Play Softly (The Devil's Share Book 4) by L.P. Maxa Read Free Book Online Page A

email was about? Are all those attachments pictures of the house?”
    My eyes got big. “Uh, yeah. But you know your furniture isn’t in yet so you should just probably wait to—”
    “Lexi! What the hell?” Luke sat up and started swiping furiously. “This isn’t my house, is it? I mean, none of this is what I picked out.”
    “Um, well, you see what I did was—”
    He got to his feet. “Are you mother fu—”
    Jacks cleared his throat and gestured to Landry.
    “…dging kidding me?” He held his phone out.
    Halen had fallen back asleep so I passed her to Dash and put my boob away so I could get to my feet and properly argue with my best friend. “Luke, everything you picked was dark and moody and leather. It looked like a typical bachelor pad.”
    He threw his hands in the air. “Oh really? My bachelor pad looked like an actual fu…dging bachelor pad? Shocking.” He pointed a finger in my direction. “You had no right to do that.”
    I rolled my eyes. “I had every right to do that.” I counted off on my fingers. “Number one, I spent hours working on your house. Number two, you made bad choices because you were spiraling down a whore hole.” I shot an apologetic look to Jacks and Bryan for using the word “whore” in front of their nine-year-old. “And number three, no woman would want to move into that house the way you wanted it.”
    Luke looked like he wanted to murder me. “What woman? There is no woman. There may never be a woman. And furthermore, you made this house all light and fluffy and airy, that isn’t even your taste.”
    “Of course it isn’t my taste. Your person isn’t anything like me.”
    That really set him off. He turned red and opened and closed his mouth like five times. Then he took a deep breath. “You overstepped, Lex.”
    “I’m not sorry, and you’ll thank me later.” I knew he would. He wasn’t a dark, sad person. He was kind and full of light. Living in that house the way he wanted it would only have brought him down.
    He looked at his phone again, swiping a few more times. He looked closer at the image, then looked at me. “You. Suck.” He slammed his phone on the coffee table and stormed off.
    We all stared at it. I knew what picture he had seen, so I didn’t need to look. But curiosity won over Jacks, and he reached out and grabbed it. “Lexi. That’s wrong. It’s funny as hell, but it’s wrong.”
    Dash held his hand out. “What is it?”
    I shrugged. “I had some custom artwork made for his entryway.”
    When Dash saw the large canvas with the words Whores and Ex’s need not apply scrawled in black cursive, he just hung his head.

    It was late, or more like it was early. Halen had been fussy all night and there was no point in both Dash and I losing sleep. If I couldn’t get her to calm down, he wouldn’t be able to either. He always ended up getting tense when she was like this, which only tended to upset her more. I was pacing the living room, bouncing my baby, and binge watching Banshee on Cinemax. Violent, I know. But she couldn’t even see the TV.
    “We’ve got to stop meeting like this.”
    I turned as Luke walked in. “Are you becoming an insomniac?”
    He chuckled and took Halen from my arms, putting her on his shoulder and bouncing in place. The whole family had developed the mom bounce. “I’ve just had trouble sleeping lately. No big deal.”
    He was lying, but I was content to let him keep lying. Halen had finally stopped crying. It seemed that Luke calmed her as well. Like mother, like daughter. “Wanna hang with the kiddo and me for a while?”
    He kissed her baby cheek. “I’d love to.” He looked over at the large flat-screen mounted on the wall. “You watch Banshee ?”
    I scoffed, “Do I watch Banshee ? Are you kidding? Every episode has sex and violence. Of course I watch Banshee .” I climbed on the couch and covered myself with a blanket. “I’m sorry about the house and the artwork.”
    “No you aren’t.