Page 3 of Good Time Boyfriend
It was so easy for them, becoming family without overthinking it. It felt like I was trying to do so much for her, and failing, because she didn’t need me. But I was still so damn glad I moved here. I would be missing this. I would be missing the chance to be the overprotective asshole brother.
I just needed to figure out what else I needed to be.
“Anyway, I have to head back. Enjoy the pastries. I’ll see you guys for dinner this weekend?” she asked, and both Ace and Grace nodded.
“Yeah, if not before.”
“I love the fact that you live close enough to me that you can come into the coffee shop every morning if you want. I would say it’s like old times, but we both know it’s not.” She rolled her eyes and I felt the kick to the gut, even though she didn’t. She had found her steadiness, her foundation. And while I knew she still carried the same pain that we all did, she was moving forward. I thought my brothers were doing the same. I was the one who needed to get in line.
“Then we just have to make up for it,” I said quickly, and she nodded. We hugged and she headed out. Ace went back to setting up, Grace back to the office, and I swallowed hard and did what I did best—I worked.
The early shift was nice, because you got tourists and some regulars, and nobody was loud and obnoxious yet. That always made me happy.
By the time seven o’clock rolled around however, the din started to grow, the noise unending. I didn’t mind it though, I wouldn’t have opened a bar if I hated it. I liked getting to know people, to hear their problems and act as if I knew what I was doing.
I didn’t always, but I could pretend.
“Hey, whatever happened with that woman?” Ace asked as I worked on a martini, straight-up, extra cold, with a twist.
I frowned before I remembered, I knew exactly what he was talking about. “I don’t even know her name. She was just here on our opening night, and she was gorgeous. Not quite sure why you brought her up?”
“Because you have talked to at least twenty gorgeous women tonight, all of them hitting on you, and you haven’t done a thing about it.”
“You know I don’t hit back. This is a job. Not a stomping ground.”
“So you say.”
“You met Grace in a grocery store, both of you trying to find an organic cereal from your list, and you reached it for her because she couldn’t. That’s a meet-cute. At a bar? Not so much.”
“Look at you, knowing the phrase ‘meet-cute.’”
“Greer has me reading romance novels. I like them. Didn’t think I would, but I do.”
The guy at the bar snickered but I ignored him. He wasn’t going to tip me anyway. He had been in before and he never did.
“True, but I was just thinking about the last time your heart did that little pitter-patter thing.”
“Pitter-patter? Maybe you need to be reading those novels.”
“Grace would probably like it. I could learn a thing or two.”
“Or seven,” the woman at the end of the bar said as she sipped her old-fashioned, before waving and turning to talk to her girlfriend.
“Okay, so I know what I’m reading next. Or should I ask Greer?”
“Take a look at my ereader later. You’ll see what you need.”
“That’s good. Now I have to get back to the bachelorette party. Pray for me.”
I rolled my eyes as I handed over my next drink and got back to work.
“Hey, are you Heath?” a deep voice asked.
The bar began to quiet down a bit and I frowned before I looked at the group of people on the other side of the bar.
They all had dark hair, dark eyes, and fair white skin. And if they hadn’t been cut from the same cloth, I wasn’t a very good bartender. So, they had to be siblings. And the way they were frowning at me had me a little worried.
I had never seen these people before. I might not be the best at names, but I was damn good at faces.
