Page 64 of Best Kind of Trouble
“The things you do for love.” Then she tips her head, studying me. “Speaking of, maybe it’s time for you to try dating again. I mean actually dating, not the lazy, getting-laid-by-whoever’s-around approach. It’s been, like, four years since you’ve been serious with anyone.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” I lean back on my side of the booth, tension thrumming through me as I run my finger under the band on my wrist. “First, it’sLiam, take this job. ThenLiam, stay away from my friend. Now you want to handpick a wife for me? Should I expect a shotgun wedding too?”
She lifts her eyes skyward. “Oh, I fully expect you’re never getting married.”
“Thanks.”
She pauses, considering how far to go, and like usual, decides she might as well go all the way. “That shit with Julia went down ages ago. It wasn’t your fault then, and it’s not your fault now. You don’t need to be alone.”
I raise my eyebrows. “Maybe I want to be alone. When I told Margaret I didn’t want her to leave a toothbrush at myapartment, she threw all of my shit into the beer I brewed. In front of everyone.”
“So, you have questionable taste in women. I used to have questionable taste, too, and now look at me.” She gestures to the claw machine, located in a cramped row of machines right next to the single-occupancy bathroom.
Travis looks like he’s in a war zone, and Ollie has an expression of utmost concentration as he maneuvers the claw one last time before it lowers. It grips the stuffed toy, and Travis’s whole face lights up. “You did it, Ollie!”
I’ll be damned, it lifts the stuffie up, carting it toward the chute that’ll give the tyke his treat. But it falls right before it gets there.
I turn to study my sister. “That’s how things go for me, Han. Always will. No point in fighting fate.”
She gives me a stern look that a little sister has no right to have in her repertoire. It’s being around Ollie that’s done it to her. “And yet, you seem very fond of putting on boxing gloves.”
“I don’t need a woman to be happy.”
She waves a hand through the air like a tennis pro deflecting a ball. “So find a man. Find anyone. I’m sick of you moping around by yourself all the time. It’s not healthy.”
“But I have you, so obviously I never get to be alone.”
This time her smile’s sad and tired. “I love you, you big asshole.”
“I regret to inform you that I love you too.”
“I’m sorry you had to cancel your trip to see Connor and Dad so you could help Briar.”
I’d had tickets to Boston for Christmas weekend, but I couldn’t possibly take that trip. Not now. I would have missed Briar’s family dinner, and I wouldn’t have been around to babysit the beers.
“Don’t tell her I did that,” I interject. “She’ll think it’s her fault I had to cancel.”
“Probably.” She gives the table a knock with her knuckles, asking for luck. “But I’ll make up for it.”
Guilt tickles the back of my throat, because truth be told, Iwantto stay. “You owe me nothing. You know I like a challenge.”
“Says the man who refuses to look for a real connection because he struck out once.”
I decide to throw her a bone. “I reactivated Tinder before I came over here. You’re welcome.”
She doesn’t seem ecstatic. “Great, now you can bone more strangers. I want you tofall in love. It’s time. It’s probably past time. You’re getting old and set in your ways.” She wags a finger at me. “I’m going to talk to Dottie about you.”
“Why?”
I glance over at Travis and Ollie, and God love the guy, Travis is having a go at the machine now, his expression of anxious concentration both hilarious and touching.
“If anyone can trick you into falling in love, it’s Dottie Hendrickson,” Hannah says, making it sound like a curse.
I think about how I wrapped one of Briar’s hairs around my finger earlier, like a lovesick teenager who needs some well-timed mockery to get his head on straight.
“No thanks,” I say, to myself as much as Hannah. “I’m too busy to fall in love. I’ve got the brewery shit to deal with, and then I’ve got my fight at the end of January. I’ll give the whole love thing a rain check.”
She scrunches her nose in distaste but says, “I’m going to come to your fight.”
