Tyler snorted. “I don’t need tofindhim. I already met my soulmate back when we were kids. Alex and I were next door neighbors. Friends.” He took a sip of beer. “I’m in town because I’m planning a wedding.”
“Oh, yeah? Lucky you.” I thought about asking who he was using for his florist, but I realized I didn’t care. That part of the business was not my arena at all.
I put my drink down again. “So you’re here to… what? Preach the good news of happy monogamy to us poor saps? Remind yourself how lucky you are that you won’t have to deal with scenes like this anymore?”
“Uh, no. Neither.” Tyler smiled, but it wasn’t a happy thing. “I’m here looking for distraction myself.” He shrugged. “See, Alex is getting married next February… but not tome.”
“Oh.” I winced and sucked in a breath through my teeth. “Ouch.”
“Yeah. In fact—” Tyler cleared his throat, darting a glance at me. “He’s marrying my sister Marissa.”
I pursed my lips for a second, trying to comprehend the enormity ofthatshit show.
“And I’m the Man of Honor. So I’m here in town helping Marissa taste cake and stuff. Helping her figure out which ones Alex would like best, since he can’t be here.”
“Oh, fuck. That is…” I shook my head. A guy who could still believe in soulmates afterthatwas either a really good person or certifiably insane. Either way, I found myself distracted.
“I’m Constantine,” I said belatedly, offering the guy my hand. “Con.”
“Nice to meet you,” Tyler said, shaking it gravely.
“You succeeded in distracting me against my will.”
“Glad I’m useful for something.” He sipped at his beer. “I love my sister, you know? But if I had to stay at the Inn and settle one more argument between her and my stepmother about chicken piccata versus swordfish gremolata, I was going to find a sword and impale myself on it.”
“Thus causing a one-hundred-percent increase in the local violent crime stats. You made a wise choice.”
Tyler laughed and took another sip of his drink. “So, okay, what am I distractingyoufrom?”
“Oh.” I waved a hand. “Comparatively nothing. Just a bad day.”
“Comparativelynothing? I see. Because this is the misery Olympics, where only one of us can win gold?” He smirked. “It’s your turn to distract me by telling me aboutyourproblems. Spill.”
I sighed. “Look, I appreciate it, but I’m not one for oversharing. Bitching about my problems does no good.”
He shrugged. “Same. I haveoneclose friend, and he lives three thousand miles away and refuses to discuss my love life. But I’mliterallya stranger in a bar, begging you to tell me your sob story. So why not vent, just this once?”
I narrowed my eyes. “My car needs a new transmission, my bank account needs CPR, my life needs some kind of Oprah extreme-makeover, and there’s this guy who—” I forced myself to stop. “Never mind.”
Tyler’s eyes narrowed. “No, no. I have a feeling this is the good part. This guywho?”
I shook my head. “This guy who’s a jerk, that’s all. A superior, condescendingjerkwho can’t take a joke.”
“Uhhuh. And why’s he a jerk?”
“He’s not the point of this story,” I said, in lieu of an answer. “Just one of many components to my bad day.”
Tyler made a noise that sounded like disagreement. “You’re distracting me, remember? I can’t be distracted without details.”
I rolled my eyes. “I teased him, he didn’t like it. End of.”
“End of,” he scoffed. “These are not details, Constantine.”
“Fine. You want the whole sordid story?” I turned toward him. “This guy is my family’s biggest business competitor, right? And he’s trying to put us out of business like the bad guy from that movie with the angel and the bell.”
“What guy? What movie?”
“Irrelevant. Point is, he’s the embodiment of pure evil, okay?”
