NotMaisey’s own face or anything narcissistic.
Shit.
Shit.
I’ve been an ass.
But I’m not wrong. She doesn’t belong here.
She drops two hundred-dollar bills on the table, smiles painfully again, and darts for the door.
Kory and I share a look.
“That got awkward,” he finally says.
I rub my eyes. “And they say you don’t know how to do understated.”
“Scare another one off, Flint?” Regina asks as she stops at our table with a tray loaded down with three full dinners.
Not including my burger.
Dammit.
Maisey and June both left without dinner.
“My fault,” Kory tells her.
She nods. “Stuck your foot in your mouth?”
“It’s so delicious. Hey, you ever notice how often Tony’d leave the ranch and go visit his niece?”
Regina snorts. “Tony, leave the ranch? Never.”
An unfamiliar and unwelcome heat crawls into my stomach.
I know where he’s going.
Relationships work both ways.
Why am I holding one party responsible for making all the effort? And it’s not like he was her father.
He was her uncle. Her eccentric, fun uncle who probably had more to offer a teenager than he did a grown woman with her own family and a career that, while she was fairly inept at it, still paid her bills and more.
I don’t know why Tony never changed his will.
Won’t ever know.
And I can keep fighting for what I wish he’d done, or I can accept it for what it is.
“I’ll keep their dinners warm,” Regina says to Kory. “You wanna go drop ’em off after you eat?”
“I’ll do it.”
They both look at me, clearly questioning my offer.
I sigh.
“Ink’s hardly dry on her divorce papers, and her ex-husband just announced a new show with his mistress,” Regina says.
