JJ:Fair enough. I'll go there after I close up.
Brooke:That option isn't on the table.
JJ:I'm not fucking you on the sidewalk, sweetheart. Too damn cold, even in the springtime.
JJ:I'll be there by midnight and don't try to pull this bullshit.
Brooke:It's not bullshit.
JJ:It's not logical and you damn well know it.
* * *
I walkedout of Dad's house in the middle of the afternoon. Just grabbed my shoes and walked the fuck out of there. I had no idea where I meant to go, but I knew I had to go somewhere. I couldn't stay another minute. Not in the house where things went from bad to worse, from severe to end stage. And not in the town where I didn't belong, not really. This wasn't for me, not a single inch of it.
Except for Annette. I couldn't live without her.
Also, Jed was growing on me in fascinating ways.
And I couldn't forget about Jackson.
The three of them were my de facto family, but I couldn't shake the sense that this wasn't where I belonged. Not this small town, not Dad's house, not this compressed, bitter version of myself. I didn't want to resent my father's dementia for stealing him away and leaving me with a living ghost. I didn't want to resent my father for making me promise to keep him at home, keep his condition quiet. I didn't want any of this.
I blew through the Galley's front door, not wasting a second on the fact I'd walked myself here without conscious thought, and marched up to the empty bar. When Jed spotted me, he stopped what he was doing, his hand paused over the knot at the nape of his neck. I loved it when those strands slipped loose. It checked a box I didn't know I had.
"You're going to light something on fire with that look, sweetheart," he said.
"What are you doing tonight?"
He dropped his hand, blew out a breath. "Don't ask me questions when you already know the answer. I don't have time for that."
"And I don't have time to repeat my mistakes but here I am."
He braced his hands wide on the bar. "Do you need to be hauled over my shoulder right now? Is that the kind of attention you need from me? Because that's what it sounds like, Bam."
"I need your dick paying extra-close attention to my vagina tonight. Do you think you can do that or is this another one of those instances where I'm supposed to intuitively know the answer?"
Nate sidled up beside Jed, swung an amused gaze between us. "I'll be here until closing, but I'm free after that."
Jed turned a glare in his direction. "Go somewhere else. Right now. Go and stay gone for ten minutes."
Nate glanced back at me. "It makes my day when you come in here and yell at him."
"Go away," Jed barked. When Nate pushed into the back room, Jed said to me, "I expect to find you in my bed tonight. Awake, please."
"Give me something worth staying awake for,” I replied.
He pressed his fist to his mouth, but he couldn't hide his wicked smirk. My entire body clenched at that smirk.
"Bam, you don't know what you're asking for," he said.
"Explain it to me." I took a step back and then two more. I needed the distance. Without it, I'd vault my ass over that bar and drag him home right now. "Then make me regret it." I was almost certain those jeans of his were getting tighter by the second. "Don't make me wait." I hit him with a dick-eating grin and dodged Jackson at the door. To Jackson, I said, "It's a pleasure to see you, sheriff. Are you here in anofficial capacity?"
He responded with the same bewildered smile he'd been giving my innuendos for the past year. "Good afternoon to you as well, Brooke."
"You really don't know what you're getting yourself into," Jed called.
He was right about that. I didn't know what I was getting into with him, but I knew I could drop a few words on him and flash a feral stare and he'd be mine. Even if it only lasted a few hours, he could belong to me and I could pretend I belonged to someone too.
