I climb out of the cart, then turn back. “Hey, Asher?”
“Yeah?”
“Thanks for warning me about the router reset.”
The corner of his mouth twitches. “Couldn’t have you losing service in the middle of your viral moment.”
“Very considerate.”
“I’m a considerate neighbor.”
“You’re getting there.”
“I guess your reset is delayed since we were…” I wave my hand in the direction of the farmhouse.
Asher laughs, shaking his head. “Nah. I had it all automated. You should be good to go.”
I give him a thumbs up and head inside, where I catch myself smiling.
13
Asher
I’m barely calm from spending so much time with Eva when Ethan shows up at my door and orders me to get in his truck. Apparently, I am going to Tiddy’s bar whether I like it or not.
“I’m working.” I gesture toward my office feebly, but my lifelong friend crosses his arms and shakes his head.
“No, you’re not. You’re staring at your screen pretending to work while thinking about Eva.”
“I’m not?—”
“Asher.” He looks at me like I stared at him when he first started wooing my sister. “Get in the truck.”
I could argue. I could dig in, refuse to move, remind him I’m a grown man who makes his own choices. But the Bedd family is clearly invested in whatever this is with me and Eva, and if I say no tonight, they’ll just come back with something more ridiculous tomorrow.
Tiddy’s Bar is a Fork Lick institution—a squat brick building with a neon sign that’s been missing the apostrophe S since 1987. The “T” flickers ominously. The parking lot is mostly potholes with a dusting of gravel. The door sticks unless you hip-check it just right.
I love this place. Not that I’d ever admit that out loud.
Ethan deals with the door so I can get inside, and we’re hit with the familiar smell of old wood, spilled beer, and whatever’s frying in the kitchen. Patsy Cline croons from the ancient jukebox. The mounted deer head above the bar is wearing a Pittsburgh Fury cap despite our proximity to the Rangers.
“Well, well, well.” Tiddy himself is behind the bar, a barrel-chested man in his sixties with a gray ponytail and a tattoo of a mermaid on one forearm. “Asher Thorne out of the house after dark. Someone check for locusts.”
“Hilarious,” I mutter, sliding onto a barstool.
“Seriously, son. I thought you’d turned into a vampire up there on that hill. Ethan, what’d you do? Drag him by his ear?”
“Something like that,” Ethan says. “Two copperheads and whatever’s good from the kitchen.”
“Fried pickles just came out. And Mabel dropped off some of her jalapeño poppers.”
“Perfect.”
Tiddy draws two pints of the local copper ale, still eyeing me like I’m some kind of exotic animal that wandered in from the woods. Which is fair. But that just makes me think of Eva calling me a yeti.
“How’s the ankle?” he asks, nodding at my boot.
“Not great.”
