Page 25 of Achievement Unlocked

Quentin and I headed into the basement. I expected to find an entire room with neatly organized furniture stacked into a maze.

Instead, “there aren’t more than five or six pieces down here.” Though, they were nice, solid wood pieces. A bedroom set, with dresser, mirror, vanity, and bedframe.

“She put most of it in longer term storage, or sold and gave it away.” Was that disgust in Quentin’s voice? “Easton promised her these would go in a guest bedroom—they have sentimental value to her—but I doubt he was ever going to move them out of this room.” Definitely disgust.

Which led me to another question that had been nagging since I found out who Megan had planned to marry. Quentin may be the only person in this group I could ask without too much backlash. “Did any of you know he was an assholebeforeyesterday?”

We grabbed one of the headboards first.

“Yes,” Quentin said as we hauled the piece up the stairs. “Everyone knew.”

“So why…?”Did you let things get this far?There had to be a better way to ask that.

Quentin’s sigh was heavy. “You ever try to tell someone the person they love doesn’t deserve their love?”

I sighed. “Fair point.” I’d been there, except in my case I was the guy who wanted him for myself, but he was head over heels for someone else. The woman we’d brought into our bed for a night of fun. The third in our threesome, who ended up stealing my high school sweetheart from me.

Though, that was almost two decades ago, and the memory didn’t hurt the way it used to. These days it was just a reminder.

Quentin and I wrapped the headboard in old blankets from Jeremy’s SUV. We worked quickly to finish emptying the basement, putting the larger pieces in my truck, and everything else in Jeremy’s.

When we were done, the others hadn’t emerged. I supposed that made sense—if Megan expected to be on her honeymoon right now, rather than moving, none of her things would be packed up.

Quentin went to find Jeremy, which left me to see if Nigel needed any help. I found him in a room near the back of the main floor, surrounded by boxes, crumpled tissue paper, and dolls.

I picked up one of the big-headed ones sitting on the desk next to him. Rather than looking like a child’s toy from a store, she had red hair, and a black fitted bodysuit with a tiny red hourglass near the shoulder.

Even the makeup looked like Black Widow. “Wow.”

“Incredible work, isn’t it?” Nigel didn’t look up.

It was astounding. “Megan did this?”

“Yup. She makes the outfits, she retreads the hair, and she cleans off the old faces and repaints them.”

“By hand?” I was captivated by a doll and not ashamed to admit it.

“The painting and hair, yes. Machine for the clothes. Speaking of.” He nodded at four boxes by the door. “Those are sewing machines. You can take them out if you need something to do.”

“How many sewing machines does a person need?”

“How many are there? I guarantee you she wishes she had at least one more. Don’t stack them on top of each other, and they can go in the back of my truck.”

“You mean the Subaru? You call that a truck?” I kept my tone light.

Nigel looked at me for the first time since I’d walked into the room, and his expression was impossible to read. “I call itI don’t need to compensate for my dick with a vehicle.” He gave me a smile that didn’t reach his eyes.

“I’ve seen your bike.”

This time amusement sparkled across his face. “That’s compensating for something else.”

“Like what?”

Nigel shook his head. “We don’t know each other well enough for that conversation.”

“Okay.” I snorted a laugh. He’d watched me fuck the woman he was madly in love with—not that he’d ever said how he felt, but it was clear in everything that he did—some people might say that was intimate enough to share any secret.

I understood why it wasn’t the same, though.

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