manly shoulder-check hug thing. Followed by Arlo in his uniform and Drew who was also at the bar. It felt very déjà vu for Cole. Did these guys live at Jack’s?
“This is Cole,” Wade introduced.
“Yeah, we know who he is,” Drew said. “We thought he was a lost tourist the day he came in here, until he told us he was staying at your place.”
“A tourist?” Wade frowned. “He must’ve been very lost.”
Tucker grinned. “Then Arlo talked him into running a rugby clinic for the kids a couple of weeks ago.”
Wade cocked an eyebrow at Cole. “Was it the gun?”
“Screw you, buddy,” Arlo said, feigning insult. “It was my dazzling personality.”
“Okay, sure.” Wade grinned.
Cole smiled at the banter, but it felt tight on his face. He just wanted to leave already and get back to Wade’s. “I didn’t mind. Gave me something to do.”
They all sat at the bar, both Drew and Arlo moving one stool over to accommodate Wade and Cole in the middle. Cole propped his cane against the bar as Tucker resumed his place behind it and asked, “Beer?”
Both Cole and Wade nodded, and Cole watched absently, his brain ticking away, as Tucker grabbed four bottles of Bud from the under-bar fridge opposite. Cracking the lids, he put one down in front of each man, then grabbed one for himself and cracked it, too. The bar wasn’t very busy, only a couple of booths occupied.
“How do they toast in Australia, Cole?”
Cole raised his bottle. “Up your bum.”
There was a moment of stunned silence before Drew laughed, raised his bottle, and said, “Up your bum,” and everyone joined in.
A conversation about different toasts, which somehow vaguely morphed to football, ensued, but Cole was barely listening. All he could hear in his head was Jane saying people don’t fall in love in two weeks. It bounced around and around, getting bigger and bigger, a seemingly impossible task to refute. He understood it was a surprise for her to hear him say it, but it was the truth.
Question was, what if she never believed him?
“Don’t you think, Cole?”
It took a beat or two for Cole to realize three sets of eyeballs were waiting for him to say something. Fuck, what were they talking about? “Um…sorry, I checked out there for a bit.”
Tucker gave a half laugh. “That’s cool. We all check out when Wade rambles on about his glory days.”
“Bite me,” Wade said as he flipped the bird. He didn’t look too insulted, and Cole got the impression these guys enjoyed talking smack with one another.
“So…” Wade eyed him for long moments. As did the other three. “I get the feeling something was going down back at the house. With you and Jane?”
Cole didn’t say anything, but Tucker looked at him speculatively. “You and Jane are a thing, huh?”
Fuck. Now what did he say? He couldn’t say yes, because they weren’t a thing, as she’d been at pains to point out. No matter how much he wished they were. But he couldn’t deny how he felt, either. Surely it was written all over his fucking face?
Tucker laughed then. “Wow. You got it bad, huh?”
Okay yeah…all over his face. “No, I… It’s not like that.”
“Really?” Tucker took a swig of his drink. “Looks like love to me.”
“And you ought to know,” Wade butted in derisively. “With your PhD in bar psychology.”
“Oh puh-lease.” Drew rolled his eyes. “Tucker doesn’t need that. He’s been such a sap since getting with Arlo’s sister, he sees love everywhere.”
Arlo put his beer down. “Do we really need to remind me this bozo is getting with my sister?” he grouched good-naturedly.
“Yeah,” Tucker said. “Do we?”
“We do when you both react so well,” Wade said with a grin, tapping his beer with Drew’s.
Cole didn’t know that Della was Arlo’s sister until just now. He gathered from the subtext there was a story there, but clearly it was in the past.
“So?” Wade prompted, refocusing Cole on the issue at hand. “What are you going to do about it? You love her, don’t you?”
Drew sighed and shook his head. “Another dude who drank the Kool-Aid and wants to see everyone loved up.”
Arlo raised his beer to Drew. “It’s going around.”
Wade ignored them both. He appeared to be very happily drunk on the Kool-Aid. “So, what’s the problem?”
Cole contemplated keeping his own counsel for a beat or two, but that hadn’t worked out so well for him up to this point, and maybe a bunch of dudes might understand his dilemma.