One of the Guys by Shiloh Walker

refrigerator. He stood up, a beer in one hand and a box of takeout in the other.
    Kate grabbed the takeout box and tossed it in the trash. “You don’t want to eat that.
    I’ve been forgetting to throw it away for the past two weeks.” Brian scowled and looked toward what would have been his first meal in nearly twenty-four hours. There was next to nothing else in the refrigerator. Both he and Kate sucked at grocery shopping. A glance into the freezer revealed a couple of steaks with freezer burn and a package of ground beef that looked like it had gone past freezer burn and into the final throes of frostbite.
    Kate shouldered him aside and shoved the freezer closed. She gave him her most charming smile and said, “Tell me that you’ll take Jaynie to the wedding and you’ll have a meal fit for a king.”
    Brian gave the steaks a grim look. “I said no. And last I checked, you weren’t a magician. There’s nothing here to cook and I’m not waiting for you to go the store. Why in hell is Jaynie going to that jerk’s wedding anyway? After what he did—” Kate’s smile faded. “That’s the whole reason she’s going, Bri. He hurt her. He didn’t just break her heart, he did something to her confidence.” She glanced back over her shoulder, as though she had to make sure Jaynie wasn’t there.
    “Look, you don’t know the whole story.” She nibbled on her lower lip and fiddled with an earring for a minute.
    Wary, Brian asked, “What whole story? Dean fucked around on her. She caught him.”
    “No—she caught them. Them as in…three.” Kate’s face flushed red as she explained that Jaynie hadn’t just walked in Kit and Dean. She’d walked in on Kit and Dean, plus one.
    “It’s something he tried to talk her in to trying back in college and she wasn’t interested. After all of this happened, he had her thinking she was frigid and a poor excuse for a woman. It’s not just what he did, but what he said to her, Brian. He hurt 46
    One of the Guys
    her and she’s dealt with that. But she needs to look him in the eye and show him that he hasn’t broken her.”
    “Shit.” Brian closed his eyes and wished he had hit Dean that night. Repeatedly. He heaved out a heavy sigh and scrubbed a hand over his face before looking at Kate.
    “Katie, I…” Can ’ t . The word was there on his tongue, but he couldn’t force it out. It seemed lodged there. He kept seeing Jaynie’s face, how she had looked that night when he’d walked in the door and seen Dean tearing into her as if she had been the one out slumming. He saw how she looked that night she’d come down to the basement, her hands shaking, her voice uncertain and her eyes so full of need as she’d said, “I need this.”
    Yeah, Dean had screwed up Jaynie’s confidence and Brian just now was getting an inkling of how badly Dean had shaken her.
    Jaynie had seemed as if she had gotten some of it back after that night they were together. Brian knew it had little to do with him personally and everything to do with the fact that he was a man who had obviously wanted her and the fact that she sure as hell wasn’t frigid. Damn, even that thought was laughable. Jaynie was about as frigid as the beach was in August.
    But one night of hot sweaty sex wasn’t going to undo the damage that bastard had done to her.
    Still, Brian wasn’t so certain he was the man for this particular job. He couldn’t stand close to her without wanting to grab her. He had an ugly feeling that this obsession of his was growing into something serious, something he hadn’t planned on and something he wasn’t ready for. And even if he had been ready for it, Jaynie had no interest in him. She’d made that damn clear.
    A woman couldn’t behave as she had the past four months, acting so casual and normal, if she had feelings for a man, right? He took a deep breath and braced himself.
    He couldn’t do this. It would be like throwing a lit match into a barrel of gunpowder.
    He