“Moira,” snaps a blonde in tight jeans and a black leather jacket, coming up to join a small circle of women now gathering around us, separating me further from Caleb.
Um…
“What?” Moira says, completely unapologetic. “I’m just saying.”
Heat floods my face.
Not because she’s wrong. But because she’s not supposed to say it out loud.
Not when Caleb is literallyright there. And Jesus, being back in this house, it’s like I can still feel the ghost of his hands on my body from ten years ago.
I take a longer drink than is necessary. It has tequila in it, which I’m appreciating in this moment.
Focus.
Be normal.
Act like none of this affects you.
“It’s weird seeing you out of full leathers, Quinn,” Moira says to the blonde.
Quinn shrugs, her narrowed eyes never leaving me. “My client list is full at the moment. Every powerful man from Dallas to Houston wants a dommy mommy these days.”
Dommy mommy?
I’m glad I didn’t just take another sip of my cocktail.
I mean—it’s ridiculous to pretend like I’m scandalized. I work at a tattoo shop, and we certainly get the kinky types. Our piercer likes to tell stories of all the Prince Albert piercings he’s done, and how he likes to make grown men cry.
We certainly have plenty of repeat clients who like to take the needle because, frankly, they’re just masochists. So it’s not like I don’t know the type.
It’s just the fact that these areCaleb’sfriends—and clearly his best friends, by the way they jostle and tease him—that’s taking me a minute to wrap my head around.
Caleb is such aniceboy in my memory. Popular enough, but in the debate-president kind of way.
I took his freakingvirginity, for God’s sake.
But now the man’s got plenty of tattoos of his own and runs a Goddamn sex Dungeon.
“So you’re the stepsister, huh?” Quinn says, narrowing her eyes at me. “How come we’ve never heard of you before? It’s clear Caleb thinks a lot of you.”
“He looks at you like he’d burn the world down for you,” the redhead adds.
“I’m sorry—?” I choke on my cocktail again. “Who are you all again?”
“Oh, I used to be Caleb’s fuck buddy,” Moira says brightly, but then waves a hand. “But that was a long time ago. And we’re talking aboutyou.”
“You were his…what?”
Quinn quickly takes the cocktail out of my hand and gives me one solidthwackin the center of my back.
“So did you two, like… love each other back when you were teenagers?” Moira continues, eyebrows bouncing.
A fourth woman—Anna, I think was her name when we were introduced earlier—just looks on with crossed arms. “We just care a lot about Caleb,” she says. “We want the best for him.”
“Okay, well,” I try to squeeze past where they’ve walled me in. “I’m gonna go see if I can find him again.”
Quinn gets in my way, tilting her head. “I’m very perceptive about people. It’s my superpower.”