to smile, but his lips ended up just twisting around his face. The heat of everyone’s curiosity burned into his forehead, as they all stared at him and he did his very best to stare at the scratches of the wooden table.

Brock checked his phone. “Grant’s outside to drive us to Hype.”

“I’ll take care of the tab,” Aiden said, unraveling himself from Jordan’s embrace, but facing his brother. “Please drink this water.”

Jordan nodded and chugged it, but a fair bit ran down his chin he drank it so fast. “Ah!” He plunked the glass on the table. “I feel soberer already.”

“There’s more water in the bus,” Heath said, taking Jordan by the shoulder and giving Aiden a weird look. “We’ll meet you out there.”

Aiden nodded and went up to the bar to settle their tab.

After he finished paying, he spun around only to nearly run smack-dab into the barrel chest of Brock. “Care to tell me what that shove was about?”

Aiden was actually as tall as Brock and delighted in the fact that he could look the man in the eye. He still felt like Brock was staring down at him, though. “I didn’t think I pushed him that hard.”

“Well, you did. What was it about?”

“Family shit. Just as Jordan told you.” Aiden waved his hand to dismiss the mountain of a man. He might not have any issues with these guys, but he also hardly knew them, and just because his brother was seeing their mother as a therapist, didn’t mean that extended to Aiden in any way, and he wasn’t about to pour out his tattered heart to the bulldozer with a scowl.

Brock nodded slowly, then grunted. “As long as we don’t have anything to worry about.”

“Nothing. Don’t forget, I’m stone-cold sober.”

“Haven’t forgotten. Just makes it all the more curious why you’re the one unable to control himself.”

That wave of heat from earlier was back and flushed right up Aiden’s chest and cheeks. “Didn’t mean to shove him so hard. He was just a little close. And his breath stunk.”

Brock grunted again and stepped to the side so Aiden could go ahead of him to the door.

Grant, Joy’s husband, had pulled the black shuttle bus right up to the curb so all they had to do was climb in.

There was only the faintest scent of moth balls and what Aiden could only describe as old person in the bus, but otherwise, you’d never know the vehicle was used to shuttle great grandparents around the city from their retirement home.

“Could have probably walked there,” Rex said, staring out the window as Grant wove them through traffic. “It’s close enough.”

“Yeah, but then we’d be late and our man here runs the risk of never getting a blowie again,” Patrick said, chuckling as he slapped Jordan on the back from where he sat behind him.

“Why am I driving you here?” Grant asked.

“No idea. Just got a text from Rayma that said we needed to be at Hype at eleven,” Jordan said with a slight slur before taking a pull off his water bottle. “And I do what my lady asks of me.”

“Well, we’re here,” Grant said.

“That was fast,” Jace said with delight, standing up and suppressing a belch. “That Thai chicken wrap is coming back on me, anybody got any Tums or Rolaids or anything?”

“Glove compartment.” Grant pointed to the front dash of the bus.

“Score,” Jace said, opening the glove compartment and holding up everyone else on the bus. He glanced behind him and said, “Sorry,” as he popped half a dozen Tums into his mouth before bounding down the steps, out of the bus, and heaving open the door for the rest of them.

A woman with extremely short, extremely white-blonde hair stood behind the counter. “Right this way.” Her smile was cunning and it was if she was holding in a secret, she was struggling to keep to herself.

They funneled down the narrow hallway and into a room, it had a window and seats behind the window, but beyond the window everything was black.

“Is this an escape room?” Matt asked. “Because I suck at those.”

“Ladies and gentlemen, for one night only,” a familiar feminine voice announced, her voice coming through speakers in the room they were in, “the beautiful, the talented, the salacious—Angel Eyed Dolls!” Then the lights beyond the window came on to reveal all the women who were at the bachelorette party decked out in lingerie, feathers and with one high-heeled foot propped up on a chair.

“Holy shit,” Jordan said.

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