Skylar: Jesus, that’s gorgeous.
Skylar: He’s got a queen-sized bed.
Me: Cool. It’s easy to put together, so I should have it done in a day or two.
Rowdy: What are y’all private texting about?
Me: Wouldn’t you like to know?
Rowdy looked up from his phone and I’m pretty sure he shot me the finger. I blew him a kiss, and he dropped his chin. I liked to imagine he was blushing, but I couldn’t tell from this distance.
After getting dressed, I headed out and ran my errands, including picking up the paint and supplies Skylar had requested, along with the pretty wood for Rowdy’s bed.
When I returned, Rowdy was on his front porch playing his guitar as Skylar sat back and closed his eyes, bobbing his head to the music. Were they singing together? I ignored how upset that made me and pulled into my garage, closing the door behind me. Leaving Skylar’s requests in the bed of my truck, I moved the wood for Rowdy’s headboard into the workshop, then brought the bag of smoked meats with me to the house.
By the time I reached the front door, Rowdy and Skylar were waiting for me, a hungry gleam in their eyes.
“Y’all want to eat this out by the pool?”
They agreed, and we rounded the corner and headed to the back.
Skylar whistled. “Damn. Rowdy said you had a pretty pool and deck setup, but I was not prepared.” He ran a delicate hand over one of the teak recliners. “You made these?”
I nodded. “I try to keep it simple and let the wood talk.”
“Nice.”
We sat, and I laid out all the meats and the sides. We ate with our hands, and I mostly listened as Skylar and Rowdytalked through their progress so far and what they had left to accomplish in the next day and a half.
Their plan was ambitious, but I could tell that Skylar—or Sky, as Rowdy called him—wanted to make it nice for his friend. And they were friends. Yes, they were touchy feely, but I sensed it was closeness born of familiarity and affection, not attraction.
Thankfully, I’d kept my humiliating jealousy to myself.
My notification went off, and I shook my head at the texts from Emery. Rowdy lifted his chin at me and I held up my phone.
Emery: Wait. Is Rowdy hooking up with someone at the cabin?
Emery: Woody thought he spotted a guy on the front porch this morning, but I wouldn’t tell him where I hid his binoculars.
Rowdy and Skylar leaned forward and read the messages, though their responses couldn’t have been more different. Sky cracked up laughing. At the other end of the spectrum, Rowdy’s brows stitched together—like maybe he was annoyed.
Skylar patted Rowdy’s cheek. “They love you, but they sure don’t know the first thing about you.”
Rowdy’s answering glare seemed to be a silent warning for Sky to shut the fuck up, but I wanted him to keep going.
“What don’t they know about Rowdy?” I asked, setting the phone face down.
“Don’t answer that,” Rowdy said, fiddling with a napkin.
“Why not?” Skylar gestured at my house. “Don’t you at least think these guys would help you with your Jaxon problem?”
“What’s a Jackson problem?” I asked, my brain firing up a million different scenarios.
Was Jackson a lover? Was it a business? Lake Jackson? Jackson County?
Please let it be anything but option 1.
“This one volunteers with an after-school youth group in Austin,” Skylar answered, ignoring Rowdy’s pinched look. “And Jaxon—J-A-X-O-N—is a kid he looks after. His mom is great, but she’s in a real shitty working situation, which is compounded by the fact that they live in an even shittier trailer park off of 290.”
