Page 120 of Spur It On

Shit.

I needed to rethink this talk we were gonna have, so I moved to the side, finding a safe spot by the wall. The whiskey was helping. It kept me from wanting to charge in there and wring his damned-fool neck.

Sure, the girl was hot. She was the kind of pretty that turned all men stupid. Her long, dark hair was loose, and Ty's fingers were playing with it absentmindedly. Her red lips kept finding his neck, kissing on him like some obedient little bitch. She was playing her part, but Ty's attention was on the man across the table from him: Emilio.

That's who paid for the bottle, and the waitress was busy passing out clean glasses and picking up the used ones. Gustavo was there too, sipping from a bottle of beer. A few tables over, I spotted more guys I knew. Jake, Austin, Jaxon, Wes, and more. It looked like the whole crew had decided to camp out on this side.

Eventually, Cody would figure that out. She'd see someone, follow him back, then stumble upon Ty and his new date for the night. Fuck! Earlier, she'd sounded like she'd been willing to give him a second chance, but once she saw this? Naw, that shit wouldn't fly.

Which was when I realized this was real. Ty was gone. Just this morning, he'd been acting like my bro, getting all cool with me and shit. He might be a fumbling dumbfuck, but I'd honestly thought his heart was in the right place. Shit, when he'd asked me about Tanner? Never mind that I'd told him all that!

We'd been Friends. I'd given him a real chance. He'd stepped up, so I'd stepped back. I'd all but moved out of his way so he'd know this was cool between us, and he'd let me think it was working! Those times he'd acted like our shit was cool, that my secrets were his, and how he'd offered to punch me for cover? He'd been one of us! He'd started to become my bro, and I hadn't never had one like him before.

I lifted my glass and took another long swallow. It wasn't helping as much as I'd thought. Fuck him for thinking he could just walk all over our girl. Fuck him for not even thinking about me when he did it! Friends didn't do that shit. Friends didn't act like none of this mattered. Friends most certainly did not turn their back on the good stuff and move on like it had never happened!

My feet started moving before my brain kicked in. If this dumbass thought he could just erase us by sticking his dick in this new girl, well, I'd make sure he got to it. The last thing I needed was Cody seeing her replacement! Like goddamned salt in all the wounds he'd left her with, and that shit was not going to be ok.

I slammed back the last swallow just as I reached the table and dropped my glass down hard enough to make the lady in Ty's lap jump. Her eyes got big at the sight of me. Ty's narrowed. Gustavo pushed his chair back, making room to escape. The only one who didn't seem to be scared of me was Emilio, but I had a feeling it was because that little fucker was quick enough to know he could get away.

"You done fucked up," I told Ty, and there was no humor in my voice.

He huffed at me, shifting his girl slightly so I could see him better. "You really wanna do this, J.D.?" he taunted.

My eyes jumped to his new lover. "You, vanish."

"Fuck off," she said, lifting her chin.

Well, she had spunk, I'd give her that. I also didn't care. "You wanna be between us, then fine." So I leaned around her. "You know she came out here tonight to talk to you, Ty?"

"I've been trying to get him to show up all weekend," the little brunette informed me.

"Not you," I told her. "The girl he really wants."

"What?" the buckle bunny asked.

Ty waved her off, but his eyes didn't leave me. "Yeah, she made her case pretty clear this morning."

"Because your head crawled so far up your damned ass you made her," I shot back, glancing over to check the table. "Someone fill up my damned glass!"

"Vodka?" Emilio asked. "Tudo que eu tenho."

I nodded, getting the gist of that. Vodka was all he had. "Está bien. Gracias." Now he could deal with the difference between Spanish and Portuguese. Then I looked back at Ty. "You got scared. You ran. You just forgot one thing."

"What's that?" Ty asked, trying his hardest to play tough, but I could see his eyes.

His pupils were a little too large. That meant he was scared. He'd seen me fuck up a few guys, and right now he was on the wrong side of things. Didn't take a damned genius to realize I didn't fuck around. Not now, not ever.

"I was on your fucking side!" I roared at him.

The girl on his lap flinched back, but I was pretty sure she was the only reason Ty wasn't making more of a scene. Nope, he had to look like a real man in front of her. That was what he did, right? He cowboyed up to get his dick wet. To him, nothing else mattered, so he'd take it. He'd sit there, trying his best to look like he wasn't shitting himself right now, just so she would think he was all that.

"Fuck you, J.D.," he shot back, all but proving me right.

And I felt my lips curling into a smile. "Yeah? That's how you wanna play it?" I reached over for the glass Emilio had just topped up and took a long, intense drink, feeling the burn the whole way down. "Because you don't get to fuck with my rookie. She gave you a chance." I set my glass down and pulled in a long breath. "Igave you a chance!"

"This isn't about you," he snapped.

So I slapped the table hard enough to rock the vodka out of my glass. "It sure as shit isn't about you anymore! You were my bro, Ty! My fucking bro. I had your back. No matter how much you fucked up, I put in a word for you, I made it all work. I was the reason you didn't crash and burn from the start. That's what Friends do, and you looked me in the eye and let me think we had something."

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