Chance away with a grin. She lifts her hand to wave. “Jude, always good seeing you. Next time you pop by, why don’t you stay for dinner? Bring a lady friend, or let me set you up with someone.” She waggles her brows suggestively.
“Yeah, yeah.” I wave her off with a chuckle, but I don’t want to be set up with one of Aubrey’s friends. I’ve had enough awkward blind dates to last a lifetime. Unless . . . “Do you have a sister?”
“No.” Chance glares, his brow creased with irritation. “And find your own princess, my wife is taken.”
“Not moving in on your woman.” I hold my hands up. I am not a cheater, despite what some might think. “Just searching for someone as beautiful and smart as her.”
He shakes his head, but a chuckle escapes his mouth. “I should hit you for that, but she’s the best thing to happen to me, so I get it.” Their road to happily ever after wasn’t an easy one, but it was paved with fate. He’s told me the story so many times, and I’d be lying if I didn’t wish for the same instant connection. A sign from the universe to make things clear.
“Wait.” My brows shoot up. “Don’t you have a sister? Is she single?”
“No.” He really does punch me this time, his fist making contact with my shoulder with enough momentum it stings. “Hands off Adele. She’s finally happy, and you’re a player.”
He’s not wrong. “Maybe I’ll become a reformed ladies’ man, like you.”
“No doubt you’re capable, but it takes more than a whim, mate. When you meet the right woman, you’ll know.”
“Yeah.” I nod, but what if I never meet the right woman? How will I know if she’s the one when I do? I don’t even know where to go looking. It’s not that I have problems attracting the female population. Quite the opposite. I have no trouble finding a woman to warm my bed, or suck my dick. The issue is, I never know whether they’re only after a piece of my fortune. Call them what you will. Gold diggers. Advantageous hustlers. But I want a woman who’d be satisfied with my companionship even if I were dirt poor. I release a sigh and take another sip of my beer. “We all can’t pick out a girl from a rest stop and marry her like you did.”
“Not really that simple.”
“Too bad.” I sigh into my beer glass. I wish it worked that way. “It’d be easier. Sometimes I think I’m getting too old for the LA scene.”
“Must be a real trial. All those willing and wanting women, following you home each night like puppies for a roll in the sack. I don’t know how you do it.”
Okay, so yeah. It’s not all that horrible. I fight back a grin, but it quickly spreads across my lips. “They’re more like tigers. A few cougars.”
“Might want to take a break from playing the field if it’s true love you’re in search of.”
“That your master advice?”
“Nah, mate.” He laughs, heartily and loud. “Fuck, it’s common sense. Can’t meet your princess if all your nights are spent in the brothel.”
“I’ll keep that in mind. Now, let’s get some photos of this monstrosity for Mrs. Sheehan.”
“You mean masterpiece?”
“Hunk of junk.”
He presses a hand to his chest. “You wound me.”
“Beauty’s in the eye of the beholder. That’s all that matters, Chance, and to Darlene Sheehan you’re a mad genius.”
“Mad?”
“You play with goats, man.”
“Goat. One goat. I’m an artist, mate, but I have a heart. Go easy on me.”
“Next time I’ll bring lube. Now, smile.” I hold up my phone and back up to get him in the frame. “Or don’t. A tortured artist sells better than a happy one.”
“You’re crazy, you know that?” Chance chuckles, then sobers for me to take another photo.
“Aren’t we all?” I lift my brows over the screen of my phone and grin, because yeah, we all do what we gotta do to make the money.
2
Rachel
There is nothing worse than listening to running water on a full bladder. I know this because it’s a regular experience in my current living situation. Today is my fault though, and I mentally slap myself for sleeping through my first alarm—that and downing a protein shake after getting dressed. My half of the bedroom shares a wall with our apartment’s only bathroom and I’ve had to pee for a good thirty minutes—the last fifteen of them pure torture as one of