I couldn’t stay away. Shitty of me? Yes. But I feel more lost than ever, and I didn’t know what else to do.
Billie’s whole face lights up when she spots a guy in a black cowboy hat and matching shirt. Going up on her tiptoes, she flings her arms around the asshole’s neck. He has the audacity to loop an arm around her back—herlowback—and pull her against him.
I grit my teeth, ignoring the zap of pain in my breastbone.
That asshole looks familiar.
Shit, it’s that bull rider from the rodeo, isn’t it?Zach or Zoolander or whatever. What the hell ishedoing here? Did she ask him to meet her? Are they hooking up again?
Christ, I can’t breathe.
“You all right there, buddy?”
I feel Duke’s eyes on me, but it’s only when he taps the neck of his beer against mine that I realize I’m holding the bottle in a death grip.
“Shots. We need them. Tallulah!” I tear my gaze from Billie to glance at the bartender, who pins me with a knowing glare.
“You got a ride home tonight?” she asks.
Duke sighs. “We got him, yeah.”
“Somethin’ you wanna get off your chest?” Tallulah doesn’t look up from pouring us each a double shot of reposado tequila.
One of the perks of living in a one-stoplight, one-honky-tonk town is that the bartender always knows what you’re drinking.
I grab the glass and knock back the tequila in a single gulp. It burns its way through my chest.
It does nothing to relieve the pressure there.
It does absolutelynothingto relieve heaviness between my legs. Billie and I haven’t so much as met eyes, but I already want her. Bad.
A week away from her did jack shit to cure me of this inconvenient fucking need to have her. In fact, the separation’s only made it worse.
Great.
“I’m an idiot.” I set down the shot glass with a thud.
Duke keeps sighing, holding his full shot in his hand. “That about sums it up, yeah.”
My twin is the only person I told about what went down with Billie. I even went so far as to tell him how I genuinely feel about her.
He clearly doesn’t agree with my reasons for keeping my distance.
“Do I want to know?” Tallulah arches a brow.
I shake my head. “You don’t.”
“All right, then. I’m here if you need an ear to bend.”
“Bend mine instead, would you?” Duke says after we’ve turned back around. “Tell me why Colt wouldn’t adore two of the people he loves most in the world, er, falling in love?”
I frown. “Weren’t you just telling me to keep my distance from Billie?”
“I’ve changed my tune since Wheeler and I got together. Being with the right person…that trumps everything, even if it’s inconvenient for everybody else.”
I wait for the tequila to soften the edges of all the terrible shit I’m feeling. Billie’s looking up at Zink like he hung the fucking moon.
Meanwhile, the hand he has on her back creeps lower. I swear to God, if he starts groping her ass?—
