“Hm, right, so the smoking room with a joint the size of a tube of lipstick is how you accomplish such a thing?”

“Depends, is that lipstick as red as the one you wore for us?” He grins.

A smile slips over my lips and I shake my head.

I turn to Ransom and take a step closer, but I don’t get a single word out before he’s shaking his head, a firm look in his eye, even if he does refuse to meet mine for longer than a second.

As I expected, he’s angry, and this isn’t the place to have the conversation, but I had to try.

His attention shifts, now focused over my shoulder, and the muscles in his neck flex.

He glares at me in warning when he notices I caught it, but I turn to look anyway, finding Amy, Sammie, and a girl whose name I don’t remember.

Amy flicks her eyes my way, offering a tight-lipped smile, and says something to her friends.

Unmistakable agitation radiates from the boys, and Beretta tries to erase it with a laugh. It’s strangled and fake, and he hangs his head, lifting only his eyes to mine. “Uh-oh, Jameson. Abort.”

I frown, already confused. “Abort?”

“Yeah and quick.”

My mouth opens slightly.

I don’t get it...

“Your friends, Trouble.” He shrugs, his face going slack. “You better play it cool, make an excuse to slip away.”

I blink and blink again.

Okay... wow.

Slowly, I push off the table, rubbing my lips together so I don’t jump right to the ‘fuck you,’ but it does nothing to help, so...

“Fuck you.” I take the drink from his palm, pour it into an abandoned glass on the tabletop, and slam it down as I back away.

I charge from the room, around the corner, but I’m caught by the wrist as I reach the dance floor. I’m spun around and jerked into Beretta’s chest. Ransom stands just over his left shoulder, Arsen to his right.

His hands fall to my hips, and he walks me backward.

“Not so fast,” he cautions. “What was that?”

My eyes widen. “Are you joking?”

As if pre-planned, Beretta slinks behind me, at my front.

It’s as if he believes it’s his, the place in front of me, he demands it time and time again.

Ransom’s eyes, they burn in question, tension tightening the edges and radiating off him at rapid speeds, begging to be soothed, but why? And of what?

“Were we wrong?” Beretta whispers in my ear. “Does she do as she pleases?”

My blood warms, my body arching into Ransom’s.

Pleased, the corner of his mouth lifts, but his eyes remain angry. His hands shoot out to grip my hips, inches up from where Beretta’s fingers rest. Slowly, we begin to move to the music.