Three Rings and a Rose (12 page)

Micah nodded, still seeming remote and closed off.

“Micah,” Caedon murmured. “We have to talk to each other before we can even think about sharing Ella.”

“I know,” Micah answered, meeting him strained-gaze-for-strained-gaze.

“Then let’s talk,” Caedon suggested.

“About what?”

Well spank a monkey’s ass. Do we have to go into it already?

Give me five minutes. Or even better, give me five beers.

Caedon didn’t want to remember the prick of pain he’d felt when he’d read the letter Micah had sent him right after he’d moved out, especially not when he was sober. He didn’t want to recall the onslaught of agony that had overwhelmed him when Micah had ignored Caedon’s return letter. And the thought of reliving the phone call they’d had two months ago made his stomach churn. But as he’d decided this morning, it was now or never.

Swallowing convulsively, Caedon forced himself to face the past that had haunted him for two years. “The letter.” Averting his eyes hastily, Micah bore a hole into the wooden paneled wall. With a frown, he asked, “What about it? I wrote you a letter. You ignored it. That’s the end of that.” Caedon wasn’t sure what disturbed him more—the animosity in Micah’s voice or the sudden confusion clouding his own mind. “I didn’t ignore your letter. You ignored mine, Micah.” Micah’s eyes snapped to Caedon’s. “No, I didn’t.”

“Yes you did.”

Micah expression turned turbulent. His clear eyes darkened, his jaw ticked, and his lips thinned out. “No, Caedon,” he disagreed resolutely. “I never got a damn thing from you. Up until you called me two months ago, I hadn’t heard a word from you.”
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“But I...” Caedon trailed off, unsure of how to continue. Micah claimed that he hadn’t received anything. And Caedon had never known Micah to lie. So that meant Micah hadn’t gotten Caedon’s letter. He hadn’t ignored him. The tightness in Caedon’s chest loosened—not a lot but a little. “I sent you a letter and asked you to meet me, Micah. I wanted us to talk. I wanted to come home.”

“So you...”

“I don’t know what happened, but I swear that I sent you a letter after I found mine.”

“I believe you,” Micah said.

Relief raced through Caedon. Micah trusted him. Even after all of his fuck ups, Micah still had faith in him.
That’s a start
.

Caedon rubbed the back of his neck, paying close attention to the tense knot there. “Is that why you were”—pausing, he attempted to think of a polite word for a cold-blooded asshole but failed—“the way you were when I called?”

Micah nodded. “I didn’t understand why you were calling so suddenly after almost two years. And I was still”—he cleared his throat—“hurt. In my mind, you left me then rejected me. I didn’t want you to have a chance to do it again.” Swallowing noticeably, he shifted in his seat. “When you left Ella, you left me, Caedon. We were friends, and you just walked away without looking back.”

“But I didn’t.”

Clearing his throat a second time, Micah muttered, “But I thought you did.”

The hurt in Micah’s pale blue eyes reflected that what he said was true. He’d wholeheartedly believed that Caedon didn’t care about him or their friendship.
Well, fuck.

“That might have been what you thought, but it wasn’t the case, Micah. You were my best friend.” Caedon shook his head. “You still are. It hurt me to lose Ella, but it hurt me to lose you, too.”

“I think we all got hurt.”

“Yeah, I think we did.”

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“But how does this change anything? Where do we go from here?”

Caedon knew exactly where they should go. “We share Ella.”

“Caedon—”

Throwing up a hand, Caedon cut Micah off. “Listen, it isn’t going to be easy. I know that. But you’re my best friend. She’s the woman I love. I want both of you in my life forever. And this is the best way to do it.”

Glancing away, Caedon ignored the burn in his cheeks as the blush seeped into his skin. “Tell me you don’t want the same thing, Micah. If you can, then I’ll leave you alone. I won’t bring this idea up again. I’ll go back to Brooklyn’s for the night, and we’ll figure something else out tomorrow.”

Allowing his gaze to stray back to Micah, Caedon added, “But keep in mind, I’m not going anywhere. Whether you’ll share her with me or not, I’m not leaving. If I have to spend the rest of my life alone, I’ll do it. But I won’t leave you two again. Not ever. So what do you say? Will you share Ella with me? Will you at least try?”

“Yes,” Micah agreed. “I’ll try.”

Caedon released a harsh rush of air that he hadn’t even realized he’d been holding. “Thank God.”

“Don’t thank Him just yet,” Micah said. “We have a lot of planning to do and not much time.” Peering down at his watch, he grimaced. “But I think we can still do it.” Sliding out of the booth, Micah commanded, “Come on.” In shock, Caedon shot to his feet and followed Micah, listening to him spit out orders the whole way. “You can call Brooklyn in the car and see if she’ll let us have a group of people at her and Josie’s apartment,” he said. “I’ll call some of Ella’s friends, her mom, and her brother, Tate. They can meet us there.” Caedon hurried to keep up with Micah as he tore out of Her Majesty’s Pleasure. “Okay,” Caedon said, marching purposefully
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across the parking lot and jumping into his friend’s car. “Let’s get going. Morning is going to come soon enough.”
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The following morning, Ella yawned as she trudged into her sister’s bustling bakery. Like every day, the door jingled when it opened and jangled when it closed again. As always, the delicious aroma of coffee melded with the sweet scent of baked goods gently blew under her nose, and the cool air breezed around her. Yet none of those things gave her the comfort it normally did. Not even Reagan calling out, “You look like shit, sis,” lightened her dark mood.

Rather than trading barbs with her loudmouthed older sister, Ella silently steered her way through the already crowded bistro tables and over to the long line in front of the counter. She stood there impatiently while she waited for her other sister Molly-Grace to get through the five people in front of her.

Not surprisingly, Reagan didn’t leave Ella alone in her misery for long. Ella’s wild child sister snuck up behind her and grabbed her by the waist. “Gotcha!”

Ella squealed. Batting at Reagan’s hands and cursing when she smacked into the cold, hard metal of her sister’s favorite bracelet, Ella spun around. “You hoochie,” she snapped. “Can’t you find someone else to torment? I’m fucking tired.”

“Nah,” Reagan replied with a saucy smile. “It’s too damn fun to annoy my favorite sister.”

In irritation, Ella rolled her eyes and crossed her arms over her chest. “Go away. I don’t want to deal with your bullshit right now.” Reagan chuckled. “You really are in bitchy-assed mood, aren’t you?”

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“That’s putting it mildly,” Ella muttered under her breath without thought. “Micah didn’t come home last night.” Instantly, Ella realized her faux pas, and she regretted it. Reagan might be a pain the ass and a total hellion, but she was Ella’s older sister and one of her fiercest protector.

Oh boy.
Ella was in for it now.

“Hadley,” Reagan hollered. “Need you.”

Ella shrieked, “No! Don’t you dare bring her into this. I don’t want to talk about it.” And she didn’t want to. She would rather stand in Time Square without a stitch of clothes on than discuss how much it bothered her that Micah had slept somewhere else. He didn’t do that—ever. And now that he had, she’d spent half the night torturing herself with questions about his whereabouts.

Reagan smirked. “Already did.”

Before Ella could figure out a way to keep the sensible Dawson sister from sticking her nose where it didn’t belong, Hadley strolled up. She wasn’t smiling, and she had her all-business aura surrounding her.
Not good. Not good at all.

“Yes?” Hadley asked. “Is something wrong?”

“No—”

“Yes—”

Ella and Reagan answered at the same time, causing Hadley to quirk an inquisitive eyebrow. But neither Ella nor Reagan could elaborate before Leila broke through the line with a murmured, “Ella, my dear.”

Leila sported an eerily friendly face, sending off warning bells in Ella’s mind, as she gathered Ella in her too-thin arms and embraced her.

Shocked and more than a little dismayed, Ella attempted to jerk away from Leila, but The Bitch held on tight. “Say cheese,” she whispered. And just a split second after she spoke the flash of a camera from outside the store window blinded Ella, sending her into a litany of curses.

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Pulling back, Leila tsk-tsked her. “Language, language. You wouldn’t want to be quoted saying something so crude to a friend.”

“Let me go,” Ella snarled. “I don’t want to catch whatever the fuck you have.”

Leila peeked over her shoulder then, with a satisfied smile, released Ella. “Ah good. They’re already gone.”

“You are one twisted bitch,” Reagan sneered as she stepped toward Leila aggressively. But Ella immediately stopped her sister by throwing an arm out and blocking her chest.

Staring down her nose at Reagan, Leila smirked. “You’re one ugly bitch. So what?”

The chatter in the bakery died down in a hurry. No one seemed to know what to say or do. So they merely watched with an air of expectancy and an abundance of fascination.

Disregarding the nearby busybodies, Ella asked, “What do you want, Leila?”

Leila gasped, the breathy noise sounding faker than Malibu Barbie. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m here to visit with my friend.”

Ella scoffed. “You have a friend
here
?”

“I’m amazed, too,” Reagan said, elbowing Ella in the side.

“Yeah, I do,” Leila murmured as she touched the end of Ella’s nose with the pad of her index finger, reminding Ella of a condescending adult with a recalcitrant child. “It’s you, silly.”

“Like hell,” Ella snapped.

Obviously realizing that the conversation between Ella and Leila was spiraling, Hadley quickly intervened. She stepped between Leila and Ella with her hands on her curvy hips. “Get out, Leila,” she ordered in her well-known “I know all, I see all. So you better listen and do as I say” voice.

“Yeah,” Reagan snapped. “Get out and stay out. Otherwise, I’ll be forced to knock you off your high-and-mighty pedestal and onto your scrawny ass.”

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Leila didn’t seem to care in the least that Hadley had demanded she leave or that Reagan had thrown down the gauntlet. Shrugging carelessly, she spun on her Gucci high heels and stalked for the door.

“There’s no need for me to stay in this dump anyway. I already got what I came in here for. My picture will be plastered on the cover of every magazine by tomorrow morning.”

“Not if I can help it,” Reagan growled as she lunged toward Leila, obviously set to defend Ella’s honor.

But again, Ella stopped her. She clamped a hand around her sister’s elbow and snapped, “Don’t you dare go after her. That’s what she wants.”

“No, that’s not what I want,” Leila declared as she paused just inside the door. “I saw what I want last night at the bar with Micah. I saw Caedon. Once I get him, I’ll have everything I’ve ever dreamed of—money, power, and a hot man to warm my bed at night.” Shocked by The Bitch’s audacity, Ella just stood there as Leila walked out. She wasn’t particularly shocked that Leila had seen Caedon or that she wanted him. She was flabbergasted that Micah had gone out with Caedon. She’d figured the two men would have exchanged words then gone on their merry-fucking-way.
Obviously
not. Maybe that’s who he spent the night with.

That thought had her heart taking a dive. She wanted them to be happy. She wanted them to be together. She really did. But she couldn’t help the crack opening in her heart.
Damn it.

As all eyes turned on Ella, she felt like a deer in the headlights.

Mentally running through all the ways she could publicly respond to Leila’s statement, she settled on her fallback reaction—brazening it out.

Plastering a giant grin on her face, Ella sang, “The best part of waking up is not that bitch in your cup.”

The tense stillness quickly dissipated, and several people laughed.

The hustle and bustle picked back up. But it was too late for Ella.

She’d already started her day with a bang, just not the good kind.

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* * * *

Later that evening, Ella stepped out of The G Spot and stumbled right into Serenity’s annual street party. She sighed. It had been one hell of a day, and she wasn’t particularly in the mood to celebrate Founders Day. But obviously everyone else in town was, especially the three women yelling at her and tossing napkins in her general direction that had no hope of actually reaching her.

“Ella Dawson,” Shannon hollered. Amazingly, her friend’s voice somehow managed to carry over the booming bass and deafening music that blared from the speakers on both sides of the massive stage at the northernmost point of Main Street. “Get your cute ass over here. I want to spank it.”