“You are fucked in the head.” Cole was the one to loom this time. Logan curled against the wall, clutching his side and holding the shoulder that took the brunt of the impact. He looked up with his jaw agape. “We were never fucking together. The only reason you had me was because of all the debt, but now you’ve sold me to someone else, so you don’t have anything to hold over me now.”

Logan’s eyes narrowed with anger, and his mouth snapped shut. Cole did not give him a chance to respond. He just spat a nice fat wad onto Logan’s chest and marched down the hallway. He made it about two feet past the bar before Logan caught up to him, once again grabbing his wrist. Cole should have predicted this, but his blood was pounding, rushing past his ears, tunneling his vision, and scattering his thoughts. He had wanted to confront Logan for so long now, and finally doing so left him both elated and shaking apart.

“You just spat on me, you little cunt,” Logan hollered. There was nothing that pissed him off more than someone looking down on him. Especially someone like Cole, whom he thought was house-trained. This time, he did not just grab Cole; he yanked him back.

Cole yelled as he was pulled off balance. His bag slipped awkwardly down his shoulder and his other arm flew up as his ankle twisted in the too-large slippers and he fell back. A bunch of voices echoed in the empty room, but he was too jittery from the fight and panicked from falling back to make out their words. And when he twisted as he fell to try and shove Logan away and catch himself, he saw the edge of a barstool. He had about a millisecond to squeeze his eyes shut, before his face smacked into it. Typical.

The stool skidded away in a loud clatter while Cole sprawled out on the sticky club floor, completely stunned by the fact that this had happened twice now over the course of one week. Logan was hauling on his arm, trying to do God knows what, but Cole just remained flopped there in shock - dead weight. The metallic tang of blood filled his mouth. His nose hurt so bad he was sure it had ended up shoved all the way back into his brain.

Then the hand on his arm disappeared, which was a relief because Cole could use it to push himself up while tentatively prodding at his face. As badly as his nose hurt, when he poked it, nothing shifted like it might be broken. It was not even bleeding. A cut on his lip was, though. He stared at the little smear of red on his fingertip. The hangover headache, which had dulled into something manageable thanks to the pain meds, flared behind his eyeballs with a vengeance, crawling around inside his skull and making little flashes of light burst in the corners of his vision.

A commotion over his head drew his attention. Logan lay similarly crumpled on the ground, clutching the side of his face and gaping at Gideon, who seemed a thousand times larger than usual as he stood over Logan. He was flexing his hand and had a stormy expression on his face, incredibly irked and smug at the same time.

“What the fuck?” Logan sputtered through his hand. His nose was bleeding, the red seeping through his fingers and dripping onto his shirt.

“I told you to take your hands off him,” Gideon said as if he were scolding a three-year-old. “You didn’t listen.”

“This is my club!” Logan shrieked. “You can’t just come in here and...”

Gideon jerked forward like he was going to do something violent again, and Logan broke off into a squawk, scrambling back. The two goons stood nearby with bored expressions. If they were not so committed to the lurking aesthetic, they would be picking their nails and rolling their eyes.

Pleased with Logan’s cowering, Gideon turned to extend a helping hand toward Cole, a self-satisfied smirk glinting in his eyes. Cole was not above rolling his eyes, which unfortunately made his brain feel like it was going to melt out of his eye sockets. He winced and ignored Gideon’s hand in favor of throwing an arm over one of the barstools to use it for leverage instead. 

The smirk on Gideon's face morphed into a look of concern. His brows furrowed and he put out his other hand as well, like he expected Cole to fail at pulling himself up and hurt himself while tumbling back down to the ground. This was a valid concern. Cole did not have a solid history of falling gracefully. 

But he managed to haul himself up, then he slung his bag over his shoulder and looked at Logan. His enraged eyes flicked back and forth between Gideon and Cole. All the cleaners had gathered to watch the show, and Cole hoped they would make themselves scarce before Logan realized they witnessed him getting rocked in the face.

“Like I said,” Cole turned away from him, “you sold me to someone else.”

He gave Logan a two-fingered salute, then marched as steadily out the side door as he could manage, squinting into the blinding daylight, with Gideon and the two goons following in his wake.

“Who the fuck does that guy think he is,” Gideon muttered as he fell into step beside Cole. 

Cole laughed, which pulled on his split lip. “He thinks he’s God.”

Gideon muttered something under his breath while straightening his jacket out even though it had not gotten messed up. He inspected his reddened knuckles, frowning at them big time, lips pulled down and brow still furrowed. Logan had seriously pissed him off. Maybe he was mad that he did not decide to knock him around some more. 

Cole also looked at his red knuckles, noticing once again the way they were a little gnarled and split with white scar tissue. Maybe he made a habit of punching people like that. Cole wondered exactly what it was that he did for his family, then reminded himself that it was better not to know. 

As he opened the car door for Cole, Gideon was still muttering under his breath, and when he settled back against the seat, he looked out the window and shook his head. Then, like he could not let it go, he turned to Cole and said, “How did that place even run? I’ve heard stories that he’s an idiot. I know my mother thinks he’s about as impressive as a cockroach.”

The car pulled out of the parking lot, heading back to the courthouse. Cole tongued at the bitter cut on his lip and observed Gideon’s expression. He looked incredulous, a mix of irritation and utter disbelief, again far more open than the man Cole had judged him to be—someone with complete control over how he emoted. This was another reminder that they did not really know each other. Yet. How enlightening today had been.

“You’re different from how I thought you’d be,” Cole said, distracted enough by his fascination with Gideon's sudden irritation to forget he had been asked a question. Seeing him get all worked up over Logan putting his hands on him was actually a bit flattering. “You’re less scary.”

“I just punched a guy in the face in front of you.”

Cole shrugged. “He deserved it. Everything you’ve heard about him is probably true and worse. That place has a higher turnover rate than you can probably imagine.”

“Are you okay?” Gideon’s eyes landed on his lip.

Cole licked the blood from his teeth. “Sure.”

Gideon did not believe him. From the drawer beneath the center seat, he pulled the bucket of ice. Then, because he was a classy rich-ass motherfucker, he produced a handkerchief from somewhere and dumped some of the ice into it. “Don’t have a plastic bag, sorry, but maybe it will help until the ice starts to melt too much.

Cole observed all this like he was watching a magician’s trick, trying to figure out where the sleight of hand was. He took the ice and pressed it wordlessly to his lip.

“Your headache probably got bad again, didn’t it?” Gideon scratched his cheek and smacked the back of the passenger seat. “Hey, stop at the next drugstore we pass.”

“No.”

Through the rearview mirror, they had another one of their freaky, mob boss stare-downs, which Gideon won. The driver looked back down at the road and muttered, “Fine.”

Cole raised his eyebrows. These guys might have been there on James’s orders, but they either respected or feared Gideon enough not to cross him over something little like this. Maybe they were worn down by all the trouble Cole was causing and worried that Gideon might start kicking his feet in protest as well. Either way, Cole ended up with some more ibuprofen and a bottle of chocolate milk before they returned to the courthouse.

Courthouse security scrutinized them even harder the second time around. They narrowed their eyes at Cole’s split lip, and then they spied Gideon’s swollen, red knuckles. Cole gave them a brilliant, winning smile, ignoring the way that it pulled on the cut. He wrapped his arms around one of Gideon’s as they went back down the same hallway again. 

The lady in the licensing office frowned hard at them, then handed over their paperwork and whisked their IDs off to scan or photocopy them or whatever she needed to do. She led them into a little chapel and began reading the ceremony. After the more familiar chaos at the club, the quiet, clean room was a rude reminder that Cole was actually out of his depth here. Getting to spit on Logan and burn that bridge had been excellent, but now he had to face what was to come next.

The goons sat in the very last pew, backs straight, hands folded in their laps, sunglasses on. It was hard not to simply burst into laughter at the absurdity of it all. When she asked them to kiss, Cole dissolved into a fit of giggles despite himself. Gideon had the grace to look affronted, but the corner of his lip twitched up as well. The lady, who Cole imagined might usually enjoy these happy moments, looked thoroughly tired of her job.

“I’m glad all this is so amusing to you,” Gideon murmured as they walked back down the hallway toward the exit.

“What do you want me to do?” Cole shrugged. “Cry about it? That’s never helped me out of any bullshit before. And you’ve got to admit it’s a little funny.”

“I don’t think so.”

Given Cole’s background, which involved mostly ending up in situations that seemed impossible to get out of, whether by his own fault or just terrible luck of the draw, he did think it was a little funny. At least Gideon did not seem so bad. As they passed security on the way out, Cole punched his fist in the air in mock triumph and enjoyed the polite, if not a little reserved, claps that the police officers gave them.

“Gideon,” he gasped as they crossed the street to the parking garage, “You haven’t even gotten me a ring. I’m so insulted that I already want to file for divorce.”

“Jesus, just walk,” Gideon told him, but his tone was gentle like he could tell Cole was joking around solely so that he would not have a meltdown in the middle of a busy three-lane crosswalk.

When they were all loaded in the car, Gideon ordered the goons to drive them straight home as though they were his chauffeur. He sounded exhausted. Cole tongued at his split lip and decided he could not figure out how he felt at that moment. On the seat between them was a manilla folder with two copies of their officiated marriage license. He looked away from it and out the window instead, deciding not to feel much of anything at all for the moment.