April skipped up next to them. “Is the reserved table for them? It’s back here.”
She led the way to their table without waiting for an answer. It was right next to Tim and his friends. Of course it was.
Elba stopped short. “Oh, hey. Your stripper-gram is here. I didn’t even see him come in. Tim, right?
“What’s a stripper-gram?” April asked, timing her questioned perfectly with their arrival at the table.
“Tim is a stripper-gram? I thought he was a police officer,” Gabby said.
If she looked in the mirror right now, her hair would be flaming red. It would have to be, judging by the intense heat trying to burst from her skin. She’d never blushed so hard in her life, not even when she’d been teased in school.
“Stripper-gram? You moonlighting, big brother?”
Even if he hadn’t addressed Tim as brother, the resemblance pegged them as family. Whereas Tim’s hair was lighter and he was more clean cut and lean muscle, his brother was bulkier and wilder around the edges.
“Zoe, this…person is my brother, Jase. His fiancée, Bree—I have yet to figure out what she sees in my brother—and this is Denise.”
He didn’t put a label on Denise. Because she didn’t have one or because she didn’t need one?
“Everyone, this is my new neighbor, Zoe, and her sister, Gabby. I stopped by after work one day to see how Zoe was settling in. I was still in my uniform and some assumptions were made.”
The fiancée, Bree, leaned an elbow on the table and rested her chin on the palm of her hand. “Oh, yeah. I can totally see that.”
His brother covered her eyes. “Quit seeing it. Now.”
Bree moved his hand from her face and held it to her chest as she whispered something to him. He pulled back and looked at Tim.
“Bree wants to know if I can borrow one of your uniforms.”
She hit him on the arm. “Don’t ask him that!”
“You just told me to.”
“Nothere!”
“The answer’s no,” Tim said. “Even if you soaked it lye and bleach before you had it dry cleaned, I would still have to burn it and those things are expensive.”
Zoe didn’t understand the dynamic that was happening. Her family had never joked around like that—even when they were kids. They’d fought and argued, but hardly ever teased in such a fun and light-hearted manner. Her ex had never been that way either. Not with her anyway.
“Well, we’ll let you get back to your lunch,” she said.
“You should join us,” Bree said.
“Oh, no. We wouldn’t want to intrude.”
“You’re not intruding,” Denise said. “We’ll pull the other table over and there’ll be plenty of room.”
Of course she would be nice. Tim was nice. Why wouldn’t his girlfriend be nice as well? Would it be too much to ask that she have a flaw? Bitchy was a flaw.
Mentally slapping her forehead, Zoe told herself to snap out of it. She wasn’t looking for romance and especially not with someone who was taken.
Tables and chairs scraped across the poured concrete floor and before she could voice another objection, she was seated across from Tim and Denise.
Perfeito.
* * *
“Baby Jesus hates me,”she mumbled in Portuguese.
