“I know he isn’t,” Pepper said to Ryn.

“And Auggie isn’t Corbin,” Lottie added.

“I know he isn’t,” Pepper repeated to Lottie, a wee bit more impatient this time.

“So, what gives?” Lottie asked. “I mean, she shoots, she scores, three times, babe,” Lottie reminded her of the wins she’d had with Evie and Mag, Boone and Ryn and me and Axl, doing it pointing to herself then Ryn and me.

“It’s more complicated when you have a kid,” Pepper said.

“It is not,” Ryn returned. “You’re being chicken.”

“I’m not being chicken,” Pepper snapped.

“I’d make chicken noises, but I’m above that,” Ryn said to Lottie.

Lottie laughed.

Although that was funny, I was seeing they weren’t getting this wasn’t a funny moment for Pepper.

I kept my gaze on Pepper and suggested quietly, “Maybe we should lay off.”

“Yeah, that’d be good,” Pepper said curtly.

“As far as I know, you’re not Benjamin Button,” Ryn told her. “You dig what I’m saying to you?”

Pepper stepped back from us.

Yup.

This wasn’t a funny moment.

I braced.

And it was a good thing I did.

“You know, I would never want to have a psychopath obsessed with me, like you,” Pepper said to Lottie. “Or have a friend murdered and some guy whacked at my back door, like you,” she said to Ryn. “Or have someone send me dirty pictures and emails like you,” she said to me. “Or gambling addict fathers.” Back to Lottie. “Alcoholic brothers.” To Ryn. “Or abusive fathers.” To me. “But I have never, never been loved by my parents. I have always, always been an outsider in that family. I meet a guy who I think loves me, loves … me. He wants to make a family with me and build a future with me and every year it’s going to be putting up the Christmas tree and taking out the ornaments with the years on or remembering when we got them on vacation or when we had another baby or that year we made decorations as a family. And he was fucking around on me from the start.”

Oh man.

We totally should have laid off.

She was far from done.

“And since I found out and we were over, he’s just been fucking with me. And I have you guys, and that’s it. My sister is programmed to their bullshit. My brother took off to escape it before I even graduated from high school and no one has heard from him since. So day-to-day, hour-to-hour, minute-to-minute, except for Juno, who is my kid, and I have to protect her from all this, I’m very, very alone.”

She took a huge breath as we all stood there, silent and still, listening.

And I knew for me, but I figured the same for Lots and Rinz, hurting for Pepper.

Then she launched in again.

“And with what I endured growing up. And what Corbin did to us, and he did it to us, me and my baby girl, and keeps doing, I know one thing. I need to protect my daughter. So yeah. Auggie is hot. He seems nice. Lottie wouldn’t fix me up with a loser. But I come with baggage.” She focused on me. “The kind that no way in hell, when he’s with me, I’d let him text some woman he’s fucked.” She glanced around. “And these guys are who they are. They do what they do. And so he gets with me and finds my baggage too much to bear, my hang-ups tying him too tight, and he scrapes me off, it isn’t about just me losing him. Which is bad enough. My daughter loses him too. She’s already been through that and I’m not gonna put her through it again. So maybe you can put yourself in my shoes for a hot fucking second and then back off.”

“Maybe he won’t—” Ryn began.

“Back off!” Pepper screamed.

Dang.

“Pepper,” Lottie said softly.

“Are you backing off?” Pepper snapped.

“Sure, girl, if that’s what you need,” Lottie gently replied.

“I gotta go,” Pepper suddenly announced.

“Hey,” I called as she started to take off, not liking her leaving in that state.

“I can’t, Hatz, okay?” she asked. She looked to Ryn. “I’m sorry I lost it.”

“I’m sorry I pushed,” Ryn replied.

“Right. Cool. Now I gotta go. Later,” she finished.

And then she went.

We all watched.

When she disappeared out the front door into the sun, Ryn murmured, “Okay, well, shit on a stick. That didn’t go too good.”

I said nothing.

Lottie said nothing.

Since it was weird Lottie said nothing, I looked to Lottie.

She was gazing across the room.

So I turned my attention there.

And Dorian was standing a couple steps into the club from the stairs to the office.

He had his hands on his hips and his eyes on the front door.

Seemed Ian witnessed that, and although he couldn’t hear our conversation, he couldn’t miss Pepper screaming at us.

His face was inscrutable as he continued to look at the door before he dropped his hands, turned and moved back up the stairs.

“Okay, well, one, she wants Auggie bad, she won’t let herself have him, and all her closest babes are loved up and it’s tearing her apart,” Lottie declared.

I started staring at her because I didn’t get that from Pepper at all.

What I got was, she was protecting her daughter, and her heart, and Auggie was not a possibility because I got her.

These guys were these guys and you had to be in the position to let them be who they were.

They did the same, of course.

But I could totally see Pepper needing more from Auggie than he might be comfortable giving, this so she could trust him, when it wasn’t Auggie that broke her trust, but he’d be the one who’d have to build it again (if that was even possible).

And just how much it would hurt to find out he wasn’t comfortable giving that, and as such, not going there at all.

For her.

And for Juno.

“Totes,” Ryn replied to Lottie.

Hunh?

Lottie again said nothing.

So I asked, “What’s two?”

She turned her attention to me. “There is no two. There’s just that one. You can lead a horse to water and all that. Now, we back off. I gotta talk to Ian real quick. See you tonight.”