Page 36 of Astrid
Knowing his brother, John held up his hand and shook his head. “Let’s head out to the firepit. If you’re going to berate me, and tell me everything I’m doing wrong with Astrid, we might as well have everyone else do it at the same time.” Without another word, John stood from the bed, left his phone there, and walked past his brother.
CHAPTER16
Astrid cameout of her bathroom with a towel wrapped around her body, and used another one to dry her blonde curls. She stopped dead when she saw the other three women sitting either on the bed, or in the chair in the corner. Ignoring them, she went to her dresser, and pulled on a pair of panties, and as she pulled a tee shirt over her head, she removed the towel, then grabbed a pair of shorts and slipped them on. When she was dressed, she turned and frowned at them. “What do I owe the honor of you invading my space?”
Morgan smiled as she held out a full glass a wine to her. “Thought you might want to talk about what happened down in the gym.”
“Nothing to talk about,” she said, but took the glass offered to her, and swallowed a huge sip of the drink. She sighed, then settled on the end of the bed, so she could see all three women at once. “Morgan, don’t fire me for what I’m about to say, but your brother, John, is an asshat.”
Morgan snorted her own glass of wine as she laughed at Astrid’s comment. “First, none of you women will ever be fired because of my brothers. You are here to do a job, and if you happen to hook up with one of them, that’s on you. It has nothing to do with Boswell Group. Now, with that out of the way, I agree with you, all of my brothers can be asshats, some more than others, but mark my words, if it hasn’t happened yet, it soon will. I only ask that you don’t ask me to come between you. Work your own problems out.” When she had nods of approval from the other women, she sighed, then looked directly at Astrid, as she asked, “What did John do?”
“It’s silly really,” Astrid said as she sipped her wine, and got more comfortable on the end of her bed. “Yesterday I was heading to the garage to get ready to go out to check out the address you gave me.”
“Okay, so you were doing your job.”
“Correct, but John caught me halfway to the garage, and asked if I wanted to go with him to meet with a potential new client. I told him I had a job to do. He got all huffy, and wouldn’t talk to me. I shrugged it off, did what I had to do, and left. He left before I did.” She shrugged as she sipped her wine again. “I left to do my thing, and as you saw on the video I showed you this morning, I was sitting in that diner eating my lunch, when Griff, Paul, and Harry arrived. We talked, then John and a woman walked in toward the end of my conversation with those three men. I ignored John, I was doing my job. John was still at the diner when I left.” She shrugged again, and sighed heavily.
“After leaving the diner, I drove around, you know, I didn’t want those three men to follow me or anything. When I felt comfortable that I wasn’t being watched, I drove home, but I stopped in and talked to Tom Erwin first. I was filling out the log book in the Jeep when John arrived home. I waved to him, hell, I even rolled down the passenger window and said hi. He ignored me. When it came to dinner last night, he sat in the chair Chuck normally sits in, and refused to move until Chuck sat beside me.” Astrid nodded and sipped her wine. She studied Morgan, because the other two women had seen most of what she’d said.
“But, he seemed to be sitting next to you at supper tonight. Didn’t he even help you cook?”
“He did on both counts, but I ignored him.” She studied her boss, then sighed deeply again. “Until he can apologize for the bug that crawled up his ass, I can’t see the two of us hooking up again.”
The other women were silent for several minutes, all studying Morgan. Finally, the other woman nodded, sipped her own wine, then nodded again. “You do what you have to do. I won’t come between the two of you.” She sipped her wine, then climbed off the bed. “I’m going to go down to the fire, and see what the men are talking about. Am I being nosy? Absolutely. As I said earlier, I won’t pit one of you against the other. I love my brother, but I can’t afford to lose you as an employee.” She finished her wine, and grinned at the other three women. “Besides, I grew up with those six men, I know some secrets about them, but I won’t be revealing anything unless I see a situation warrants it. Do you guys understand?”
“Yes,” Ava, Joyce, and Astrid all nodded. Morgan started for the door, with Ava, April, and Joyce on her heels, they turned back and frowned at Astrid. “You coming?”
“No, I need to wrap my head around what I want from John. I’m going to call it a night.”
“Okay,” the three women said, then quickly left, leaving Astrid alone with her thoughts, and she grinned when she saw there was just enough wine left in the bottle for her to have another half glass before she settled in for the night. With a small sigh, she filled her glass, got beneath the covers, and picked up the book she’d put on her nightstand a few days ago, ready to have a night by herself.
* * *
John cameup from the basement with his brother on his heels. Instead of going directly outside to the firepit, he made a detour to the kitchen, and quickly gathered up a six pack of beer and carried them out. At the last minute he grabbed two bottles of Ava’s cola, and tucked them under his arm.
Outside, he gave the two colas to the two teenage boys, and before he sat down, he offered a beer to his brothers, not surprised when Alex didn’t take one. “Still on your pain pills?”
“Yeah. Not as much as when it first happened,” he said as he lifted the hand still in a sling. “I overdid it helping Alan today, so I took one after supper.” He looked at his siblings with a grin. “You might have to help me up the stairs, and pour me into Joyce’s bed later.” The men laughed, and watched as John and Josh settled down in seats of their own.
As they all remained silent, it was Josh who looked over at the oldest of the six of them, and said, “John’s an ass.”
Justin, and several other men had just taken a sip of their beer, and choked with that statement.
“What makes you say that?” Justin asked with a frown.
“I caught him talking to a woman on the phone, and she wanted to set up a date with her.”
“Really?” Justin raised one brow, and looked at John with a scowl on his face. “Why the hell would you do that?”
“It’s complicated.” John wouldn’t say any more than that, but when his five siblings, and his sister’s future husband, and family continued to stare at him, he caved. “Fine, you want to know what happened yesterday?”
“Of course,” Justin said as he frowned at him.
“I was on my way out to meet with a potential new client, and I saw Astrid on her way to the garage. I asked if she wanted to go with me, she turned me down, then later, when I took the client out to lunch, I saw her, Astrid, at the diner, and some guy gave her his phone number. Then, this guy had the balls to ask her out on a date, not only for himself, but also for his two buddies that were with him.”
“And?” Wyatt looked at him with a confused frown. “I don’t see the problem with that.”
“It pissed me off that she couldn’t go with me, but she had the audacity to accept phone numbers from other men.”
