Page 187 of Bodyguard By Night

“Thanks.” I scrubbed my hands over my face. “I am so sorry to have this going on during your wedding.”

“It’s not like you could ask this freak to wait for a better day.”

“I know. Last night really messed me up. I know she’s fine with your soon-to-be cousins—”

“Soon to be yours too.”

“Yeah. That’s just weird.” I blew out a breath. “Anyway, I know she’s fine in there, but my shoulder blades are on fire because I can’t see her.”

“Controlling everything still wouldn’t make things perfect, Ran.”

Surprised, I chuckled. “Man, you haven’t called me that since we were in school.”

“Fit you though. All you did was run.”

“I was a scrappy short idiot until I was seventeen. Better to be able to outrun the guys who wanted to pound on me than to stand up to them.”

“You and Reid were…” Clay scraped his fingers through his short dark hair. “That was a long time ago.”

“Speaking of Reid. I was surprised to hear he was coming.”

“Yeah. He and Helena are seeing each other.”

“Well, that’s fucked up.”

“Yeah. I don’t want her to get hurt. He’s not the same guy we used to know.”

“Think he can still land that right hook?”

Clay winced. “I don’t want to find out. I remember it well.”

My gut churned. This was the perfect time to tell him about Mags, but the thought of hashing that out now made me want to do some of that prep school running.

I looked around. We were still semi-alone.

“Something you want to say? Or are you looking for Wil?”

“I talked to Chaos about Mags.”

“Oh.” Clay swallowed. “Thought we pretty much were never going to mention that again.”

“We’ve both been carrying a lot of shit about that night for a long time. I know I’d rather bury it.”

“I’m fine with it.”

I clasped his shoulder. “Believe me. You know I hate talking about my goddamn feelings.”

“Ditto.”

“But I blamed everyone when there was really only one person to blame.”

“Me.”

“No, man. Mags.”

Clay’s dark eyes looked stricken. “She didn’t know what she was doing. I was the one who messed up.”

“It took me a long time to figure it out. Trying to find her for years gave me a lot of time to put stuff together. You know she and Reid weren’t right. She made him crazy—and not in the good way like Chaos does to me.”

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