Gaia laughed as she filled in with more adjectives. “Loving and sweet and arrogant…”
Marcy sighed. “Irritating and commanding. Monstrously possessive and sweetly charming.”
The ladies all laughed, nodding their heads. “So trust us. We all run interference for each other. The men are great, but sometimes, we need help.”
A gentle hand landed on her shoulder and Naya looked into the sympathetic eyes of her friend. “You’re one of us now,” Marcy explained.
The women were all beautiful in different ways, but their words were making her flustered and confused. “I don’t think I’m really like you guys. I’m not a long-term girlfriend for Luke. We’re not even…”
The three ladies immediately started laughing. Marcy put a hand on Naya’s shoulder. “You’re one of us. Trust me. And we take care of our own.”
Naya’s brown eyes blinked, then widened with confusion. “Your own?”
“A Steele Brother’s woman,” Gaia explained without hesitation. Was that pity in her eyes?
What did that mean? Somehow, the words sent shivers of…fear…throughout her whole body. “I don’t…” she stammered out, confused and overwhelmed.
Marcy nodded her head. “I know. It’s horrible. And I wish I could say that it gets better, but it doesn’t. Luke will still drive you nuts.”
Gaia agreed. “But there are benefits!” she chirped and even Gabby smiled.
“Oh yeah. Great benefits.”
The three of them laughed, Marcy even blushing. “Yeah. The benefits make up for their obnoxiousness.”
Naya stiffened. “I don’t want his money,” she grumbled.
The three women looked stunned for a long moment, then burst out laughing again. Marcy and Gaia were the first to stifle their laughter. “Oh honey. You won’t have a choice but to accept his money. Those men are generous to a fault! But those aren’t the benefits we’re talking about.”
Naya glanced from one woman to the next, her mind slowly starting to figure it out. “Oh, Luke and I…we aren’t…we don’t…”
Gaia smiled gently. “You will. I saw the way he was looking at you.”
“And we all saw the way you looked when you came back from wherever it was that you’d disappeared.”
Gabby chuckled, her graceful hand covering her mouth. “You will.”
“And you’ll love it,” Marcy assured her.
The three women sighed dreamily, nodding while Naya felt a wave of panic come over her. “I don’t think so.”
Marcy looked at Gaia and Gabby, then back at Naya. “That’s okay. We fought it as well. It is pointless. The men are good.”
“Really good,” Gabby agreed.
“Come on. We don’t have much time.” Marcy finished twisting Naya’s hair while Gaia pushed in a few strategic pins. A moment later, they all backed up and allowed Naya to look in the mirror. Whatever they’d done, it was a miracle. Her red curls were still down around her shoulders, but they were tamed in a sort of wild way.
“Wow!” she gasped, turning her head to the right and left. “I don’t know what you did, but I’m impressed!”
The women all smiled back at her in the mirror. “Like we said, we take care of our own,” Gaia laughed.
“We’d better get back out there,” Gabby warned. “I’m pretty sure Teague will be glaring at the bathroom doors until we reappear.”
The other two women agreed, but Naya held back. “I think I’ll just….” She sighed and rubbed her forehead. “Luke is chocolate mousse and I can’t afford the calories in chocolate mousse.” She ran a hand down her stomach, wishing it were flatter somehow. “I need to stick with broccoli and salads,” she explained. “Does that make any sense?”
Gaia smiled kindly. “Of course it does. You don’t think that Luke is good for you. You think that broccoli and salads are healthy for you long-term.”
Gabby nodded her head. “I wanted broccoli a long time ago. I couldn’t believe that chocolate mousse could be right for me.”