“Well, the service was great and I tip accordingly.”
A frown immediately tugs my lips downward. “Cole?—”
“Ella.” He shakes his head at me. “Just keep it, okay?”
“I can’t.”
“Yes, you can.” He scratches the back of his head. “I gotta go, but I’ll see you around, alright?”
I take a step closer, attempting to hand him the money again. “Cole, no.”
He quickly sidesteps, a deep chuckle rumbling in his chest. “Goodnight, El,” he laughs before ducking out through the doors, leaving me standing with his bill and cash.
Frustration boils inside, but instead, I find myself unable to conceal the grin that pulls across my face. I laugh quietly to myself, mentally cursing him as I head back to the bar to pay his tab. Instead of pocketing the cash, I slip it into the shared tip jar for everyone working.
Cole Wild has always been impossible to ignore.
And clearly, that’s something that hasn’t changed a bit.
CHAPTER SIX
COLE
My mind is still reeling as I climb into Cade’s truck. He gets in, shutting his own door behind him. Cash climbs into the backseat as Cade starts the engine and begins to back out of his parking space.
Turning in my seat, I glance back at the bar, half hoping to see Ella still standing there, but she isn’t.
“What did Ella want?”
“Huh?” I say, turning back around to glance at Cade.
“Ella,” he says, his brow furrowing. “She followed you out of the restaurant.”
I swallow roughly. “Oh, yeah. She thought the tip I left was a mistake.” I crane my neck, glancing at Cash in the back. He’s holding his phone and the light illuminates his face as he types something out. “You didn’t tell me she worked there.”
Cash lifts his eyes to mine, raising an eyebrow. “Are you sure? I thought I mentioned that.”
“No, you didn't.”
“Oh,” he says, his lips forming the shape of an O. “Well, she works at the bar. I know she’s Wy’s little sister, but I didn’t know if you’d remember who she is.”
Of course I remember her. How the hell could I ever forget her?
She was impossible to forget, with those bright blue eyes and her unruly, curly blonde hair. She’s three years younger than me and was always deemed as off-limits. Her brother would have killed me if he would have caught the way my gaze lingered a bit longer than it should have.
He never once questioned the way I always sided with her, the way I always picked her to be on my team. If Ella was tagging along, I was the one who ended up keeping an eye on her.
Wyatt Daniels never knew that his best friend was secretly pining after his younger sister.
Cade lets out a low chuckle. “Did you forget he had a thing for her when we were younger?” He asks Cash as he glances at him through the rearview mirror.
Mischief dances in Cash’s eyes as he looks back at me. “That’s right. I don’t know how I forgot that.”
My heart stutters in my chest and I press my lips into a straight line. “I didn’t have a thing for her,” I retort, lying straight through my teeth as my heart pounds harder in my chest.
“Come on, Cole,” Cade interjects, a chuckle rumbling in his throat as he shakes his head. “We all knew it, ‘cept for Wy. That fool was as blind as a damn bat.”
I shake my head at the two of them. “It was nothin’. We were teenage boys; I think we all had a thing for any girl who was pretty.”
