Rourke grimaced. "Don't say it like that!"

"What other way is there to say it?"

"It was a mistake," he groaned, looking a little green now, as we walked into the ball room and snagged an empty table. "I swear to god, dude, I have no fucking idea why I said her name." A shudder of repulsion racked through him as he sank down on a chair and set his glasses down, splashing alcohol all over the fancy white linen tablecloth. "I sure as hell wasn’t thinking about her. Why the hell would I think about her when I've got Six?"

"I believe you," I told him, taking the seat next to his and setting my glasses down.

Who in their right mind would willingly think about that horrible fucking human?

"What should I do, D?" he asked, attention flicking from me to the dance floor, where his date was currently twerking her ass all up on my date.

Jesus…

"You're asking me for girlfriend advice?" I tore my gaze off the girls and gaped at him. "Dude, how the fuck would I know? The longest relationship I've ever had is with you."

It was the regrettable truth.

"Not helping, D," Rourke groaned, pulling at his bowtie, attention honing in on the girls once more.

I smirked. "I'll tell you one thing; if you keep staring at her like that, your damn eyeballs are gonna fall out of your head."

"Fuck you," he chuckled with a shake of his head. "How's your date tonight?"

Ouch.

"Please don’t." Reaching over, I grabbed one of my glasses of rum and coke and drained the whole damned thing before saying, "I'm holding onto my control tonight by the skin of my teeth." Slamming the empty glass back down, I picked up the second glass and tipped it back. "Bring her up to me, and I'm gonna lose it."

Rourke shrugged. "Fair enough."

Against my best efforts, my gaze flicked to Molly and I had to bite back a groan. Reebo and Bear had probably set me back weeks' worth of ground work. She was only starting to loosen up around me, and now?

Fuck…

"I can't believe you called her Britt," I offered, steering my thoughts back to Rourke's current predicament – which, to be fair, seemed a helluva lot worse than mine. Molly was sweet and level-headed. Mercedes was a goddamn freight train of drama and emotion. "You're such a dumbass."

"Yeah, well," he huffed out a breath. "It's not like I'm proud of myself for it."

"You shouldn’t be," I said in total agreement. "You're the happiest I've seen you in years with that girl, and then you go and call her Britt?" I shook my head. "It's like you have a self-sabotage button, Rourke." After a pause, I added, "You need to apologize."

"Fuck that." He glowered back at me. "If I apologize then it means I'm guilty of something. Six will think I'm guilty."

I gave him a 'you are guilty' look. "And if you don’t apologize, you'll be an asshole."