SLOW PLAY (7-Stud Club #4) - Christie Ridgway Page 0,18
you.”
Raising his beer instead of answering, Mad took a drink.
“You made some sort of scene at Harry’s with the ever-hot Harper.”
Mad turned his head to stare at his friend. “What?”
“Ever-hot. She’s still got it. Before, some of us might have been waiting until she was legal, you know. But boom, she turns eighteen, and you moved in so fast that we didn’t get our own chance with her.”
“You never had a chance with her,” he said, frowning.
“Because you permanent-inked her calendar right away.” Raf shook his head. “Not very sporting of you, by the way. You’re supposed to give it a few dates before you tell everybody you’re going steady.”
“I never told anyone we were going steady and you were never getting a chance with her.”
Raf shrugged. “Maybe I have a chance with her now.”
Realizing he was being needled, Mad turned away from his friend and drank more beer. “If you must keep flapping your lips, don’t you have something else to talk about? Like some family drama you want to rehash?” Maybe that was needling too, because Raf’s father had maintained two families on the sly for years. Not until junior high when Shane’s mother had moved to town with him, had the truth finally been revealed.
But the half brothers had taken the situation in stride. Since high school they’d been joined at the hip and even built their roofing business together while attending the same local college.
“Sorry, Raf,” he said, because cop, guilty conscience.
“You’re not wrong,” his friend said on a sigh. “It’s September and I’m already dreading Thanksgiving. Dueling turkeys, the battle of the sides, pecan versus pumpkin pie, the taste-off.”
Mad laughed. Both women had dumped the bigamist husband, but thought holidays required a blending of families.
Glancing around, Raf suddenly went still, then set his glass aside. “Who is that?”
Mad followed the direction of his gaze. A woman, curvy, with a ton of hair and a bright smile for— “I don’t know who she is, Raf, but she seems to be here with your brother.” Shane had his hand on the small of her back as he ushered her toward the bar.
“I’m in love,” Raf declared.
“Get your mind off that.”
Raf didn’t look away from the woman. “How do you do it?” he asked in an absent tone. “Get your mind off a particular someone, I mean. You’ve had six years and one fiancée and neither worked.”
“Courtney was a mistake. You all knew it.”
“But so perky,” Raf said, focus still on his brother’s date. “We thought for a while she’d manage to perky you out of that grave you’d dug for yourself.”
He’d thought so too, before realizing that a woman shouldn’t come into a marriage needing a shovel. Mad rubbed a hand over his face then took another look at his beer buddy. Who continued looking at the unknown woman.
“You’re still staring,” he cautioned Raf.
The other man pushed back his chair. “I’m going to introduce myself. It would be the polite thing, right?”
Mad shook his head, giving up on talking sense into him. Such a Romeo. “I’m going home.”
Raf was already walking away, but gave a wave behind his back. “Catch you later.”
On the street, Mad took a casual look around. Then his belly clenched. Harper Hill was striding into Harry’s.
Still not gone. Some sixth sense had told him she remained in town, but this proved it.
The door to the coffee place shut behind her, but he was drawn there anyway. To the scene of the crime.
The scene of the crime of making a scene.
It galled him. Even his broken engagement hadn’t caused so much talk about town. The past twenty-four hours he’d heard from more people than he wanted to count who wondered exactly what he’d done to send Harper Hill running from Harry’s, tears pouring down her face.
During an alarmed phone call, Sophie assured him that Harper had not been crying.
But there was no denying she’d been running.
And scaring her off with a kiss didn’t leave a good taste in his mouth.
An apology needed to be offered and accepted. He’d been worrying that he wouldn’t ever sleep again because she’d escaped town without seeing him again, but here she was.
Now all he had to do was force his—likely unpleasant—presence on her and get her to forgive him.
It felt like shit having to say sorry for a kiss that he could still feel on his lips, in his dick, and all the way down to the soles of his feet. But she’d always been the one…