“I had my rage to keep me warm,” Michael growled back. “And honestly, I’m not much of a hunter. I’ve been living off MREs and canned chili. I was looking forward to the pizza.”
He was going to ignore Michael for now since he didn’t seem to be going away. “Can you let Lucy stay?”
“Oh, I don’t think River would let her leave at this point,” Jax replied. “They are doing that thing that women do where they way overshare. This could take all night. Lucy can stay in the guest room for as long as she needs to. So don’t worry about her. Worry about her ever talking to you again and the way the whole town is going to react to this scandal.”
“Scandal?” He wasn’t sure why anyone had to know that he’d gotten shut out.
“Yeah, it’s a fucking scandal because you acted like an ass and made Lucy feel bad for being with one of the men who is trying to date her,” Michael said, his jaw tight. “It’s like you slut shamed her for kissing her boyfriend, which is stupid because I’m not a boy.”
“Yes, whole-ass-grown-man friend is better,” Jax replied. “We should call you that.”
“It’s not a scandal because no one knows about it.” Now that he really considered it, Michael had a point. He should have communicated better. He should have been calm and asked them if they’d meant to leave him out and explained how it made him feel.
There was a dinging on his cell phone that let him know a text was coming through. Maybe it was Lucy. Maybe she knew he was out here and wanted to explain what had happened now that they had calmed down. There was another ding from Michael’s cell which made Ty wonder how the man charged his phone at his rage-heated home.
They both pulled their phones, and Michael started growling again.
Gentlemen, it has come to our attention that you’re struggling. I invite you to come out to the estate tomorrow for breakfast to talk about this problem.
“Why is Stef Talbot texting me?” Stef was kind of a big deal in Bliss. “What problem is he talking about?”
Before Michael could reply, there was another ding. Ty glanced down. This one was from Max Harper.
Dude, you fucked around and Stef found out and now I have to get my ass up early in the morning. Fuck you, Ty.
Max made it clear how he felt with a series of poop emojis. A cold chill that had nothing to do with the fact that it had started snowing went through Ty. “Does this mean what I think it means?”
“It means we’re getting called to Stef’s so the men of Bliss can drag us over hot coals because you’re a jealous little shit,” Michael said. “There better be bacon, and if it’s not a buffet, I’m eating yours.”
“How do they know?” Ty whispered the question because now he was a bit worried Stef had the whole town wired for sound.
Michael sent him a look that let him know it was a dumb question. “I would say your friend there is a meddling asshole.”
Ty turned to Jax, who gave him a thumbs-up. “Stef sent his personal plane to pick us up from Dallas but he told me I had to monitor the situation with Lucy for him. Apparently the Men’s Council on Bliss Relations is worried you two won’t be good at sharing and will give the whole town a bad reputation.”
“With who?” Michael asked. “Is there a Zagat rating system for towns filled with freaking threesomes?”
Jax shrugged. “It’s a bigger community than you would think. I was just doing my job. Have fun, you two. I’ve got pizza to eat and a whole lot of naps to take. I’ve spent years on the run waiting for someone to kill me or to get arrested and thrown in some European jail. I’m going to enjoy every minute of the rest of my life.”
He turned and jogged back into his cabin.
Ty sat back, the whole of what he’d done hitting him squarely in the chest.
He’d fucked everything up.
“Roll up the damn window, Ty. You might be used to this kind of cold, but I’m from Florida and my rage doesn’t warm me like it used to,” Michael complained.
Ty rolled the window up. “I’m sorry. I…I saw the two of you together and I overreacted.”
Michael was quiet for a moment. “Did you hate seeing me with her that much?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t think I would. I’ve kind of had a couple of fantasies about it over the last few weeks. I might have been thinking about it longer than I admitted.”
“And I didn’t think about it at all, and when I was kissing her tonight, I thought about the fact that you might walk in and demand equal attention.” Michael sighed. “And I didn’t have a problem with it. I thought about how hot it might be to watch you with her.”