They all stopped and looked at each other. Glances shot back and forth across the room like pool balls, everyone waiting for someone to go ahead and say something.

“Come on, boys,” she drawled. “I’m all ears, so now what?”

“Actually, we didn’t really think it would be this easy,” Jake admitted sheepishly, giving her a little grin. “Andrew and Chris even talked about sitting on you while we made you listen.”

“Well what were you all going to say while you were sitting on me?”

“We didn’t get that far,” Liam confessed, starting to snicker. “We were too busy talking about how we’d get to you listen to us.”

The whole room cracked up. Olivia was laughing so hard her belly hurt.

Bunch of dumbasses. She loved them so much. As they ribbed each other about their lack of thorough planning, the chuckles slowly died down.

“Alright, just so you know, Luke has already told us that he intends to apologize,” Adam said, unsurprisingly being the one to start things off and reassert some sense into the situation. He raised his eyebrow at her.

“Yeah, I need to apologize to him too,” she said sighing and leaning back in her chair. “I might have been a little overly defensive.”

“Which is understandable,” Jared said. “You’re stressed out.”

“You had your car keyed and your door painted,” Patrick listed.

“A crush on your boss.” That was from Chris. She glared at him. He winked, unperturbed as usual.

“Watching Luke scene with another mistress even if there’s nothing sexual going on,” Justin said.

“Not knowing when or where the stalker is going to pop up again,” Andrew contributed.

Jake nodded. “And we’re not even one hundred percent sure it’s Roland.” He stretched his arms out in front of himself, cracking his knuckles like a bruiser getting ready for a fight and making Olivia snicker.

“I’m not quite sure why you’re procrastinating on getting a security system though,” Patrick said. He shook his finger at Olivia from his leaning position. “Don’t say you’re not, it’s been days. I would have expected you to have one ordered before going to bed that night, even with Luke staying over to distract you.”

“He didn’t distract me,” she muttered. They all looked at her, waiting expectantly. Olivia sighed. “Fine, I don’t know why I’m dragging my feet. I just look at them and I get so mad about needing one at all, and frustrated that none of them are going to be able to do more than let me know if the shit-gibbon comes into my house, and then I don’t even want to look at them anymore.”