After hitting the bathroom for a necessary errand due to Ren and my cloakroom activities, I entered the function room and scanned the crowd looking for Ren.
My eyes stopped on Luke, who was standing with his mom and Ava’s mom.
Ava’s mom was clearly babbling, and it was clear she’d been doing this for a while because Mrs. Stark was nodding but the smile was fixed on her face and it was obvious her mind was miles away. This was also clear because Luke looked like he wanted someone to shoot him. But still, he was standing there holding his mother’s hand, and I thought this, particularly from badass Luke, was all kinds of cool.
I continued my scan and my eyes stopped again when I saw Tex and Duke standing close, Tex looking weird (and not just because he was wearing a suit instead of his uniform flannel shirt and jeans) and Duke smiling and clapping him on the shoulder.
Tex had a personality set to crotchety and Duke worked with a bunch of crazy women and had for decades. Thus they did not get along in a normal way. They got along by bantering (sometimes heatedly), bonding when shit got crazy and they agreed that the women amongst them were loons, and the rest of the time ignoring their own craziness in order to focus on the crazy around them.
This did not mean they weren’t tight. They’d known each other awhile and had both ridden the turbulent waves of the Rock Chick/Hot Bunch Courtships from the very beginning, and those kinds of rides formed unshakable bonds. Trust me.
But they were men. They didn’t have heartfelt conversations or hug it out. I’d never seen one touch the other. I didn’t think I’d even seen them smile at each other.
Now Duke was smiling big.
However, Tex wasn’t.
He just nodded, said something, turned jerkily away and his eyes caught on me.
He then lumbered toward me.
When he got close, I greeted, “Yo, Tex. What’s up?”
His eyes moved over my hair then back to me and he noted, “I think sex in a public place is illegal.”
“That’s only a problem if you get caught,” I returned.
“This, the Ally Nightingale Life Philosophy,” he muttered on a low boom.
I grinned. “You bet your bippy.”
He stared at me, and it was then I noticed he still looked weird.
So I asked, “You okay?”
“Need to talk to you,” he told me.
Uh-oh.
This could mean anything.
“About what?” I asked cautiously.
“What’re you doin’ on Wednesday?” he asked back.
I was likely taking pole dancing classes from Daisy.
I didn’t tell him this.
“Nothing… yet,” I answered.
He lifted his hand to his throat, where the tie that was there earlier was now gone and likely in some trash receptacle. His fingers encountered no tie so he lifted his hand to wrap it around the back of his neck and he rubbed.
Oh man.
This was not a good sign.
“Tex—”