The Do-Over (The Rooftop Crew #5) - Piper Rayne Page 0,73
will be me he chooses, I have to prepare myself that it might not be.
I’m half done with my Agent Spytini drink when a man slides into the booth across from me. I look up from sucking as much alcohol through my straw as possible and see that it’s Dylan. “How did you find me?”
“Well, I sure as fuck didn’t know you’d go to a place like this, but this was Duke’s once upon a time, no?”
I nod.
“Rian had this idea you might have gone to Duke’s because that’s where you and Knox first met.”
I nod again. Smart woman.
“You didn’t catch us on the camera?” He points toward the TVs at the bar. I kind of remember people laughing every few minutes. “If you don’t know the password, you have to do stupid shit like the chicken dance to get in. They show it for everyone in here to see.”
I shrug. “Where is Rian?” I look around the room. She has a better chance than Dylan of cheering me up. The man hates me.
“She’s at the bar, trying to figure out a riddle. I asked her to give me five minutes alone with you.”
I sip my drink, and it slurps, saying my time with Agent Spytini is over. Dylan flags down the waitress and orders another for me and a beer for him.
“Why would you want to do that?” I push away the empty glass. “You don’t like me.”
His head sways right and left as though I have a point. “It’s not that I don’t like you. I’m cautious of you.”
I nod. “Okay.”
The waitress comes back and I’m thankful to have the distraction of another drink.
Dylan sips his beer and holds it over the table. “I’ve been friends with Knox for a long time. He’s a good guy.”
“I know.”
He nods. “Leilani hurt him.”
My forehead falls to the table. If I hear this one more time, I’m going to scream.
“I guess I should say I’ve seen him go after these women who don’t have any hopes and dreams or aspirations for the future. He had this girl in college who was the worst. It was a blessing they broke up, otherwise, she would have sucked him dry. I’m fairly sure she went to college to find a husband. But she fucked it up by cheating on him. A few nights later, we were here.” He looks around. “Much different then though.”
I nod.
“That night, Jimmy told him not to go for you because you were the take-home-to-mom type of girl. Jimmy’s a jackass, by the way. And so, Knox took Leilani home. In the end, she fucked with his head.” I groan, and he holds up his hand. “I’m not going to talk about her, but when you re-entered his life, I saw it for the first time.”
“What?” I groan.
“A woman who deserved him.”
“You sound like you’re his mother or something.”
He chuckles and sips his beer. “He’s done me solids our entire friendship, and I wish that night when we were here, I would’ve told him Jimmy was wrong and he should’ve taken you home.”
Another round of applause and cheers ring out when more people come into the bar.
“Well, he didn’t choose me.”
“Yeah, he didn’t. All I can tell you is he regrets it. I see it. He was never a guy who could just have sex and not have commitment. Not sure why he thought he could. That’s reserved for us foster kid fuck-ups who turn off their feelings.”
I glance at Rian. “I doubt that.”
“Jax,” Dylan says as an example. “I’ve graduated. Thank God for Rian. But she had to do a lot of shit to get me where I am now. I never thought I was good enough for her. That’s the problem with growing up like we did.”
“I want to make his life better. I know I let him house me and I shouldn’t have but—”
He lifts his hand. “Rian says it’s none of my business and she’s right. It’s not. You would think, from where I come from, that I would understand the exchange between you two. I do it at my shop all the time. I give newbies a place to hone their skills. Knox would’ve taken you in whether or not he was attracted to you, but I think the fact that he was probably helped. I guess I thought you were going to use him. And then when you played that game and moved into our apartment—”