No Good Mitchell - Riley Hart Page 0,27

and now this. He and Walker already liked to give Isaac and me shit because we were city boys who stuck out like a—Goddamn it. He was going to make a sore-thumb joke. I knew it.

I tossed the hammer onto the counter and rubbed a hand over my face. I was tired as hell. I hadn’t been sleeping the best. I was off my game, which was totally unfamiliar territory to me.

“Hey,” Isaac said as he entered the room. “You look tired.”

“I am.” It didn’t matter that weeks had gone by. The journal was weighing on my mind every hour of every day.

“Why don’t we cut out early today? Rusty is leaving. We can spend an evening not thinking about the distillery. Maybe go grab some food and have a movie night?”

The truth was, I didn’t know if I had the energy for that, and the thought of heading into town was draining. Every time I was there, I heard a different story about my family or me. “I like the cutting-out-early part, and the eating-and-hanging-out part.”

“So all the parts that don’t include going into town?” Isaac asked.

“That’s about right.”

“Deal.”

We finished at the distillery, locked up, and headed back to the house. Isaac ordered a pizza and teased me about my thumb before I went to take a shower. Then we ate dinner together, and he asked me what I wanted to watch, but nothing was sounding good.

“I know what you need.” Isaac plucked my phone from the arm of the couch and unlocked it.

“Wait. What are you doing?”

His fingers started moving over the screen.

“What are you doing?” I asked again.

“Texting that super-sexy O’Ralley brother you want to bang to come hang out with you.”

“What the fuck, Isaac.” I leaped toward him, but he moved too quickly, the twinky little thing. I went after him, and he ran around the living room with my cell in his hand. Finally, I caught him, wrapped my arms around his waist, and tugged him to me just as my phone beeped.

“Goddamn you.” I jerked my phone out of his hand.

I read the text Isaac sent as me, then Brody’s reply.

Hey. Can you come over tonight? Just you. I thought we could…hang out. Bring whiskey!

Um, yeah, sure. I can do that. Let me shower. Be there in about forty-five minutes.

“You fucker!” I told Isaac.

“You can always tell him it was me playing a trick on you.”

But I didn’t, and I wouldn’t. He knew that as well as I did. Brody intrigued me—this guy who said he was straight but kissed me the first night we met. Who brought us almond milk and helped us out even though most of his family would be pissed. The guy who broke down our door to save us from a killer raccoon, then showed up first thing the next morning to fix it.

The guy I kissed in my kitchen yet hadn’t had my hands on since.

“So…I’ll stay in my room tonight. I’m gonna take a bubble bath, do an exfoliating face mask, and probably watch some porn. Have fun.” My annoying best friend waved at me and went for the stairs.

But the truth was, I couldn’t really be mad at him. I was having a shitty day, so it wasn’t like drinking with a gorgeous man, whom I did, in fact, want to bang, would be a hardship.

I went to the kitchen, grabbed two glasses, and headed out back to the screened-in porch. Like everything else in the house, it had been cleaned while it sat empty, waiting for me to arrive. There was a table, along with a weather-resistant couch and two chairs.

And then…then I waited.

It was definitely less than forty-five minutes later when I heard Brody’s truck pull up. I left the porch and walked around the side of the house to signal to him where I was. It was evening, the sun just beginning to set in the distance, all bright reds and oranges, trees dancing in the light breeze. I tried to pay attention to that rather than ogling the sexy man who stepped up beside me.

“So…” Brody started.

“Isaac sent that text.”

“Oh.”

Shit. Did he sound a little dejected? “But I was okay with it.”

“I am fun to be around, so it makes sense,” Brody teased.

He was a sweet Southern boy from what I could tell, but I wasn’t going to tell him that. “You’re aight,” I joked, and he laughed.

“Are we going to stand here all night, or are we going to drink? I