“Okay,” Kell conceded. “So we all had some form of shithead for a father.”
“But that’s the past,” Tate stressed. “I think our future is upstairs in bed by herself because we didn’t handle her right. I don’t want to be that kid stuck in a room again. I broke out of it a long time ago and I won’t go back in. Whatever cell your bitch of an ex locked you in, you need to shove the door open. Otherwise, you’re letting her trap you inside.”
Eric’s eyes went wide. “Wow, Tate. That is the most emotionally astute thing I’ve ever heard come out of your mouth, man.”
“I can learn.” He rolled his eyes.
He’d actually worked really hard to figure out why the people he cared about did the things they did. He just wasn’t always right. In this case, though, he was dead-on.
“I think Belle needs all of us, and that means you need to stop thinking with your PTSD-damaged heart and let your dick take over, Kell. Your dick is way smarter.”
“And there it goes.” Eric shook his head. “Obviously, his emotional intelligence comes in fits and starts.”
Tate wasn’t going to apologize for being blunt. He was right. If Kell would just follow his instincts and realize how much he valued Belle, they would all be happier. “Unless you really are turned off by the virgin thing.”
Kellan growled his way. “Of course I’m not. But I don’t think I can take care of her the way she deserves. I’ve explained that. She needs a husband and a family.”
“She’ll have one. Two actually,” Eric replied.
At least one of his friends backed him up. Tate was pretty sure if Kellan managed to let go of his fear, he’d find himself in a happy place. But so far, he kept managing to overthink the situation and continually fuck it up.
“Fine. We’ll take care of Belle,” Tate offered. “You can show up just for sex.”
But it wouldn’t be just sex, he knew. Kellan would balk at the notion that making love with Belle would be therapy, though it would be. For Tate, it would be coming home. Still, Kellan needed to keep things casual because he wasn’t over the hatchet his ex and his asshole of a dad had taken to his soul. Tate would give Kell one thing: at least he’d never had to see his dad naked and doing the nasty with his girl. Come to think of it, he was pretty sure even his mom had never seen his dad naked. Tate figured he and his brothers had been conceived in some petri dish because the idea of his parents boinking didn’t compute.
His life would have been like that—sterile and void of emotion—if they’d had their way. He would have dedicated himself to solving intellectual problems without ever really understanding what life meant. It was incomplete without friendship and love. Sometimes that meant sitting around watching action movies on a Saturday night. Sometimes that meant taking stock of who and what was important to you. A million little details and moments made up a life. Eric had taught him that. In some ways, Kellan had, too. It was why he couldn’t just let the guy simply drift away. Belle came first, yes, but his friends ran a very close second.
He wanted to have it all.
“I doubt Belle is going to be interested in that kind of relationship,” Kellan hedged, though it was easy to see he was thinking about it and aching for it.
“Just come have breakfast with us.” The first step to solving any problem was developing a hypothesis, and his was that Kellan wouldn’t be able to resist if he stayed around a while longer. If he was sleeping next to Belle every night, he’d be unable to keep his distance for long.
Shit. Another problem hit him squarely between the eyes.
“Wait, guys. There are three of us. Where does number three sleep?” Tate shuddered a little. “I can’t cuddle with Eric. It’s just…no.”
He’d had a vision of sleeping next to Belle, his arms wrapped around her. He could wake up to her sweet scent and the soft feel of her skin, then roll her over and slide inside her before they were really awake. That would be damn near impossible if his best friend was in between them.
Someone needed to write a book of ménage advice.
Eric laughed out loud. “I think we’ll have to deal with that problem when we come to it, buddy.”
Eric could laugh all he wanted, but this seemed like a real conundrum.
And then a high-pitched scream cut through the house. Tate’s heart damn near stopped. He leapt to his feet. “Belle.”
Eric and Kell jumped up, too. They were running for the stairs before the sound died, and Tate prayed he could make it to her in time.
Chapter Eleven
Belle lay a trembling hand over her mouth, then reached for her nightstand to turn on the lamp and crawled from bed. When a golden glow illuminated the room, she scanned it, panting wildly. But she saw no sign of the person she’d sworn had just whispered in her ear.
After an exhausting day painting—that reminded her she’d grown unused to physical labor—the comfortable bed had lured her. The quiet had enveloped her, lulling somewhere between awareness and sleep. Just before she’d dropped into the dark chasm of slumber, she thought she’d heard the menacing hiss of a warning.
Get out before he gets you, too.
Then an ear-splitting cry had jarred her awake.
Panting, Belle let her skittish stare bounce around the room. No one visible, but the idea of a stranger in her bedroom made her nauseous. Fear shook her. Had someone been here earlier? Her door was still shut, as was her window. How would anyone have gotten in? Where? It looked somewhere between unlikely and impossible. But she would absolutely swear that someone had stood over her in the dark and whispered the warning.
Maybe it had been a dream? It was possible that between Mr. Gates’s warning that the house was haunted and total exhaustion, her imagination had kicked into overdrive.
Belle turned back to glance at the bed. Sir yawned, looking at her with a slightly enquiring gaze, mostly as if asking when she’d turn the damn light off again so they could sleep. But the dog wasn’t barking. She let out a pent-up breath. If Sir wasn’t yipping his little head off, then they were alone in the room. Heck, he sometimes barked even when no one was there. She needed to calm down and stop letting her weirdly vivid dreams get the best of her.
Belle decided to stop freaking out and let it go, but even as she began climbing back in bed, Belle found herself mentally replaying the dream. Had the scream she’d heard been a part of her nightmare…or something real? She couldn’t remember.
Then as she turned to her nightstand, telling herself to kill the light and get some sleep, an unexpected sight snagged her attention. Written on the wall above her grandmother’s antique vanity in a pigment that looked unnervingly red were the words get out while you can.
Belle opened her mouth to cry out again just as the door flew open. Tate ran in, his eyes wild. Clearly, the scream she’d heard had been real. Had it been hers?
Immediately, he strode to her, his big hands encasing her shoulders as he looked her over, worry written on his face. “What happened?”
Eric charged in right behind him, looking every bit as ready to defend her. “Is someone in the house?”
Kellan stopped in the doorway, gripping her grandmother’s cane in one hand and his cell phone in the other. “Do I need to call 911?”