Page 26 of Sparks Flying

“You usually thrive under stress. Is there something I need to be updated on?” Ryan asked.

“No. It’s nothing like that.”

“Then what is it?” he insisted.

“There’s this girl and she just rubs me the wrong way,” I confess. And I wanted her to rub me the right way all day and all night long, but I didn’t share that part.

“A girl? You’ve been sulking over a girl?” Ryan clarified.

“No, it’s not like that.”

“I think the boy doth protest too much. It’s definitely the girl. What happened? Did she turn you down?” Elias asked.

“Shut up.”

“Yup, that’s it. Damn. A girl? You have a new girl in bed every other night. Let this one go and move on already.”

“He’s never had one say no before. I guess it would seem like the end of the world to him,” Ryan said.

“You’re both assholes. And don’t talk about her like that. I haven’t slept with her or even tried.”

“Oh shit. She’s your mate, isn’t she?” Elias asked.

‘What the hell are you talking about? Of course not.”

“Are you sure?” Ryan asked.

“I haven’t even met her like that, so yeah, I’m sure that’s not a possibility.’

Eli shrugged. “I knew long before Kim let me meet her bird. It made me crazy like this at times, too.”

“This isn’t the same thing at all,” I insisted, but that seed had already been planted and suddenly the walls were caving in around me.

I knew it was stupid to let them drive me crazy like this. Bailey wasn’t a raven. So she couldn’t be my true mate. Still, now that they’d said it, I couldn’t get that thought out of my mind.

“You two are assholes,” I said, storming out of my office and leaving them both there laughing like hyenas.

“Come back. We need our fun-loving baby brother back.”

I gave them the finger over my shoulder.

“Look! It’s a bird flipping the bird.”

That sent then into another round of hysterics. Assholes.

When I heard the distinct Irish accent of Patrick O’Connell, I ducked into an empty cubicle and let him pass. Iwasn’t in the mood to deal with that and it didn’t go unnoticed that Bailey wasn’t with them.

This made me worry.

I checked the time. I’d left her a little over an hour ago. It couldn’t have been that bad, right? A bit of road rash that needed cleaning. That was all.

So why wasn’t she back to work?

I knew I could go back and ask Patrick, but that seemed too logical. Besides, my brothers were likely still in my office and Patrick might ask questions like why I wanted to know where Bailey was.

And I could have gone back to the clinic to check on her and demand doc tell me how she really was, but that could have stirred up gossip.

There were a dozen better ways to handle things, but I’d done none of those either.

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