“I had to watch you two make goo-goo eyes at each other all night last night.”
“I am a twenty-eight-year-old man designing apps, running companies, and building a resort. I don’t make goo-goo eyes.”
“You fucking liar. Those aren’t mutually exclusive, you know,” Bennett chortled. “Anyway, she’s good stuff, so don’t hurt her man?”
“Can I ask you a question?” I turned it on him toavoid the question. Many years ago, I’d perfected that skill. “You seem to have a soft spot for her. Why aren’t you making a play for her?”
“Honestly, I love her … like my third sister. She is everything I would want in a partner, but I just can’t see her in that way. And I assure you, she feels the same. I’m her third brother, which is why I’m giving you a talk now. The words trauma bond come to mind.” He chuckled, though it sounded more like a reluctant acceptance rather than humor. That raised my curiosity. What had happened to her? To both of them? If I pushed on that, I might break my ‘proceed carefully with Maeve’s friends’ rule, and didn’t want to be rude, so I dropped it. I’d find out in due time. “But she’s good people,” he continued. “A tender heart. Would give you the shirt off her back. All that stuff. She deserves the best.” He hiccuped. I still didn’t quite get a read on if he had a thing for her.
“Noted. I have no intention of anything questionable,” I stated.
“Let’s jump in the fucking lake,” Maverick blurted out, halting the Audra talk.
Tucker, Murphy, and Bennett shot their eyes to him and then exchanged looks with each other. “Maverick wants to jump into the lake?” Tucker repeated. “What the fuck happened to you tonight? Better yet, today? This is old Maverick behavior.”
“Let’s fucking go. Like when we were teenagers and we would sneak into that one old guy’s backyard. But now you guys have that kind of backyard. Did you ever think you would have Orchard Lake as your backyard?” Maverick slurred out. He was completely in control last night, so him buzzed was amusing to me. Though I’m sure my buzz was amusing to them, too.
“Don’t have to ask me twice,” Bennett said, standing upand stripping down to his boxers. The others followed suit. My option was to hold my ground and be the only one who didn’t strip down to my skivvies, or suck it up and join them. I chose the latter. So at about midnight, five grown-ass men were doing drunk cannonballs off the pier into the lake. I’m shocked the cops weren’t called for a noise complaint. Or maybe they were, and the officers knew who was doing it and left us alone. Rules were different in a small town.
After copious laughter, judging splashes, and general chaos, we made our way back to the fire pit. Murphy ran inside to get us towels, and we sat out there by the fire for a little longer, trying to dry out our underwear. At that point, I decided it was smarter for me to pass out on a couch than attempt to make it home.
So, on my first official guys’ night here in Savannah Springs, I passed out on the couch like I was back in my teens, doing stupid things with my adventure group.
Even though I had been in this town for fourteen months, in the span of the last few, things were changing.
And though it was entirely unexpected, it felt damn good.
15
AUDRA
Watching the clock at work, I was getting poutier with every minute going by. The other night the girls talked about going to a traveling flea market and I was bummed I couldn’t join them. I bet they were at some completely outlandish tent, laughing and having a ball, while I was at the hospital trying to convince my attending doctor we needed to hire more nurses. Spoiler alert, it was falling on deaf ears. I was so fed up. If we had accreditation come in at this very second, we’d be docked for our ratio of nurse to patient being way out of whack.
My happy place today was thinking about karaoke on Friday. I loved that Donovan just kind of fit right into our little crew. I was really enjoying getting to know him. The fact that the twins invited him to their sacred poker night was a great sign, too. You had to be real good people to get an invite to that, and he got it after a single outing.
By the time my shift was over, I couldn’t wait to get out of there. But when I made it to my car in the parking lot, I saw a most unwelcome sight.
“Audra. What’s up, sexy girl?” Everything about that raised my hackles. The way he was just standing there, the way he said sexy girl, like that was a clever nickname, the way he looked at me. All of it.
“Why are you here, Theo? Do you need emergency care?” I asked. There was a tiny part of me that got scared he was hurt, but when I gave him a quick once-over with my eyes, he seemed fine.
“Just wondering what you’re doing tonight.”
What the hell? “What does it matter to you?” I asked, confused. I may have answered with a little more attitude than I intended to. Or maybe it’s exactly how I wanted to sound.
“Come to dinner with me. Or let’s get a drink.” He said it like we were old friends. Like there was anything left between us. Like I was still willing to play his stupid games.
“Yeah, no, Theo. That train left the station years ago. When you broke up with me and told me I could be your mistress.”
“You still like jumping on board occasionally, though, don’t ya?” His smarmy smile made my skin crawl. I had made a handful of poor decisions since we had broken up for good, one more recently than I’d like to admit, but I was completely, irrevocably, one hundred percent done with him.
“That was inappropriate, Theodore.” I used his full name when I wanted to piss him off. “Unless you want me to contact your mother to tell her you’re propositioning the town peasant, accept my ‘no’ and leave me alone.”
“We’ll see, Audra.” He said, taking steps backwards, but still looking at me. “We’ll see.”
The encounter rattled me so much that I locked my door when I got in the car. Then the thought hit me—what the hell was he even doing at the hospital? Did he wait outside specifically to ask me to dinner? I was thrown off enough to textBennett and ask him if I could hang out for a little. The girls were off doing their thing, so I couldn’t call them, but I wasn’t quite ready to make it back home. Even though I had texted him, he called me back right away.
“I’m heading home from Whiskey Summer.” He didn’t even say hello. Whisky Summer was another bar they owned in a different town. “I’ll be home in thirty, you okay?”
