Page 20 of His to Protect

I didn’t blame her. I didn’t talk about Mara to anyone except for maybe Tyson and Aidan. Our other friend David was in the middle of finishing up his ER residency at a hospital in Chicago, so he was too busy to talk to any of us frequently, although he did know that Mara left.

We got drunk one night via Skype on one of our infrequent nights off and toasted heartless women. David’s own girlfriend since college had recently broken up with him after deciding that she was tired of being alone all the time.

Not that he blamed her. Being a resident was hard work.

He put in even more hours than I did in the restaurant, and I knew Mara got sick of being alone all the time, too. The difference was that I thought this was something we were building together, but apparently, I was wrong.

Someone banged loudly on the door, making both of us jump at the sudden sound.

Sitting on the couch, Trina’s fingers dug into Boomer’s fur, and her eyes shot wide open.

“I’ll get it,” I said and pushed up off the chair. “But, Trina.” I waited for her to look at me as I walk past her. “While you’re here, no one will hurt you. You have my word.”

“Thank you,” she whispered and I looked away, frowning while I tried to figure out who could be here.

“Aw, hell,” I muttered and dropped my head back as I reached the door. “It’s fucking Friday and I totally forgot.”

“What does that mean?” Trina said from behind me.

“You’ll know in just a minute.”

Because it was Friday night at nine o’clock, and I’d promised Aidan that his son Derrick could crash at my place. At thirteen, he was old enough to stay alone at his own house for the night, but Aidan still wasn’t comfortable with that.

And since Aidan rarely dated, too busy being a single dad and owning his own construction company, I always let Derrick stay here on the nights I was off from the restaurant—which was about as often as Aidan dated.

“You ready for company?” I asked Trina, turning to see her standing behind me. “Because shit’s about to get interesting.”

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