The bar was crowded, just like I’d expected, and done up for Valentine’s Day with stupid paper hearts hanging from the ceiling.
But the job was easy.
It actually wasn’t a leaky faucet. It was just a beer tap that had gotten clogged. I cleaned the lines and admonished the bartender for not doing his basic nightly maintenance.
Twenty minutes later, I was done.
That’s when I raked my eyes across the bar.
I was packing up my toolkit when I paused with my hand in mid-air, clutching a small socket wrench. I’d only been moments away from the freedom and solitude of my remote mountain home when my heart skittered in my chest.
It was an uncomfortable sensation. I preferred to think of my heart as a dead, blackened thing that lived in my ribcage… and there was onlyoneperson in this world whoevermade it beat this hard.
Thump-thump, thump, thump. Thump-thump, thump, thump.
All the sounds in the bar faded as I took in the sad, crumpled woman sitting by herself at a window table at the far end of the place. All around her, happy couples flirted and laughed. But she was sitting there with red-rimmed eyes and a quiet, defeated look on her face.
What’s Rissy doing here?
It was Matt’s little sister, Marissa.
My best friend Matt had moved away six months ago, starting a life with a woman from Fernwood. He had his head so far up her ass he didn’t have time for his best friend anymore.
We still saw each other occasionally, but it wasn’t quite the same as getting together five nights a week after work.
We’d been glued at the hip for years, almost like brothers rather than just best friends.
His departure from Red Oak Mountain had left me feeling unmoored. I hadn’t just lost my closest friend. I’d also lost the surrogate family that he’d provided me with.
Which included Marissa.
One of the many things that had changed when he left town is that I’d stopped heading over to his parent’s house for Sunday dinners. Ones that Marissa had always attended.
I’d gone to those Sunday dinners since I was sixteen years old, up until six months ago when Matt dropped the bomb on all of us that he was jumping ship and moving off the mountain.
I missed that girl.
Why does she look like she’s been crying?
Then I realized she wasstillcrying as she surreptitiously snuck a napkin up to dab her mascara-streaked eyes.
She looked like a hot mess raccoon out on abaaaaaddate night.
“What’s up with Rissy?” I asked the bartender, nodding in Marissa’s direction.
“Marissa.” When that didn’t ring a bell I said, “Marissa. The gorgeous woman with the big tits crying her eyes out in the corner.”
“Oh, never heard anyone call her Rissy before.” Emmett shook his head. “I feel bad for her. That girl’s been sitting there for close to two hours waiting for some dude to show up. Can you imagine getting stood up on Valentine’s Day? Her waiter,Harley, said this happened to her last year, too. What are the chances of having luck that bad?”
“Fuck.” The word slipped right out of my mouth. “That’s evil.”
“Yeah, man. It is. I’m tempted to take her home for a pity fuck. She’s pretty enough, at least she was before she started crying.”
My chest tightened and every macho instinct in me wanted to drag Emmett to the ground and make him swear he’d never touch my Rissy.Especiallynot for a pity fuck. If anyone got to hand one of those out, it would have to be me.
And damn it, just like that, I knew I was going to break all my rules.
“Don’t do that,” I growled out. “She’s my buddy’s little sister. I’ll take care of her.”
