“Gotta say, Evan, you give dual personalities a whole new meaning,” he replied, his expression now openly hostile.

Outwardly, I shrugged.

Inwardly, I screamed.

“So, are we done?” I asked.

“Fuck yeah, we’re done,” he snarled. “Good luck, babe. You’re really gonna fuckin’ need it.”

He delivered that.

And as I’d learned earlier, the man could move fast.

So it took no time at all for the door to slam behind him.

I went to it.

I locked it.

Then I turned my back to it.

And I slid down it.

Knees bent, hands flat to the floor at my sides, my gaze was glued to the bag on the coffee table.

I was a crier.

I just was.

I cried when I was sad and when I was stressed. And when I was on my period, watch out. The waterworks turned on for just about anything.

But I had a number of reasons to cry right then.

The weird part about it was, even with where Mick put me, what was on my coffee table, and the scary uncertainty of my future as pertains to that grocery bag…

I had a feeling the biggest reason for me to cry had just walked out my door.

And as such, I did not cry.

It was silent.

But I dropped my head and my body shook with the sobs.

Chapter Four

Rock Chick Zone

Mag

Mag walked into the office suite early the next morning and noted immediately that his luck hadn’t turned.

And he didn’t give a fuck.

He was so pissed, he hadn’t slept a second.

And somehow, he was more pissed than how excruciatingly pissed he was the night before with all that shit Evan had spewed at him.

So when he saw Mo was standing outside Elvira’s office with not only Elvira, but Tex MacMillan (for fuck’s sake, fucking Tex, a certifiable lunatic)…

And when he saw Hawk at the top of the space, which was set up theater style with the men’s units forming rows on each level so they could do their desk work and keep an eye on the screens that lined the wall at the front, and Hawk was for some fucking reason standing with Kane “Tack” Allen of the Chaos MC…

Mag didn’t pause.

He walked left, direct to Mo.

Mo had not missed his arrival.

No one had.

Everyone was watching him make his way to Mo, he could feel the focus.

Including Tex, Elvira, Hawk, and Tack.

Mag didn’t even slow.

It was, unsurprisingly, Tex who spoke first, “Shit, boy, you got a face like thunder.”

Mo, who didn’t talk much, just stared at him, but Mag could tell he was alert and concerned.

They’d been coworkers awhile, buds all that while, and roommates for a few months.

Mo knew him.

Mo also knew he had a blind date with Evan last night.

And Mo wasn’t liking what he was seeing.

Something Mag gave not one fuck about seeing as he did not like what he was feeling.

Mag didn’t even glance at Tex.

He kept his gaze locked with Mo’s as he said, “Lottie gets the bright idea to fix me up with another one of her bitches, you tell her to think twice about it.”

Mag felt the attitude coming off Tex, and it was intense, this because Lottie was his stepdaughter, and he might have a whacked-out way of showing it, just as he had a whacked-out way of doing anything he did, but he loved her more than life.

“And you tell your woman,” Mag continued giving it to Mo, “if she has a problem with how I live my life, she can fuckin’ talk to me about it. Not share her judgment about what I do with my dick with anyone who’ll listen.”

“Jesus,” Mo murmured.

“Now hang on—” Tex started.

Mag looked to Tex and clipped, “You are not in this.”

“You’re talkin’ ’bout my Lottie,” he leaned toward Mag threateningly, “I am. And Lottie wouldn’t talk smack about you. She’d never do that. Especially not to you. You’re her boy.”

“That’s what I thought, but apparently I was wrong,” Mag returned.

“What happened?” Mo asked, regaining Mag’s attention.

“We’ll just leave it at the fact me and Evan will not be having a second date,” Mag told him. “Now talk to your woman because I am so not down with the dirty she did me.”

And he wasn’t.

He was tight with Mac, Mac being the best woman he’d ever met, so what she did hurt like fuck.

“Tex is right, Lottie’d never talk trash about you,” Mo said. “So…what happened?”

“I’m not getting into it,” Mag replied.

This was, unfortunately, when Elvira entered the conversation.

“Boy, you cannot come in here, verbal guns a’blazin’, throwin’ down with Mo and Tex, and not give us a full picture.”

Elvira had a point.

Elvira also wanted to know what was going on because Elvira had a pathological need to stick her nose into everything.

Mag was tight with Elvira too. Until he’d met Lottie, Elvira was the best woman he’d ever met.

Since Elvira didn’t make one of his brothers happy by falling in love with him and treating him like gold, she’d been demoted to the second slot.

“You aren’t in this either,” he told her.

“Well, you walked right up and interrupted a convo that I was enjoyin’, seein’ as we’re connivin’ a kickass wedding gift from Mo to Lottie,” she shot back. “So, you didn’t want me in this, you should have asked for a private word.”

“Do we have an issue?”

Terrific.

Hawk and Tack had moseyed down to their huddle.

“No issue,” he grunted to his boss and swung his eyes to Mo. “You heard me. It’s done.”

“Mag’s claiming that Lottie did the dirty on him and talked trash about him to the girl she set him up with last night,” Elvira chimed in.

Mag drew a sharp breath into his nose.

Hawk and Tack leveled their eyes on him.

“I would share, personal shit on personal time,” Hawk declared. “But seein’ as Elvira dragged Tex in first thing in the morning, fired up about something for Mo’s wedding, and they ignored me earlier when I said personal shit on personal time, I’ll simply have to repeat personal shit on personal time.” His gaze swung through Elvira and Tex as he finished, “All of you.”

“You don’t sign my paycheck,” Tex stated.

“I know it would be a challenge, and I haven’t had one in a long time,” Hawk began, eyes on Tex, “so I’d look forward to it and I’d best it if I had to lock you down and kick your ass out.”

Tex straightened. “I haven’t had a challenge in a long time either, turkey.”

“Well then, looks like hump day just turned into thump day,” Elvira remarked, appearing like her Wednesday just took an upswing.

“Mag,” Mo called, and when Mag looked to him, he repeated, “What happened?”

He wanted it?

“Lottie told her I was a manwhore.”

“Oh shit,” Mo muttered.

“Uh-oh,” Elvira mumbled.