“Surprising,” Bean deadpans.
Haven grins. “Anything I can dip in the dill ranch is happening tonight.”
I motion toward the booth across the restaurant with my head. “Do you want to go say hi to your neighbors?”
“Uh, maybe later.” Haven’s cheeks turn pink. “Come on, finish this game, I want to play the winner.”
Bean and I smirk at each other. I don’t think I’ve ever known Haven to blush before Dax moved in next door to her, but she did a whole lot of it last Saturday at the Barbecue Bash. And he couldn’t take his eyes off her all day.
Bending over the table, Bean sinks the winning shot. “Then rack ‘em up.”
“Fucking hell,” Haven says when Bean beats her ten minutes later. “At least I can drown my sorrows in dill ranch.”
Dolly stops next to our little table and starts moving baskets off her tray. “That you can, sweetie. I need to drop some off to your neighbors, that boy might like it just as much as you do.Poor guy didn’t think to dunk a few mushrooms in it until they were gone.”
“That’s illegal. I’ll take the ranch over. I need to harass them a little anyway.” Haven piles the ranch cups on top of her mushrooms. “I’ll be back to get my ass kicked some more.”
“Shesolikes that guy!” Bean declares. Dax’s face lights up as Haven walks across the room.
I start setting up for our next game. “It’s cute. And he seems like a giant teddy bear, which might be exactly what she needs.”
Haven wanders back a little while later and blushes every time she looks toward Dax. Which is often. We shoot some more pool and move on to darts for an hour or so before Haven heads home.
Calvin’s been out doing shit with his buddies all week, and will probably continue to do so up until he’s supposed to show up at the altar, but this is the first time Bean’s had the chance to do the same since the barbecue. I realize that while having girls’ night here is great, we need to step it up for the bachelorette party. My brain starts planning bigger while Bean and I finish one last basket of fries.
Bean’s phone dings. “Shit,” she says, reading the text.
“What’s up?”
“I have to pick my dad up from the airport tomorrow.”
“I thought he wasn’t coming in until closer to the wedding.”
“He wasn’t, but he’s all kinds of messed up right now, and I think he just needs to get away.” Her fingers fly across the screen as she responds to him.
“What do you mean?”
“I think his secretary got a new job or something. I’m not totally sure what happened, but he sounded depressed when I talked to him the other day.”
I haven’t met Bean’s dad, which is kind of wild because he lives in New York. But our schedules never coordinated during her visits there.
“That sucks.”
“I told him he should fight to keep her. I hope he does. He’s not the same without her. He’s been mopey and cranky. Kind of like you,” she says, sticking her tongue out at me. I roll my eyes and throw a fry at her.
She’s not wrong, though.
Chapter 16
Fuck. My. Life.
Amelia
Trying to remember how I ended up on dinner duty the next night when it’s supposed to be Grant’s turn, I bop along to my favorite emo playlist as I put together two dozen of my family’s version of French dip sandwiches.
The front door slams, and Bean yells, “Minnie!” across the house.
“Kitchen!” I yell back over the music, my mouth full of provolone. I turn down the volume on my phone, but don’t look up when she walks into the room.
