She slapped his hand away from it. “Not that one. That one’s Gray’s.” She handed it to his brother. Then she held out the second.

Aidan stared at it. “Do I even want to know what you’ve done to this one?” he asked.

She smiled. “Nope.”

Shit. He set the beer down.

Lily stood and kissed Jonathan on the cheek. “Well, this has been enlightening, but I’m out.”

Aidan started to follow her, but Gray stood up and got in his way.

“What are you doing?” Aidan asked.

“Stopping you from making your second mistake for the evening.”

“Hey, talking to Mom was your bright idea,” Aidan said.

“Yeah but you’re the one who screwed it up.”

Aidan blew out a breath. “Whatever, man. Get out of my way.”

“Fine.” Gray lifted his hands in surrender. “Apparently you haven’t gotten in enough trouble tonight. You need more. Go for it.”

Aidan shoulder-checked him on his way toward the front door and then was stopped again. He turned, ready to rumble, but it wasn’t his brother, it was Jonathan. “Listen, about Lily,” he started.

Shit. Aidan liked Jonathan, he really did. But if the guy was about to try to lay some kind of claim on Lily and then ask Aidan to back off, they were going to have a problem.

He got that such a thing made no sense at all. He didn’t have any plans to go after Lily for himself, so it shouldn’t matter one little bit if Jonathan did.

But it did matter.

A whole hell of a lot. “What about her?”

Jonathan paused, searched Aidan’s gaze, and smiled. “Never mind. You already answered my question.”

“Wasn’t aware you asked one.”

Jonathan looked away and then back to Aidan. “I’m about to overstep my friendship boundaries with her to tell you something because I think you need to know it. Don’t disappoint me, okay?”

Aidan narrowed his eyes. “Is she in some sort of trouble?”

Jonathan relaxed his shoulders and smiled. “Yeah, you’re not going to disappoint me. You do know why she’s back, right?”

“She lost her job.”

“And to face her past,” Jonathan said. “Which we both know sucked. She blames herself for what happened to Ashley.”

“She shouldn’t,” Aidan said.

“No shit.” Jonathan slid his hands into his pockets. “But have you ever successfully talked a woman out of believing something she wanted to believe?”

Aidan huffed out a barely there laugh. “No.”

“Yeah. So good luck with this one.”

“Wait—What?” But Jonathan was already walking back to the bar, whistling to himself like he had no care in the world.

Aidan was pretty sure he’d just been tasked with relieving Lily of her guilt, which was a bad idea.

The worst of bad ideas.