He slid left when she slid right.

“Liv, I feel terrible about this. Please—”

She shoved him sideways, and for the second time that night, he watched a woman storm away from him.

CHAPTER FOUR

The last thing Mack wanted to do the next morning was face the guys at a damn book club meeting, especially at Gavin’s house. But if he didn’t show up, they’d just hound him with text messages and obscene gifs. There was no avoiding it. So just before noon, he parked in front of Gavin’s house, grabbed his book and the pizza box, and trudged up the porch steps to bang on the front door.

A boisterous bark from inside greeted him seconds before the door swung open. Gavin’s wife, Thea, smiled and held back their dog, a golden retriever named Butter Ball.

“Hey,” she breathed. “Come in.”

Mack held back for a split second, studying her face for any signs that she was going to pound him for what happened with Liv last night. When no signs of violence emerged, he bent and brushed his lips across her cheek. “Hey, Thea. Thanks for having us.”

“Of course. The guys are all out back.”

“Where are the girls?” Gavin and Thea had twin daughters, Ava and Amelia, who had recently turned four.

“Napping, thank God,” Thea laughed. “They almost never do anymore, but Gavin wore them out this morning teaching them how to hit a curve ball.”

The picture that painted—of domestic bliss and family—brought a pang to his chest that soured his mood even further. Gretchen could have been the one he shared that with. He was sure of it.

Mack carried his pizza through the living room to a set of French doors leading to Gavin’s backyard. They opened to a covered brick patio, which is where he found them—Malcolm, Del, Derek, Gavin, and the Russian.

Gavin looked over his shoulder at the sound of the door. “Dude, you’re late,” he said over a mouthful of what looked like a grilled chicken sandwich. During the season, he tended to eat as healthy as possible. Which also pissed Mack off. Because he wanted to indulge in some fucking pizza and beer.

Mack dropped the pizza box on the patio table and plunged his hand into the pocket of his shorts. He withdrew the five hundred dollars he owed Del and shoved it at him.

Del wiped a napkin across his face. “What’s this?” he asked, wary and curious at once.

“What do you think it is? You won the fucking bet.”

The guys got quiet for a moment.

Del gathered the money. “So . . . you and Gretchen?”

“Congratulations,” Mack grumbled. “I think I got dumped last night. Happy?”

Malcolm cleared his throat. “You think you got dumped?”

“I swear I’m not making fun of you,” Gavin said slowly, “but how does one not know if he got dumped or not?”

Mack tossed his hands in the air. “Because I’ve never fucking been dumped before, okay?”

This time, the silence was followed by a burst of collective guffaws that vibrated windows and shook the table. Gavin laughed so hard he fell forward onto his arm on the table.

“Yeah, real fucking funny, assholes,” Mack said, yanking a chair away from the table so he could slump into it.

Del clapped a hand on his shoulder. “I’m sorry, man, but damn. Welcome to the real world, Mack. How’s it feel?”

“Like shit, thank you very much.”

“What happened?”

“I don’t know. One minute things were fine, and the next, Liv dropped the stupid cupcake, and then Gretchen was backing away from me with some lame excuse—”

“W-w-wait,” Gavin interrupted, his stammer revealing his sudden tension. “What did you just say about Liv? What does she have to do with any of this?”

Oh shit. That’s why Thea hadn’t mentioned anything about it when he’d arrived. She and Gavin didn’t know. Shit. Mack swallowed hard and looked around the room. “She, uh, she didn’t tell you guys?”

“No,” Gavin said. “She didn’t. And you have about thirty seconds to start from the beginning, or getting dumped is going to be the least of your worries.”

Mack gulped. “She, uh . . . she got fired last night.”

Mack had faced some intimidating people in his life, but Thea Scott would go down as one of the scariest. She stood barely five three and weighed less than one of his legs, but if she so much as twitched right now, he’d shit himself.

Gavin had dragged him inside the house to tell her what happened. He gulped again. “I swear to God, Thea, that’s all I know.”

How the hell was Mack supposed to know that Liv wouldn’t have told her own sister by now that she’d been fired last night? It was almost one o’clock for fuck’s sake. He looked at the other guys for help, but they all suddenly found something super interesting in the carpet or on the walls or in the backyard. Lotta fucking help they were.

“She said she’s on her way here?” Gavin asked his wife cautiously.

Thea nodded, arms crossed and jaw clenched.

“Uncle Mack, come play with us!” Ava and Amelia ran into the room trailed by Butter Ball. Ava threw her arms around Mack’s legs. He hoisted her upside down in the air and tossed her over his shoulder. Ava shrieked in delight. Amelia hopped up and down, screaming, “Me next, me next!”

Thank God for kids. “Wanna jump on the trampoline?”

Both girls exclaimed, “Yeah!”

“Uncle Mack is grounded,” Thea said. “Why don’t you see if one of the other guys will go outside with you.”

The guys couldn’t move fast enough. They raced en masse toward the back door and collided all at once. Malcolm shoved Derek out of the way. Derek fell to his knees. Del wrestled his hand onto the door handle. The Russian batted it away and managed to throw the door open. All four men fell out in a heap of cowardice. Someone yelled he was bleeding and someone else responded to just run.

“Start from the beginning,” Thea said as soon as the girls had run out back.

“I saw her at Savoy. I might have gotten her in trouble with her boss, and then later—”

Gavin held up a hand. “Might have gotten her in trouble with her boss? What the hell does that mean?”

“I ordered that thousand-dollar cupcake—”

Thea made a choking sound. Mack shrugged. “I was trying to impress Gretchen.”

“Which obviously backfired,” Gavin said.

Mack flipped him off.

“Continue,” Thea seethed.

“Anyway, I guess she has to deliver the damn thing as part of the package, and so I recognized her, and I said, ‘Hey, I know you,’ and she said, ‘No, you don’t,’ and I was like, ‘Yeah, you’re Gavin’s sister-in-law,’ and I called her Liv, but Royce calls her Olivia—”

“For fuck’s sake,” Gavin growled. “Does this story have an end?”

“She dropped it,” he blurted.

Thea choked again. “She dropped the cupcake?”

“In Gretchen’s lap.”

“Oh my God,” Thea breathed. She even swayed a little.

“She was working, Mack,” Gavin said. “Couldn’t you have just left her alone?”

“Was I supposed to ignore her? How fucking rude would that be?”

“Maybe she’d still be employed if you had!”

There was a knock at the front door followed immediately by Butter’s rapid bark. Thea held up her hand to silence them. Mack swallowed hard and tried to calm his breathing. Shitshitshit. Liv was here, and she was gonna be so pissed at him. More pissed than even last night. And he was pretty sure the only person scarier than Thea when she was pissed was Liv, and he was even more sure that he’d only gotten a small taste of Liv’s capacity for pissed-offed-ness last night.

Thea crossed the living room to the hallway that led to their front door. Butter barked and bounced alongside her, oblivious to the fact that a ticking time bomb waited on the porch.

Gavin looked at him, dragged his finger across his throat, and mouthed, You’re dead.

It was followed moments later by a now-familiar voice.

“You asshole. You couldn’t wait to share the good news?” Liv stomped through the small entryway of her sister’s house and nearly ran into Mack around the corner. She’d been working on her résumé all morning, trying to figure out just how to tell Thea what had happened, when the phone had rung and her sister had screeched, “You got fired?!”

Mack threw his hands in the air. “Why the hell didn’t you tell them?”

Liv shoved a finger in his chest. “Because my sister has a tendency to freak out about things, and I was trying to figure out how to break it to them. But thanks to you—”

Thea was right behind her. “Hey, I do not freak out about things.”

Gavin and Liv shared a none-too-subtle yeah right look.

“Well, why wouldn’t I freak out if I have to find out from Mack that you got fired last night?”

Liv turned around. “I was going to tell you today.”

Thea crossed her arms. “When?”

Liv matched her pose. “After I finished my chores.”

Behind her, Mack whispered to Gavin, “Chores?”

“She sort of lives on a farm,” Gavin whispered back.

“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me last night, though,” Thea said. “Why didn’t you call me?”

“Because I was still in shock last night.”

“So you just went home?” Thea asked it with the same level of incredulity as if Liv had announced that she’d decided to streak naked down Broadway.

“Yes. I went home, studied my bank account, and threw darts at a picture of Royce’s face. What else does someone do when they get fired?”

Mack stepped into her space. “You left out the part where you turned me down when I offered you a job.”

Liv whipped around. “Oh my God, is there anything else you want to tell them that is totally none of your business?”