“I didn’t know Beau was back,” Nettie whispered.
“Me, neither,” I admitted. “He looks good. Rough.”
“Scary,” she corrected. “I didn’t know he was part of the Dixie Wardens, either.”
“Same,” I said. “Do you think he’s back for good?”
“No idea,” she admitted in a quiet whisper—or as quiet as you could get and still be heard over Lynyrd. “I feel like we’re in a bar with the hottest people in the world. All of these are members of the MC?”
I looked around, spotting all the leather and muscle.
“It’s been added to over the last year,” I explained. “Some of these guys are new. I’ve never seen them before. There are others that I’ve seen around town before, at the grocery store and at the diner. But I couldn’t tell you their names.”
“Jesus,” Nettie hissed in a desperate breath, alcohol frying her brain. “Who is that?”
I looked over to see who she was talking about and frowned when I saw the back of Boone’s head. I mean, he did have a new haircut, but otherwise he’d looked exactly the same as the last time that she’d come home and fucked his brains out. “That’s Boone, dillweed.”
Nettie gasped a little bit too loud because the word ‘Boone’ was out of her mouth right when Lynyrd finished up singing about Freebirds.
Which, of course, was loud enough to be heard by the entirety of the bar.
“Yes,” I groaned quietly under my breath. “Do not make a…” but she was already out of her chair and yelling. “…scene.”
“Boone?” Nettie sneered at Boone. “Get anyone pregnant accidentally lately?”
Boone froze when he saw Nettie.
They weren’t fooling anyone.
I knew that they saw each other regularly. They just liked to pretend that they didn’t. Boone’s mother was a psycho, and our mother wasn’t much better. So it was better for all parties involved if everyone thought they didn’t know each other. But this felt like a bad episode of Days of Our Lives.
“Antoinette Reilley Wheeler, as I live and breathe.” Boone walked closer.
Swaggered, actually.
“I just don’t see you as a Boone.” Nettie crossed her arms over her chest.
The crowd between us cleared out, obviously sensing the tension in the air.
Even the music had been cut off.
Fuck.
It was as if the universe knew that the world was about to go into a cataclysmic event, as it always did, when Nettie and Boone locked horns.
“I kind of like Bart better,” Nettie said. “Kind of creepy, and it reminds me to hate you.”
Shit.
Weaver moved down so that he was close to me, almost sensing that there was about to be danger, and he wanted the positioning to block the shit that was about to hit the fan.
“What’s going on?” he asked as he slid over, stool by stool, until he was directly beside me.
“You’ve never seen the Bartholomew and Antoinette show?” I asked, unable to take my eyes off the two.
It was like when you passed a car crash. You couldn’t help but look.
“No, can’t say that I have,” he admitted. “What’s going on?”
