His
first thought was that he needed to track Winter down and fix it, his second,
was to wonder who the fuck Dez thought he was, to be lecturing him on shit
after what Tripp had read while he’d been stuck at the Bismarck Airport.
“Maybe you should work your own shit
out, before you stick your nose in someone else’s,” Tripp snapped as he jerked
his phone out of his pocket and flipped through it, finding the article he was
after and turning it so Dez could see.
Tripp knew what the headline said,
the speculation about the woman draped all over Riley in the photos that
accompanied it, including one where she was sitting in his lap, his arms around
her as she looked to be kissing his neck.
Tripp waited for Dez to lose his shit
with a sick sense of anticipation he wasn’t exactly proud of. He expected
embarrassment, sputtered attempts at an explanation, not….snickering?
What the actual fuck?
When those snickers gave way to
laughter and Dez using the wall to hold himself up, Tripp was certain he’d just
fallen headlong into the Twilight Zone.
“What the fuck is so god damned funny
this early in the day?” Riley grumbled as he stuck his head out in the hallway,
took one look at Tripp and rolled his eyes. “Oh, you.”
Tapping Dez on the shoulder only got
him to turn his laughter and the phone Riley’s way.
“What are you trying to do, laugh him
off the doorstep?” Riley asked, taking the phone when Dez nearly dropped it and
his pants.
“He thinks….you two…are
seein’…each….other…” Dez choked out in between wheezes.
Riley’s giggles when he saw the
photos were as unexpected as Dez’s reaction, only now he was hollering over his
shoulder to Zakk, who sounded sleepy, drunk and grumpy as he came shambling to
the doorway, looking every bit as rumpled as Dez and Riley did.
“Why ya gotta be so fuckin’ loud,
bru?”
And there was the pretty little bun
on the shitburger sandwich his day had turned into. Drunken fuck’ Zakk, who
crashed into Riley and the door before spotting Tripp standing there and giving
him a little wave.
“Can I talk to you?” Tripp pleaded,
desperately hoping there was some shred of comprehension left in Zakk’s
booze-soaked brain, or he’d have come all this way for nothing.
“You gotta see this!” Riley declared
at the same time, thrusting the phone in front of Zakk’s face and blocking his
view of the desperate, pleading look Tripp was shooting him. “He thinks I’m
cheating on Dez…. with your sister!”
There was no reason for Riley to say
that last word so loud, no reason for the three of them to go absolutely
batshit crazy with the laughter either, but there they were, slapping their
knees, grabbing on to one another, Dez’s pants around his ankles now as they
howled like manic coyotes at his expense.
Fury and humiliation surged through
him as he snatched the phone from Zakk’s hand. “You can all go to hell!”
Whirling around, he stalked to the
elevator, kicking himself the whole way for ruining things with Zakk and
wishing he could kick them for not letting him fix it. Punching the button
several times in the unrealistic hope that it could make the doors open faster,
Tripp never expected any of them to stop him, let alone the person doing it to
be Dez, who caught him by the arm and looked ready to throw down if Tripp
decided to take a swing at him.
“You shouldn’t leave without telling him what you came here to say,” Dez said. “Don’t you think he deserves an apology at least?”
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