Page 41 of The Problem with Dating
I glanced around as Nate and Sayer were stopping the fight, and thank God, no neighbors were out, but a car could pass by at any moment. Anyone could walk outside to check their mail, or whatever, and I didn’t need anyone calling the police.
I turned back towards the melee. “Gideon!” But Nate and Sayer already had him pinned up against the house.
Marco was a bloody mess, but he hadn’t been knocked out. I stepped to him, hoping Nate and Sayer could keep Gideon pinned. “Leave, and don’t ever come back here, Marco,” I seethed.
“But-”
“He will fuckingkillyou,” I told him, and he must have believed me, because after one last look over at Gideon, Marco walked back to his car and left.
Chapter 22
Gideon~
Talk about a shitshow.
When Sayer and Nate had agreed to come back to my place because there was more privacy, I sure as fuck hasn’t expected to pull into my driveway to see some guy on Echo’s doorstep, arguing with her.
Even if it hadn’t been her dick of an ex-husband, I was pretty sure I still would have lost my shit. That’s how pissed I’d been. Hell, I was still pissed, truth be told.
And now, Nate and Sayer paced the kitchen, while Echo was cussing a blue streak at me, and I was sitting on one of the barstools, taking it. “And if someone had called the cops? Then what?”
“But no one did,” I pointed out.
She looked incredibly beautiful when she was outraged. “That is not the point, and you damn well know it, Gideon!”
I glanced over at my brothers, and then back at Echo. “Do you really want to discuss thisnow?”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” she snarled. “I’m sure they already know.”
I shook my head as I flexed my hands and fingers. As bad as it had seemed, I hadn’t really hit the fucker that hard. Had I really gone after him, I would have knocked him out with the first punch. I was an aggressive asshole, and I knew what to do with my fists.
“They don’t.”
“What don’t we know?” Sayer asked because boundaries were non-existent in my family.
“Nothing,” I snapped. “At least, not anything that is your business, Say.”
“We almost had to bail you out of fucking jail, asshole,” Nate snapped back.
“No, you didn’t,” I fire back. “No cops were called.”
Sayer shook his head. “This shit is fucked-up, Gid,” he said. “What’s going on?”
Echo turned towards my agitated brothers, but I grabbed her arm and turned her back to face me. “Don’t, Echo,” I told her. “It’s none of their business.”
“It wasn’t until you dragged them into this mess,” she retorted. “They deserve an explanation.”
“Fine.” I looked over at my brothers. “It was her ex-husband.”
“And he needed to get his ass kicked why, exactly?” Nathan asked.
“Because he’s her ex-husband,” I repeated. “That should be reason enough.”
“Hardly, if I haven’t kicked Thomas’ ass yet,” Sayer bit out, irritated with me, but that was to be expected. As the oldest, he felt a sense of protectiveness that was only reserved for the firstborn children. And that protectiveness had come out during the fight and was probably still fucking with his adrenaline.
“But didn’t you almost?” I said, reminding him of the time Monroe’s ex-husband had shown up at the fire station, telling Sayer to back off from Monroe.
“The asshole tried to get Monroe back,” Sayer replied. “That’s a legitimate reason to kick his ass.” He looked over at Echo. “Is trying to get her back?”
