Page 51 of Wish I Might
“That sounds good,” Jesse chimed in.“I’ll have one, too.”
“Fine.Drinks?”
“Just water for me.”
She nodded at Jesse, eyes warm, then looked back at Nash.“You?”
He wondered idly how frost could grow that fast.“I’ll have that beer.Whatever’s good in a bottle.”
Looking annoyed, she reached into a cooler and came up with a bottle.She popped the top, plunked it down in front of him, then added a bottle of water for Jesse with markedly less violence.When she walked away to stab at the screen on the register with an angry finger, presumably to put their orders in, Jesse raised an eyebrow.
“You know she’s going to spit in your food, right?”
Nash lifted the beer.“Oh yeah.”
“It’s pretty rare for Chloe to be this mad,” Jesse mused.
“Well, I was a jackass.”
“That must have been some first-class jackassery.”
Since it was true, Nash just shrugged.“Bailey’s forgiven me.”Mostly.“I guess Chloe hasn’t.”
Twisting the cap off his water, Jesse drank.“Well, she loves Bailey.”
“Can’t argue that.”Nash turned to Jesse.He’d intended to go through Chloe for Sawyer’s contact information, but that looked like a dead end.And Bailey had said that Sawyer was more Jesse and Knox’s friend than Chloe’s.“I know this is going to sound odd, since we just met, but I need a favor.”
Jesse looked pained.“You don’t want me to go to bat for you with Chloe, do you?”
“No.”
“Because you seem like a nice guy, but I don’t want to sleep on the couch.”
Nash chuckled.“No, it’s not that.I was hoping to get your friend Sawyer’s contact information.”
Surprise flashed in Jesse’s eyes, followed closely by wary suspicion, and Nash continued.
“I was going to ask Chloe, but…” He nodded down the bar, where she was slicing limes with a savagery that the fruit surely hadn’t earned.
Jesse chuckled.“Yeah, you’re not getting anywhere with her.”He looked back at Nash.“This about Bailey’s birthday wish?”
Relieved he didn’t have to explain, Nash lifted his beer again.“You know about that?”
“Chloe gave us the gist,” Jesse confirmed.“You’re in charge of that, right?”
Nash nodded.
“And you want Sawyer?”
“He was Bailey’s backup plan, if I said no.”
Jesse grinned, dimples flashing as humor danced in his eyes.“Hard to blame her.”His gaze turned speculative.“He’s got a website, you know.”
“I know.”He’d looked it up on his phone that morning, during a Zoom meeting that should’ve been an email.“I can go that route, but I thought a personal referral might hold more weight.And…”
“You hoped asking Chloe for help might thaw the freeze.”
Nash shrugged philosophically.“It was a long shot.”
