“Sure you can,” I retort automatically. What the hell is he talking about anyway?Fall for?I’m not falling for anything. Least of all his bullshit.
He’s just trying to get me to admit that I want her, so he can flirt with her to try to annoy me. It’s one of his favorite pastimes.
Normally, I wouldn’t care.
I don’t know why it’s bothering me this time.
“Unless you’d rather just keep pretending that you’re dead inside—”
“Who’s pretending?”
“—and just live alone forever,” he says.
We’ve looped all the way around the block, so we’re back at the waterfront but half a kilometer south of the bar. As we pull into the drive of my family’s property overlooking the water, it strikesme how grouchy this will sound for a man who’s temporarily living with his entire family, but I say it anyway. “I like living alone.”
“Sure you do.”
I toss him aplease shut uplook.
He holds up his hands in surrender. “Fine. Go to bed alone. Don’t even bother heading back to the bar tonight to see if she’s there. I’m sure someone else will show her a good time while she’s in town ...”
When I say nothing, just throw the truck violently into park, he chuckles.
Best friends know you annoyingly well, right?
Because he already knows, maybe before I do, that there is no fucking way I’m letting that happen.
Chapter 4
Mason
When I walk into the bar just before last call, the bachelorette party is still going strong. The music has completely changed, and Sierra Daniels is leading a very drunk group of women in a passionate singalong to “Survivor” by Destiny’s Child.
At some point, she donned aMiss Behavingsash. Upside down and backwards.
The bar is decently busy, and the Friday-night crowd, a mix of locals and visitors, is fairly riveted on the spectacle of nine drunk out-of-towners going hard on the karaoke.
We don’t have karaoke, so the girls are singing loudly to be heard over the late-night volume of the music—using empty cider bottles as microphones.
I grab an unoccupied table near the bar, followed closely by Jace and my brother’s best friend, our orchard manager, Evan Garnett. It’s been a long day—Evan and Jace helped me work on the house all evening, and I told them drinks are on me tonight. I’m not even sure if Jace told Evan the real reason we’re here.
Once again, I’m looking at her.
I’ve kept in touch with my bar staff, and according to their updates, the bachelorette party enjoyed the free nachos and wings I sent them, eventually ate dinner, and took over the jukebox shortly after their eighth bottle of cider.
At least all the singing and dancing will help them sweat out some of the alcohol.
Jace puts in an order for us with Oscar at the bar, as Evan and I sit back and take in the show.
If I’d ever been under the impression that the purpose of a bachelorette party is to celebrate a woman’s impending wedded bliss, this little performance would’ve proven otherwise. With a bunch of drunk women belting out suchfuck yousongs as “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together,” “No Scrubs,” and “good 4 u” at the top of their lungs, anyone walking into the bar would sooner guess they’d stumbled into a divorce party.
I can only assumeSame Penis Foreverisn’t in charge of the song selection.
I limit myself to a few shots with the boys and sip a couple of Traditional Dry ciders while I take it all in. The way Sierra keeps serenading the bride, and getting the crowd singing along, and generally enthralling the entire room.
Or maybe it’s just me who’s enthralled.
Sierra doesn’t look my way once. She hasn’t noticed I’m here, or doesn’t care, or maybe she’s just too drunk to notice anything beyond her immediate surroundings.
