Page 2 of Mayhem
“Erin!” She turned her attention to an excited Chayse and raised a brow. “Guess what.”
“What?”
“Nik asked me to move in with him!”
Erin smiled at her friend. “That’s great, Chayse.”
She watched as she almost bounced off, she assumed in search of Alijah or her mother. Erin shook her head, amused. She would wait to tell them her news. She didn’t want to step on anyone’s excitement.
She again began to look out over the room and found Cruz leaning with his shoulder against the wall as he spoke with one of the other guests. He must have felt someone looking at him because his attention shifted, and his eyes instantly locked with hers.
Erin was no punk. Just because he had caught her staring didn’t mean she would look away.
He raised a brow at her and smirked. When the person he was talking to pulled his attention away, she looked away herself.
Shaking her head, she decided to get up and talk to Lawrence. Her father and grandmother had left a little after the cake-cutting since they had an early flight, so she didn’t have to checkon them. Getting up, she went to where Lawrence sat near the dessert table after moving to be closer to it. He was staring at someone, and Erin followed his gaze to see who it was.
When she did, she had to admit that he was stare-worthy. Taking a seat in front of Lawrence, she smirked when he rolled his eyes at her before smiling. She would get him to dish and see if he knew the person or was planning on getting to know them.
Paetyn stood across the room, watching Cruz and Erin stare at one another. He found himself amused when she didn’t look away. Most people couldn’t stand the intensity of the other man’s stare, even at the distance between the two.
Shaking his head, he turned his attention back towards the waitstaff. One of his restaurants had catered the event, and though he wasn’t technically working, he couldn’t stop himself from checking on things. He prided himself on the quality of his restaurants’ work and service.
When he was sure that everything was still going smoothly, he went over to Cruz, who was leaning against the wall. The man he had initially been talking to was walking off. Paetyn took up the man’s spot and leaned his back against the wall.
“I’m going to assume you did something after I told you not to.”
He watched as Cruz pulled some purple fabric from his pocket and handed it to him. Paetyn didn’t even have to open it to know what it was; he gave it back to him.
“I told you to wait.”
Cruz shrugged. “I did. It’s been eight months.”
“And it’s been more than a year on my end. She isn’t ready.”
“Clearly she is,” Cruz told him, patting the pocket that held her panties.
“Individually, yes. Not together. It would help if you were patient. My way always works.”
“Fine.”
Neither man said anything else, and Paetyn thought back to the first time he had realized that Erin could very well be the woman who could handle both of them. It had been when they all went out to celebrate Alijah’s twenty-fifth birthday.
She was outgoing, independent, and strong, but he could see beyond the surface and knew that she needed someone to handle her. To put her in her place at times if necessary and give her a place to feel safe and vulnerable, to be what she wanted, and he knew that neither he nor Cruz would have a problem doing it. Paetyn knew that she was everything that both of them had been looking for just from talking to her and listening to her talk to the others. Reading her body language and her actions.
He would admit that his friend had not seen it that way. While Cruz had admitted Erin was beautiful beyond belief, he didn’t think she would ever submit to them in bed, which they both craved—one more than the other; he also felt she would accuse them of playing some game if they approached her.
Cruz had seen what Paetyn had, just last July when they had played men versus women in basketball, though it took him longer. Either way, Paetyn was happy they were on the same page and could pursue her properly. He was taking the same approach he’d told Nik to use with Chayse.
Paetyn’s attention slid over to Erin as she sat at a table talking to Lawrence, whom Paetyn had met earlier in the evening. She looked gorgeous in her dress.
She must have felt him staring as her eyes rose and locked with his, and she smiled at him. It was innocent enough, but it didn’t matter, considering he found almost everything about her alluring. He returned her smile before breaking eye contact.
Over the past several months, he had made it a point to call and talk to or video call her. To his knowledge, she hadn’t read more into it than what he intended it to be. He was about to work on changing that. He would first need to see if she was attracted to him. Then, once he knew she was, he would make sure she didn’t think he had placed her in the friend zone.
They knew now that she was attracted to Cruz. There was no way she would have let him take her panties if she weren’t. Cruz also wasn’t sporting a black eye. Paetyn had surmised that Erin was the type who would put you directly in your place when you overstepped with her.
Though he would have liked to test the attraction theory simultaneously, he wouldn’t get to do that now. It didn’t make it any harder, but he had always believed in killing two birds with one stone.
