Isn't It Bromantic (Bromance Book Club #4) by Lyssa Kay Adams

            Roman tossed him the bag, and Vlad dropped two hundred dollars on the table.

            “Tell your wife I said hello.”

            Vlad growled, and Colton dragged him away. “What the hell is going on?” he asked, helping Vlad into the car. He threw the crutches in the back and jogged around to the driver’s side. “I mean it, Vlad. You either tell me what’s going on or—”

            Vlad ripped open the bag. The pungent, offensive odor of the Époisses immediately filled the cab of Colton’s truck. Colton gagged and opened a window. “Christ. That smells like athlete’s foot.”

            Vlad tore off a hunk of the Samsø, set it on his tongue, and rolled it around in his mouth. “It’s an acquired taste.”

            “Caviar is an acquired taste. That is the end stages of gangrene.” Colton gagged again as he pulled out of the parking lot. “Start talking.”

            “She’s going back to Russia to find her father.”

            “Elena?”

            “Yes, of course Elena.”

            “What the fuck? Why now?”

            Vlad relayed the key details of what Elena had told him.

            “And you’re not going to stop her?”

            “What’s the point? She was always going to leave me.”

            “If you still think that after all this time, then you haven’t learned a goddamn thing. Have you been paying attention at all?”

            Colton made a call on his hands-free calling device.

            Mack answered immediately. “What’s the story? Is everything okay?”

            “No,” Colton said, glaring pointedly at Vlad. “Assemble the bros. We have a magnificent ass to kick.”

            The minute they pulled back into the driveway at Colton’s, Claud and Michelle met them on the front porch.

            “What did you do?” Claud demanded.

            “Vlad, what is going on?” Michelle, at least, used a nice tone of voice.

            “I like that girl,” Claud said, following Vlad inside. “If you hurt her, you will answer to me.”

            The guys dragged him to the basement. The yelling commenced as soon as Vlad explained himself.

            “So . . . you gave her an ultimatum?” Malcolm looked ready to tackle him.

            “No! I told her specifically that I was not going to make her choose.”

            “Which is an ultimatum to a woman who thinks she doesn’t have a choice,” Mack argued.

            Vlad felt a kick inside his chest.

            “Oh, is that a light bulb going off?” Mack snorted.

            Malcolm sat down next to him and settled a hand on Vlad’s knee. “You’re the heart and soul of this friendship. But sometimes the most tender people can be the most stubborn, because they have the most to lose when things go wrong.”

            “She is the stubborn one.”

            The guys all exchanged a get a load of this douchebag look. “Vlad, why do you think she never told you about any of this before?”

            The question was from Noah, who had mostly refrained from yelling until now.

            “Your lack of answer tells me you know what it is,” Noah said.

            “She said she knew I would freak out.”

            “And you did, didn’t you?” Malcolm prodded.

            “I told her I love her. I told her—”

            “That your love comes with strings attached when she needs you most.” Noah’s tone of voice managed to shame Vlad as much as the words themselves.

            Malcolm was there again, this time with an arm around his shoulders. “There’s a big difference between letting someone go because you have faith that they’ll come back to you and letting someone go because deep down you’re convinced they won’t. One is an act of love, the other an act of fear.”