Scowling, Tate almost objected. He was always thinking. “Sorry, I had a six p.m. conference call. I couldn’t get out of it.”
And he’d eaten lunch at his computer because he’d gotten an emergency e-mail begging for clarification on a contract some clients hadn’t yet signed. Eric had been forced to leave to find a new router when the one they’d been using suddenly blew out. Tate blamed the flirty electrician.
“Clear your schedules tomorrow at eight, noon, and six. We’ll force Belle to sit down with us,” Kellan counseled.
“Yeah, like civilized people in a relationship.” Eric looked like his patience was at an end.
“She won’t admit we’re in a relationship.” Tate sure didn’t feel like he was in one, either.
“I really thought she’d give in by now,” Eric admitted, frustration contorting his expression and tightening his shoulders. His brows settled into a deep V. Tate might not be able to read most people, but he knew his best friend. “I hate how hard she’s working.”
“But she likes it. She seems happy.” He’d noticed her smiling and humming while she painted. There was a peace to her he’d never seen before. “I think we have to really consider the fact that she’s not going to leave this place. We fucked up.”
Maybe he should have let Kellan go and wrapped Belle in his arms for good. He could have kissed her and told her what she meant to him and maybe they wouldn’t feel as if they’d lost their chance with her. She could respond to his flirtations all day long, but if she didn’t give in or let herself fall in love, it wouldn’t matter.
And almost as soon as he finished the thought, Tate realized that he couldn’t abandon his friend. He felt disloyal for even thinking it.
“I’m sorry, guys.” Kellan stood up. “This is my fault.”
“Stop. No more apologies,” Tate insisted. “The question now is, what do you want out of this?”
Eric nodded. “Yeah, what do you want to do here? I think you should stay. Belle can handle you, but we’ve spent days just sitting around waiting for her to change her mind. It’s not working.”
“We need a plan.” They’d thought she would come around quickly, but Tate saw now she’d been serious about her career change. Just like she was serious about the move.
“What if we can’t get her to come home with us?” Eric asked.
“I don’t know, but I know I’m not giving up.” He loved her. He’d never felt for any woman what he did for Belle. He smiled more with her. He even liked himself better when he was around her. “If I have to move, I will. I love her. We need to put her first from now on.”
Eric held a hand up. “I agree. Putting her first is the only way this works, I think. If I really thought she couldn’t handle the type of relationship we want, I would allow her to choose one of us, but she needs us all. I think her reluctance now is about her wounded pride and her inexperience, not any fear she has about having more than one man.”
“I don’t know,” Kellan hedged. “You two need to show her you can make her life better. That starts with being organized. You’re right about putting her first and giving her what she needs. Any good Dom does. That means prioritizing her above business, too. Tomorrow we help her. All three of us. I’ve looked at your schedules and almost everything can wait.”
Tate thought through his calendar tomorrow, then nodded. He’d helped with painting today, and he’d felt wonderfully close to her for those precious hours. They’d joked and bantered like old times, but a new awareness had hummed between them. While he’d worked beside her, he’d been almost perfectly content. If he could have kissed her when they’d finished and taken her to bed, he’d be the happiest bastard on the planet. Instead, when she’d tidied up for the night, Tate had sensed her pulling away. The distance between them gnawed at him.
But that wasn’t the only thing troubling him.
“I want to look into that lawyer of her grandmother’s. I heard some of their conversation today and I didn’t like it. He told her he had to have an inventory of the house before the court will sign off on the will.”
Sure, probate law differed slightly from state to state, but if Marie Wright had left everything to her granddaughter and Belle didn’t have any contentious relatives to share the estate with, Tate couldn’t think of any reason the state would need a complete inventory.
“What? That makes no sense.” Eric frowned. “I guess that explains all the five-year-olds in ties crawling inside the house today.”
“Yeah. Look into that lawyer,” Kellan said. “These interns weren’t just jotting down an inventory. They were poking and prodding and taking shit apart. And we should also look into our dear friend, Mike the electrician. He crawls up my back.”
Tate kind of hated the fucker, too. He especially didn’t like the way ol’ Mikey smiled at Belle, as if the expression was a come-on. He was one charming asshole who needed to keep his eyes off other guys’ girls. Except she wasn’t really his. Crap, did she like the electrician? He probably didn’t cite statistics or verbally offer his penis.
“I don’t think he’s very good at his job,” Tate asserted. “He got lost all over the house. I had to tell him where to go three times today.”
“I’d like to tell him where to go,” Eric growled. “I know there are a lot of rooms in this house, but he seemed more interested in what was in Belle’s personal space than any wiring behind the walls.”
“I watched him, too. I agree,” Kellan said, sitting back. “So are we all on the same page?”
Well, two of them were. Kellan just happened to write the page. He wasn’t actually on it with them. Tate just had to keep hoping that Kell’s feelings for Belle would eventually fix that. “Are you going to help us out?”
Kellan’s jaw tightened. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“So you’re going to let the bitch from hell keep defeating you.” Tate was really sick of the excuses.
“You don’t understand,” Kellan shot back, obviously trying to be patient with him.
And he was sick of people’s patient attitudes as they talked down to him, too. Yes, he was socially awkward, but he wasn’t a moron. “I understand that if you let Belle go, your ex and your dad have won again.”
Kellan forced his chair back, the loud scrape filling up the quiet room. “Again, you know nothing about the situation, so it would be best if you stayed out of it. You weren’t raised the way I was. You weren’t dragged through shit by your own family.”
Tate couldn’t stop his eyes from rolling. “Yeah, man, my childhood was a blast. So was Eric’s.”
“Your father didn’t impregnate your wife,” Kellan ground out.
“And your dad didn’t lock you in a room for three days when you came home with a 92 on a test.” Everyone had their troubles. Sometimes Kellan couldn’t see past his, and Tate realized he’d been treating his pal with kid gloves. Time to take them off.
“Your dad did that?” Kellan asked, horrified.
Tate could remember how humiliating it had been. “He left me with two bottles of water and a loaf of bread and he said that was how I would have to live if I didn’t study harder. And your dad didn’t tell you that you were a worthless wimp because you pulled out of football after your second concussion led to short-term memory loss.”
Eric held up a hand. “That was my asshole dad. He was a man’s man. Men played football. Brain damage was just a minor battle scar in his book. Look, none of us had it great in the dad department. My mom has only been a good parent since she left my dad.”
“And you didn’t have to contend with two brothers who called you a moron because you snuck in a little TV time at a neighbor’s house. The brainless box rots intelligence, according to my mother. They forbid television, books that weren’t academic, and most sports. Absolutely no girls. Hell, friends were even discouraged. I didn’t really have one until I met Eric.” The awkward day in high school when he’d been assigned to force some math into the jock’s head had been the single biggest turning point in his life.