Page 48 of From the Ashes
“Why does it matter?” I ask incredulously. “It fucking matters because I know I contributed, but I don’t know how…and I can’t apologize and try to make it better if I don’t understand what happened in the first place,” I admit.
“You lied,” he says simply.
“I didn’tlie!” I argue. “I’d had sex before and I knew how gay sex worked even if I’d never had that particular brand.Why were you so torn up about it? It wasmyass that took the beating, not yours.”
“Because sex has always been serious to me!” he yells back. “My first time with a guy was a fucking train wreck. There’s a lot of pressure in being someone’s first.”
I turn in my seat to face him while I continue this argument. “It was so serious to you that your reputation for being a playboy rivaled that of you being a bronc rider?”
“My reputation as a playboy kept mesafe!It kept the media off my back and for the record, I didn’t close the deal nearly as often as they made it seem. I don’t want to talk about this anymore,” he says, regaining his composure as we pull into a neighborhood and then a driveway a minute later.
To break the silence, I point toward the very modern, verysuburbanhome now in front of us.
“Thisis Knox’s house?” I can’t keep the shock out of my voice.
“Yep,” Phoenix says with a smile, forcing the last five minutes of our conversation to vaporize and vanish into thin air.
“This isn’t where I pictured him living. Like, at all.”
Phoenix laughs and the sound goes right to my balls. It’s the first unguarded laugh I’ve heard from him since being around him again.
“That’s because you’ve interacted with him. Knox is a bit of a conundrum. None of us can really figure him out. We know Knox always wanted a big family, but his ex-wife didn’t want kids at all, so me, Hudson, and Jake think Knox picked us as friends because we’re like the sons and brothers he never had.”
“That’s fucking sad,” I admit. “He seems like a good guy.”
“The best,” Phoenix agrees. “He and Karen had just divorced when we all met, but we’ve heard stories, andhonestly, good-fucking-riddance. I often wonder what he was like before she broke his heart.”
We climb out of the truck after that and I follow Phoenix around like a shadow. I’m not jealous of his friends per se, but the need to let them know I was in his life first is strong. I’m definitely going to have to watch how much I drink tonight.
Instead of going in through the front door, Phoenix leads me around back where several people are already hanging out. A group of four guys, including Knox, is playing Spikeball and two women are watching from chairs on the patio. One’s holding a glass of wine, the other, a ginger ale.
“Oh, look who decided to j?—”
It’s the woman from the bar. She was also the one sitting next to Phoenix the first night of the rodeo. Even I have to admit, they’d make an incredibly hot couple. Hell, she’d make a hot couple with anyone.
Her eyes land on mine as her sentence comes to an abrupt halt.
Phoenix whispers under his breath. “Told you she wouldn’t mind if you came.”
“Did you mean figuratively or literally?” I whisper back as we watch her rake her gaze the entire length of my body.
Breaking the tension, Phoenix yells, “Damn, Cass. If you want him to take his clothes off, just ask.”
A blush creeps up her gorgeous, caramel skin.
She smacks Phoenix on the shoulder as he pulls her in for a hug. I watch as her arms envelope his torso. The way their bodies are smashed together without any awkwardness, the way he sinks into her familiar embrace...the way he did with mine by the end of our one night together…has me feeling things I shouldn’t.
“You didn’t tell us you were bringing a guest,” she says once she pulls away. “Especiallythatguest.”
“Surprise,” he deadpans, kissing her cheek.
It’s not until he greets one of his guy friends—one that looks a lot like the woman he just had his arms around—that I have to look away before my longing is written all over my face.
He grabs the guy and hugs him tightly, pulling him in close until their bodies are flush against one another. I don’t know why I expected a fist bump or maybe a hand clasp, chest bump, and pat on the back, but the longer they stay locked together, the angrier I become.
Apparently, so does the guy next to the one currently in Phoenix’s arms.
“Are you planning on letting my husband come up for air any time soon?” the friend says, prying Phoenix off his…husband?
