“Nah, I didn’t drink anything.”
“Good, then you can take me home.”
“Hey, I was in the middle of talking to Rafe, ass-wipe.”
Dean looked in Rafe’s direction. He shrugged. Jake was such a girl. Who wanted to have deep and meaningfuls at the end of a Saturday night? Or ever? “I’m heading home, too. We can catch up later.” He wasn’t in the mood for whatever Jake had on his mind. He stood.Whoa. Who’d let him have so many beers? Shit. His apartment was only two blocks from the legion, so he’d walked over, but it probably wasn’t good for anyone to see him stagger home.
Jake stood, his question forgotten. “Come on, I’ll drive you both home.”
“You’re a good brother, man.” Dean was obviously in that happy drunk stage. Rafe had passed that a while back.
“Let’s call Matt and Sean and put you on speakerphone while you repeat that.”
“No can do, buddy. It’s our little secret.”
Rafe snorted and pushed through the glass doors, not caring that the early October night was damn nippy. “Take him home first, Jake, he needs to be put out of his misery.”
“You’re the miserable one, but I’ll loop back.” Jake lived just outside of town, past Rafe’s apartment, in a house he’d built himself—the house that had started his contracting business. A big four-bedroom monstrosity.
“Why is your house so fucking big, dude?” Rafe stumbled against the dark green Foster Construction pickup truck. He managed to get the door open on the second try and climbed into the back seat, shoving aside a thick binder and a box of screws on his way.
Dean snorted. “The fucker wants a wife and kids.”
“You sure have a funny way of showing it.” Rafe leaned his head back and closed his eyes. Jesus, his head wouldn’t stop swimming. “Tell Dean about your date tonight.”
“I don’t want to know.”
“Good, because I don’t want to share.” Rafe heard a heavy thump of a fist on denim and Dean swore as Jake lit into him. “Keep your damn feet off my dashboard.”
“You obviously didn’t get laid tonight.”
Rafe tipped his head forward and grimaced. “It’s a good thing Matt wasn’t here, he’d have a field day with the lot of us.”
“Is that why you’re drunk out of your gourd? Liv stand you up?”
Not exactly. She’d warned him she wasn’t interested. He just hadn’t believed her.
Jake turned off the main drag, then again onto Dean’s street. He didn’t bother to turn the truck off, just idled as his brother slowly and happily undid his seatbelt. “Thanks, bro.”
“No worries. You need a ride to get your truck in the morning?”
“Nah, I’ll walk. Or maybe catch a ride with Liv on her way to the diner.” Dean flashed a wicked smile back at Rafe, like he knew what he was doing, but the asshole had no clue. Rafe was over the centre console and rather ineffectively whaling on his friend before the smile had made it all the way across his face.
“Rafe, don’t be an idiot,” Jake yelled as Dean shoved his door open and tumbled out, laughing the whole way.
Rafe followed, weaving back and forth. Why were there two Deans? That made it hard to hit him. “Leave her alone.”
“Man, I was just…she’s my friend.”
“Well she’s my wife!” he yelled.
Both Deans stopped and shook their heads. “Not anymore.”
Bah. What did they know, anyway? Rafe pushed away at the air around him and spun in a circle. In front of him loomed Dean’s house. And forty feet behind that was his woman. He staggered toward the side path to the backyard. Behind him the Foster brothers fought about who should follow him but he didn’t care. He’d grabbed a ride as far as he needed tonight and he was done with them.
“Liv!” he hollered as he jogged into the backyard, triggering the motion sensor floodlight. “Livvie! My Olivia fair!”
Behind him, Jake snorted. “I need to record this for blackmail purposes.”
