Page 8 of When the Walls Come Down
If I wanted a girlfriend, I could get one. I’d just been busy with work.
Yeah, even to myself, that excuse was starting to sound weak.
“Why don’t you just shut up and eat your sandwich so I can have some peace and quiet? That’s what I’d like to find. Some damn peace and quiet.”
She groaned, but she had to know she was pushing it. “All right, I’ll back off. But some change will be good for you. I just took this shift tonight to make sure you were okay.”
Funny how everyone else seemed to be so sure of what I needed. If I could get a minute or two to wrap my head around things—things that were my business—maybe that would help. So I changed the subject. “Casey said Wake lost a tooth last night.”
She cackled and slapped the old wooden bar. “Oh my God. It was so funny. She’d said it was loose the other day or maybe last weekend sometime and then didn’t say much about it after that. Then last night, we’re sitting there at the dinner table and she just spits it out onto her plate.” My sister wiped the laugh-induced tears from her eyes. At only seven, Wake—Blake’s oldest—was basically Casey 2.0. “She asked us if she had to brush it for the tooth fairy or if she’d take it dirty.”
One of the other cooks peeked around the door, signaling that my sister’s break was about to come to an end. She took another big bite, clearly reading from her staff that they needed her to get back in the kitchen.
“And?” I said to move the story along for her.
“And long story short, my darling husband made her brush it because he thought it was hilarious.” She lifted my water to her lips, not having brought out a drink for herself, and drank the lion’s share. “And let me tell you, it actually was funny. Until she dropped it down the sink and Daddy Dearest had to do some light plumbing to get it out.” She howled, standing, having finished her plate in record time. “Then the dickhead printed me an invoice for plumbing. Three hundred freaking dollars.”
I coughed. “That’s one expensive tooth fairy visit.”
She got that look in her eyes she always had when talking about her husband. “Don’t you worry. I was able to negotiate for a significantly better price.” Her face flushed, and her nose turned pink.
“You two aren’t right, Blake.”
“Oh, we’re just fine, big brother. We’re just fine.” She tossed her napkin into the trash as she pushed the doors to the kitchen open with her back. “And you’re going to be fine too. Trust us and take a fucking risk every now and then. No. Now. Take some risks now.”
A risk. What risk?
It felt more like a punishment because none of this was happening on my terms.
Yeah, yeah. I could take my time and make the team I’d hand-fucking-picked ready, but then what? I’d have to start at the beginning all over again.
As usual, I was likely overthinking things, and Blake could kiss my ass. Maybe I didn’t take too many risks, but was that so bad?
No. It was safe.
I left some cash under my water glass, planning to head out and around the block to my building, but when I stood, I couldn’t help but catch Chris talking to a blonde at the end of the bar. I was a regular, like many of the patrons of Two Ships, and Frisco was a big city, but I was damn sure I’d remember a face like hers if I’d seen her before.
Beautiful silky-looking hair. A body that wouldn’t quit. A smile that could stop traffic.
It was too loud for me to hear what they were talking about, despite my trying to read their lips. Chris smiled, but I could trust that it was just him being good at his job. He’d been married for over a year, so it wasn’t flirting I was witnessing. Yet they both grinned—hers was bright and genuine.
I wasn’t about to be a knuckle-dragging Neanderthal, but that dress, on that body, combined with that grin and those smoky, painted blue eyes—and the lecture I’d just been given on playing everything too safely—compelled me to go over and introduce myself. I sure as fuck didn’t feel like going straight home anymore.
The only thing waiting for me there was time to brood and stew over how I’d be fighting for a job I’d fucking created.
What would I say to her though? I was probably only feeling so impulsive because of all the bullshit Casey and Blake had fed me that day. I wasn’t a shy man, but I hadn’t made a move on a woman—in a conversational or otherwise way—in years.
I was rusty as fuck and it would show. Then again, what did I have to lose? I could prove to those fucking Moores I wasn’t the boring, do-nothing male spinster they were making me out to be. They’d eat crow, and maybe if I did this and went out on a limb, I’d also have a good argument for telling them to fuck off, I was keeping my job.
