Finally, he turned and actually looked at them. The two men were sitting in his library with their legs propped up, drinks in their hands, and ridiculously silly grins on their faces. Whatever happened to brotherly solidarity?
“Are you going to just sit there all night long or are you going to give me some input?” he snapped. He glared at them murderously.
“Well, considering you haven’t given us two seconds to give any input, we thought we’d just sit here,” Blake said, and he took another swig of his scotch.
“I’m giving you time now,” Tyler shouted.
“We don’t know who she is. I met her for about two seconds, but I wasn’t exactly in the best mood or on my best behavior then. Might I suggest you find out about the little tease,” Byron said.
“What? The two of you are all happy and in committed relationships, so you think my disastrous love live is entertaining?”
Blake guffawed. “Now that you mention it, it is pretty entertaining.”
“This is B.S.!”
Tyler marched over to the bar and snagged another beer from the refrigerator. It had been a month since Elena’s little stunt and he was still furious. He’d thought he would be over it by now. He’d been determined just to forget all about that … that … never mind.
But a month later he was still dreaming of the wretched woman, still wanting to know what in the hell had gone wrong. More importantly, he was trying to figure out why in the world he gave a damn about any of it. Screw her. Well, he had tried …
“Tyler, you’ve been going off every few days about this woman since the moment you met her,” Byron said. “It’s been an entire month since she walked away from here, and you still haven’t forgotten about her. Maybe it’s time you to do something about it.”
“I wanted to forget all about her and her effed-up games,” Tyler said, “but you’re right. I can’t get her off my mind, so I’m thinking that was the wrong choice.”
“Haven’t you always been the easygoing brother,” Blake said, “the happy one, the one who wants to find true love and live all happily ever after?”
“That was before I met the woman before this one, the woman I thought I’d ask to marry me. And now I’m confronted with another wreck in the female species,” Tyler snapped. “They’re all worthless. Who needs them?”
“Don’t let one woman, or even two, change your identity,” Blake told him. “Byron and I spent far too many years being testosterone-crazed assholes. You’re a good guy, Tyler. This woman could be a complete bitch, or she could have a story. You’re never going to know if you don’t see this thing through, figure out why she did what she did.”
“And if I find out that it really was just her idea of a game, that she’s actually nothing more than a cheep hussy?”
“Cheap hussy? Don’t let the tabloids learn that you use that kind of sexist language in this millennium. It won’t help our business brand, you know.” Byron looked away for a moment, but he continued. “Here’s what you do if you find out the worst. You don’t let one disastrous encounter — okay, a second disastrous encounter — ruin you for all future ones.”
“Weren’t you being a complete douche to McKenzie just a few months ago?” Tyler had to ask.
“Yeah, I was,” Byron admitted with a shake of his head. “And I almost lost her because of it. Don’t be an idiot like me.”
“Or me,” Blake added.
“Dammit! I want to just forget all about this woman.”
“Yeah, if life were that easy, there wouldn’t be so many damn shrinks out there,” Blake said.
“Ha, ha. Very fun,” Tyler snapped again.
“Look, bro, all kidding aside, find out this woman’s story. Maybe she’s got a damn good reason for doing what she did,” Blake told him.
“I can’t see that there is any justifiable reason for someone to play the games she played,” Tyler mumbled. But his temper was finally beginning to die down as he began to plan out what he was going to do next.
“You never know, Ty,” Byron said. “In the eyes of the world, you’re not exactly a guy bent on monogamy. You’re constantly featured in gossip magazines as a playboy extraordinaire. We all went that route. None of us gave a damn what people thought about us. But I’ll grant you this — you actually cared about your neighbors, and you’ve sacrificed to make this world a better place. The same can’t be said about Byron or me. We were dicks.”
“Hey! I resent that,” Byron interjected.
Blake simply raised an eyebrow. And Byron smiled.
“Okay, so I resemble that remark. I was a dick. But McKenzie has turned me into a better man.”
“Think about it, Ty. All I’m saying is to look a little deeper,” Blake told his little brother. “Give peace a chance. You never know what you might find.”
“Who in the hell have you guys turned into?” Tyler didn’t even recognize these men anymore. “Wasn’t I always the voice of reason in our threesome?”
“Yeah. Women happened. The love of our lives.” Blake didn’t even bat an eye at saying this.
“So you’ve gone soft?” Tyler goaded him.
Blake sat up and the look of a warrior sprang into his eyes, the same look that could silence a boardroom and make people shake.
“Just because my heart has softened doesn’t make me weak. Don’t for one second think that’s the case. I just came to realize that I don’t have to be alone and miserable in this world. If someone crosses me, I’m still a force to be reckoned with.”