“Hey!” Our server calls as she approaches the table, smacking me on the chest. “Colt Fowler, I haven’t seen you in ages! How’ve you been?”
I offer her a smile and answer, “Doing well, Lynn. How are the kids?”
“Spoiled and rotten, like always,” she laughs. “Get you boys the usual?”
“I’ll do a whiskey sour, actually,” Davis tells her.
“Just Johnnie for me.”
She nods and heads off to the bar, returning just a few minutes later with our drinks, and we each take a long sip from our glasses.
“She’s right,” Davis says. “You haven’t been here in a long-ass time.”
“Haven’t been drinking much, lately,” I tell him.
Huh. Now that I think of it, aside from that singular glass of whiskey, I haven’t touched the stuff since the first time I saw Rowan’s dad’s truck in their lawn. She hadn’t said anything about it yet, but I knew he’d been drunk. It was written all over her face and in the way her body language shifted. I knew then that it happened often, maybe even on a nightly basis, and I guess that shifted something in me, too.
“Well, you’re drinking tonight,” he commands, gesturing with his glass. “At least until I leave you here for some hot blonde that walks in.”
“When have you ever left here with a woman?” I snort into my drink.
“Well I’ll be damned. First, you go from the grumpiest bastard I ever saw to damn near chipper, then you only raise your voice like, ten decibels today, and now you’re laughing?” Quirking up a brow at me he says, “You filled your prescription, you old bastard.”
“I did what?”
“Doctor’s orders!” He reminds me. “You finally got some pussy.”
I know that he doesn’t know about Rowan and I, but Jesus, thinking about him reducing her to ‘some pussy’ makes me want to throttle him right here and right now. Best friend or not.
He clinks his glass against mine in a toast and I tell him, “It’s not like that.”
“Bullshit it’s not. I want details.”
I could probably tell him the truth. Eric Davis has done more questionable shit in his life than I could count on my fingers. And toes. But he’s also a talker, and no one needs to be talking about this thing between us until we know what the fuck this thing even is. Why let a good thing get ruined before it really starts?
“You’re not getting shit,” I laugh.
“If you tell me, I’ll tell you about my night with that little clerk. You know, with the black hair and all the ass?”
I pinch the bridge of my nose. “Isn’t she— my assistant’s age?”
“Yeah, probably. I didn’t exactly ask for a bio.”
“Jesus, Davis.”
Lynn brings us our second, third, fourth round of drinks, under clear instruction from Davis to ‘keep them coming, darlin’,’ and I start to feel a little buzz. When I try to cut myself off, Davis makes sure to dramatically remind me that we own the company and can’t get into trouble if we show up late or hungover, then orders me another – stronger – drink.
Rounds five, six, and seven come in rapid succession, and by the time I’m finished with my last drink, I’m damn near seeing double.
I hold out my open hand across the table, dropping it onto the chipped wood with a thud. “Keys,” I demand.
Like always, Davis hands over his car keys without argument, and I stuff them into my jacket pocket for safe keeping before pulling out my phone to order the two of us a ride.
As we stand from the table, my balance falters, and I realize I’m a lot more drunk than I thought I was. Rowan’s face flashes through my mind – sad, angry, and disappointed – when she looked at her father’s car on that driveway, and I feel like a complete asshole.
“Fuck,” I whisper to myself.
Davis wraps an arm around my shoulder as we walk out to the parking lot, shouting, “Now that’s how you do fuckin’ happy hour, Fowler!”
