Once it was apparent that I couldn’t get any more work done without ruining everyone else’s weekend with emails and phone calls, I called it a day. Not ready to go home, I drove over to Julian’s. Nick’s was closer, but I didn’t feel right stopping by his place to vent about Q when Avery was living with him now. I wasn’t going to put either of them in that position.
Julian’s was a safer bet. He always texted us if Izzy was at his place so I knew he was alone. We each had access to each other’s homes and used those keys freely. There was also a room for each of us in our homes in case we needed a place to crash.
Or hide from the world.
I pulled into Julian’s driveway and contemplated asking him to go a few rounds down in the basement. Julian was the only one of us who lived in an actual neighborhood with family owned houses. He was two blocks away from where my mom lived and I think that had a lot to do with his choice of residence. He had a special bond with my mom and I was thankful he did. Her unwavering motherly love probably saved his life more than once.
For a billionaire, Julian’s house was very modest. It looked like all the other three bedroom, two bath homes in the neighborhood, except for the basement he had put in. When Julian bought the house, he had it raised to put in a full blown underground fight club style gym for a basement. If you walked into his house, you’d never guess what all lay underneath his normal carpeted and tiled floors. He used the basement to exorcise his demons. And Julian had a lot of demons.
I let myself in and following the smell, I walked into the kitchen. Because it wasn’t already enough that he was every woman’s fantasy come to life, the fucker could cook too. Granted, it was a result of his fuck off of a mother not feeding him, but still. He had to learn early on to cook if he wanted to eat, and like everything else the man did, he perfected it.
“Ooohh…just in time for dinner,” I squealed. “Thanks pumpkin, but you shouldn’t have.” I took a seat at the kitchen table.
He didn’t bother turning away from the stove. “You and Nick are pathetic. When are you guys ever going to learn how to cook for yourselves?”
I snorted. “Nick’s off the hook now that he’s going to marry Avery, and Mom’s just a fifteen minute drive away for all my home cooking cravings.”
Julian huffed. “It wouldn’t kill you to learn how to make a casserole, fucker.”
“That’s what I have you for, Julez. You wouldn’t let one of your oldest friends in the world starve to death now would you?”
“Depends on what kind of a mood Isabella’s in that day.”
I watched silently as he opened a cupboard to pull out another plate. He was going to feed me like the best friend he was. I had no doubt, however, that what he said about Izzy was true. Julian had made a comment a few weeks back about how being with Isabella silenced his demons, and Nick and I knew right then that Julian would shoot both of us in the face if Isabella deemed it so.
Nick and I lived in Disneyland compared to the horrors Julian endured as a child, so knowing that he found someone who brought him peace…well, hell, I’d shoot myself in the face for him if Isabella commanded it.
Julian deserved to know what it was like to have a peaceful soul.
“So, where’s your better half?” I asked as Julian placed my plate of food in front of me.
He turned back to grab a couple of Pepsi’s from the fridge. “She’s getting plastered with Quinn and Avery.”
I raised a brow at him as he sat down across from me. “And you’re here? Is Nick with them?”
He shook his head as he popped open his soda. “Nah, they’re drinking at Q’s. She said she’d call me to pick her up if she doesn’t pass out first. She said she wasn’t sure if they were on a low key Nancy Drew mission or a death-to-all-Kamikaze mission.”
I finished chewing my first bite of deliciousness before responding, “Those girls need a healthier hobby.”
I didn’t miss Julian’s expression. “Like we have?”
“We’re men, it’s different.”
Julian set his fork down and speared me with his hazel beams. “I’ll pay you ten grand to say those words in front of the girls.”
I waved my fork carelessly around-damn this casserole was good-before ignoring his offer. “If you and Nick would hurry up and get around to knocking up Iz and Ace that would solve the entire issue.”
“First of all, you act as if we haven’t been trying. Secondly, I didn’t realize there was an issue that needed solving.”
I ate silently, and Julian-the asshole that he was-let me until I finally cracked. “Fuck! Alright, there’s no need to beat it out of me.”
The fuckface laughed at me. “I’m just eating some homemade casserole, dude.”
“Sure you are.” I finished chewing another bite before coming clean. “Q does whatever the fuck she wants sober, she’s more of a liability when she’s drinking. She needs to quit drinking.”
“A liability?”
“Yeah…to my sanity, at any rate. She’s beautiful, honestly aggressive, and technically, fucking single.”
The fucker laughed at me again.
I wondered how rude it’d be to stab the cook in the eye with the same fork you’re using to eat the meal he cooked for you. “Fuck you, dude.”
Julian just continued to laugh at my struggles. “Fuck, Chase, I don’t even know why you’re giving her a choice. Lock that shit down, then move on and live happily ever after.”
I peered over at him. “Oh, I don’t know, maybe the fact that we live in America where women have rights and shit.”
He waved that away with his fork as if it was a minor detail. “That’s only a concern if they’re the type to report you to the police. I think Q’s more the type to stab you to death than call the cops.”
I could hear the front door open and close, signaling that Nick was here. I didn’t bother turning around, and Nick didn’t bother with pleasantries. He walked into the kitchen, opened a cupboard pulling out a plate to serve himself some dinner. He grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge before sitting at the head of the table.
Getting comfortable, he asked Julian, “Why don’t you invite us over for dinner more often, Julez? I thought we were supposed to be friends?”
I looked over at Nick. “Right? I mean, what the fuck?”
“You two are stupid.”
“Thank you for this lovely invite to dinner, but I can only stay for one helping.” Nick ignored the accusation of stupidity. “I got a text from Avery and it hinted of two bottles of wine.”
Julian got up, left the kitchen and came back within a minute with his phone in his hand. “I got nothing from Isabella.”
Nick grimaced. “Yeah, well my text was of a personal nature.”
Julian sighed, closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose with his fingers. “That means they’re comparing fantasies again.”
Nick wiggled his eyebrows. “Yes, it does.”
“Okay, fuckers, the sooner you guys help me clean up the dishes, the sooner we can go get our drunken females.”
We cleared off the rest of our plates like starved men and cleaned up Julian’s kitchen in record time. Yeah, technically, Nick and Julian were going to get their females because Quinn wasn’t mine yet.
But after tonight, she would be.
Chapter 5
Gluttony: Because how can I not drink myself stupid when I’m surrounded by fools…or a fool?
Quinn~
“I bet you Nick is breaking every speed limit in town on his way over here,” I predicted.
“As he should,” Ace agreed. “If he’s not making his way over here right now, after I texted him that I’m fantasizing about blowing him, then I have no use for him.”
She had a good point. I don’t want a man who doesn’t want me above all else.
Isabella was sprawled across the armchair with her legs dangling over one side and her head dangling over the other. “I say skip the wedding, Ace. Marry that man tomorrow.”<
br />
“I’m with Iz on this one. That man loves you to pieces and is the entire package with a hell of a package. What are you waiting for?” After the night we met them all at Xavier’s, Avery let it slip that sitting on Nick’s lap was like sitting on a log.
I was lying across the couch while Ace was on the floor, lying on her back staring up at my boring undecorated ceiling. “I want a traditional wedding, Iz. The only way I can have that is to make up with my parents so my dad can walk me down the aisle. The making up is taking longer than I’d like.”
Avery had a strained relationship with her parents ever since her father cheated on her mother fourteen years ago. Her mom forgave her dad and they’re still together, but it had been harder for Avery to overcome. It caused a lot of emotional damage, and before Nick, she had a lot of trust issues.
“As soon as I agree to marry Julian, I’m going to make him take me to Las Vegas and marry me pronto,” Iz announced
I reached over for my glass of wine, and let me tell you, balancing it while I was on my back took skill. “I’m surprised he hasn’t already asked you.”
“Oh, he has,” she shocked us. “He’s asked me every morning since the morning after Xavier’s.”
“What? And you…sonofabitch!”
I leaned up far enough to consider it doing a crunch and saw Ace rubbing her forehead. “There’s a coffee table right next to you, Ace.”
“Yeah, I got that.” I fell back onto the couch as Avery went back to being in shock. “Why haven’t you said yes, Iz?”
“Because he intimidates me,” she confessed. “If I marry him now, he’ll take over my life and I’m not having that.”
I understood where she was coming from. Julian was unlike any man I’ve ever met. There was alpha male and then there was Julian.
We all had our own issues we were trying to overcome. Avery with her trust issues, even though she had Nick now and he’d cut off his own arm before betraying her.
Isabella was a product of her mother having an affair with a married man. If that wasn’t enough, her mother spent her entire life waiting for him to leave his wife and family for her. Izzy hated her father and resented her mother for revolving her life around a man who clearly didn’t want either of them.
Julian wasn’t her father, but I didn’t blame her for being wary because Julian would absorb her completely if she let him.
My issues were quite simple and didn’t revolve around a man so much as abandonment altogether. Losing my parents at such a young age made it difficult for me to open up my heart to people. Losing the people you loved was a pain that never went away. If you were lucky, it dulled enough where you could live with it. If you weren’t lucky and you fell into the category of a parent losing their child, then you just went crazy.
I wasn’t ready to move forward with a man who would come to mean everything to me as my husband and father to my future children, no matter how attracted I was to Chase.
“Speaking of Julian’s mental instability…” Izzy started.
I replayed the conversation in my mind. “Were we? I thought we were discussing weddings?”
“Same thing…” she insisted.
“No, Iz, I don’t think it is,” Avery piped up from the floor.
“Anyways, I’m going to tell you guys something, but you have to swear on our friendship not to say a word to Nick or Chase about it.”
Avery and I jacked knifed into a sitting position at her words. “Ouch! Sonofabitch!”
“The table is still there, Ace. It was never moved,” I pointed out.
I looked over to see Avery fall back on the floor, flip herself around, and soldier scoot herself over to Izzy. “Spill it, chick.”
I was sitting up on the couch as Izzy stayed sprawled out over the chair. “Someone sent me flowers last week.”
I looked over at Ace, then back to Iz. “What do you mean someone sent you flowers?”
Isabella sighed. “Someone sent me flowers at work last week. There was no note, but the flowers were beautiful and worth a fortune.”
“Are you sure they were for you since there was no note? Maybe they got delivered to you by accident,” Avery offered.
“They were for Isabella and I’m the only Isabella in the entire building, Ace.”
This was bad.
“Uh, I take it you didn’t mention this to Julian?”
She finally sat up correctly. “I would think that the ‘don’t say anything’ would have given it away, Q.”
“What are you going to do, Iz?”
“I don’t kn-”
There was a knock at the door, and like the dramatic drunks that we were, we screamed like we were auditioning for an extra in a horror flick.
I jumped up off the couch and raced for the door when I heard a chorus of ‘Avery! Quinn! Isabella!’ along with thunderous pounding and thumping on the door These fools were going to break my door down.
I swung the door open and barely made it out of the way before Nick was running towards Ace and Julian was jumping over my couch to get to Izzy. I could only stare in astonishment as Chase slammed my front door shut and started shaking me. “Are you okay? Quinn? Are you girls okay?”
“What?” I shook my head. “No, no, we’re fine. We’re fine.”
Nick and Julian were looking over Iz and Ace very much the same way Chase was going over with me. Nick looked around taking inventory of my apartment. When he found no threat, he turned his attention back to Avery. “Are you trying to give me a fucking heart attack?!”
“Nicholas…” she tried.
Julian didn’t help. “Why in the fuck were you girls screaming?”
Iz shrugged a drunken shoulder. “Your knock startled us.”
Julian threw his arms up in the air. “Jesus Christ! How drunk are you girls?”
I finally shook Chase off of me and walked over towards the girls. “We’re not that drunk. Hell, we’re not even really drunk. Just kind of happy,” I tried to explain. “We just weren’t expecting anyone to knock on the door.”
Nick looked like he lost ten years off his life. “Really? Avery sends me a text telling me she wants to blow me and you didn’t expect a knock at your door, Quinn?”
Okay, I can see the validity of his point. “Well, I mean, we weren’t expecting a knock right at that moment.”
Nick was running this hands through his hair and Julian was drinking what was left of our wine right out of the bottle. When he was done, he slammed the empty bottle back on the coffee table and started gathering up Izzy’s purse and shoes. “Let’s go, Isabella.”
Nick followed suit and started gathering up Avery’s shit as well, muttering how Ace will be lucky if he lets her out of his sight ever again.
Considering the attack by Eric, I didn’t really blame Nick. Julian…well, Julian was just being his normal unstable self with Iz.
I looked back and saw Chase silently standing by the door. His tattooed arms were crossed over his chest and his face looked furious. I turned back to the others. “You guys are overreacting,” I mumbled.
“I’m perfectly okay with that,” Nick replied, as he allowed Avery to stop long enough to give me a quick hug goodbye.
“Don’t mind him, Q. He doesn’t handle tense situations well.”
I laughed considering how and where they grew up. “I’m sure that’s it, Ace.”
Julian just grunted as Iz did a drive by hug on her way to being drug out of my apartment. The manhandling was kind of sweet in that I-can’t-live-without-you sort of way.
I turned back towards the living room to start picking up our alcoholic evidence before Julian even shut the door. I trusted him to lock it on his way out.
I almost dropped the glasses I was holding into a shattered mess all over my kitchen floor when Chase’s voice reached me from behind. “Need help with that?”
I whirled around clutching the glasses to my chest. “What the fuck?”
He made himself at home and started picking up the
empty wine bottles from the table and walking them over to the trashcan in the kitchen. “I asked if you need help cleaning up?”
I turned and set the glasses down in the sink before I lost control and started chucking them at his head. “Thanks, but I’ve got it covered. If you hurry, I’m sure you can still catch a ride with the guys.”
Chase rounded on me so fast, I didn’t have a chance to make a run for it. His body was flushed with mine, pinning me up against the counter. “Nick and Julian weren’t the only ones losing their minds on the other side of that door when you girls screamed, you know.”
I hated when he was sweet like this. It made it harder and harder to remember that he was a player and only in it for casual sex. Hell, normally, I’d applaud this. I was a big fan of no-strings-attached sex, but Chase came with strings, namely Julian and Nick. And if that wasn’t enough of a clusterfuck, he was my goddamn boss.
I rolled my eyes trying to poker face my emotions. “Look, I appreciate the concern and all, but as you can see I’m fine. We are all fine. No danger lurking about in my apartment.” Chase continued to look down at me with those blue laser beams of his.
Fuck, this man was hot as hell.
“Seriously, Chase, I’m fine. You can go do whatever you had planned to do on this lovely Saturday night.” I tried pushing against him to give me some much needed space, but he wouldn’t budge.
“Well, babe, seeing as how my plans for the night included fucking you until you beg me to stop, I very well can’t do that if I leave, now can I?”
I couldn’t stop the flush of heat spreading though my body. My pulse started to quicken and I knew he could tell. His bright blue eyes sizzled with promises of all things naughty and filthy.
Holy Mary Mother of God.
Chase was here to finally take me to bed.
And I was finally going to let him.
Chase~
I finally had her.
I could see the conceding in her beautiful chocolate brown eyes. Before she could change her mind, I buried my hands in her hair and slammed my mouth down on hers so brutally our teeth clashed. “Fucking open up for me, Quinn.”
Chasing Quinn Page 6
