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Rome’s wife, Izzy, was on the couch squeezed in beside Bayou and Rome, holding her infant daughter, Astrid, over her shoulder.
Liner, Linc, and Ezekiel were sitting at the bar hovering over a bowl of bean dip.
“Where’s Wade?” I asked, looking around for the couple.
I really liked Wade’s wife, Landry, despite the fact that she almost killed me for a second time in as many months only a week before.
She’d pulled out without looking and had nearly sideswiped me on my bike. After getting supremely pissed off at her and making her aware of how upset that I was, I’d driven to her husband’s house. Minutes after the incident, she’d pulled up and had practically fallen out of her car crying. It was then that I saw, and heard, the dog that was snarling and snapping in the back seat.
A dog that she’d rescued. A military working dog that could’ve been me if he was human.
Knowing that she’d help such a broken dog had cemented my adoration for her.
I loved that she treated that dog with the kindness and care that she would’ve any other dog. I also loved that she didn’t give up on him when many other people would have.
Sometimes it was the broken ones that made the best companions.
I’d seen a lot of me in that dog, and it hit close to home that he’d been harmed and nobody had wanted him.
“Wade and his wife are looking at a house.” Castiel’s eyes slid to the woman still cemented to my side. “Who you got there, man?”
“Pru!” Conleigh came out of the back hallway with her hands still slightly damp, her eyes alight at seeing Pru. “What are you doing here?”
I guess it made sense that Pru and Conleigh would know each other seeing as they’d both worked in the same ER.
Bayou looked up at the mention of his neighbor, and his eyes narrowed.
I felt my lips twitch as Pru sucked in closer to me.
“Uhhh,” Pru muttered stiltedly.
“I invited her,” I explained. “She’s agreed to go on a date with me.”
I felt a sharp, fast pinch to my side and nearly laughed at her audacity.
“I didn’t know you two knew each other.” Conleigh came to a stop right next to us, blocking both her view of Bayou and Bayou’s view of her.
Though he’d looked as if he wanted to say something about her being there, he’d held his tongue, just like I’d said he would.
“We don’t…or didn’t until last week. She blew me off when I asked her out after seeing her at the ER.” I paused. “When I saw her outside, I felt like it was divine intervention.”
“Why were you at the ER?” Conleigh inquired.
I quickly changed the subject so that I wouldn’t have to explain my reasoning.
Suffice it to say, that reasoning was no longer a concern thanks to the woman standing beside me. Even now, I was at half-chub status, and fucking happy about it. Despite the fact that you could see my dick really well through my jeans if anyone cared to look hard enough.
Which I had no doubt that if Pru continued to stay sucked up to my side, someone would eventually notice. I wasn’t a small guy at half-mast. If I had to keep inhaling her sweet scent, and feeling her breasts against my arm, I was going to start sporting a full one any second.
Pru suddenly pushed even closer, and I realized that while I was contemplating the way it felt to have her breasts pressed up against me, Bayou had gotten up off the couch and started toward us.
Pru’s nails were now digging into my forearm where she had it in a death grip with both hands, and I reached down and squeezed the front of her thigh, which was the only thing I could reach with the way she was wrapped around me.
But, instead of coming over to talk, he walked past us to the bowl of bean dip that was on the counter.
“What the fuck?” Bayou growled the moment he got to the counter. “Y’all weren’t supposed to eat it all.”
“Sorry,” Ezekiel mumbled around a mouthful of dip. “It was really good.”
Bayou cursed under his breath. “Fuck.”
“I can make more,” Conleigh pointed out. “It literally takes like five minutes in the microwave if you have all the stuff.”
“What ingredients?” Bayou turned, his eyes on Conleigh.
“That Fritos bean dip in the small can, a package of sour cream, cream cheese, and some taco seasoning,” she explained.
“I have everything but the beans,” he said, sounding forlorn.
“I have some bean dip at home,” Pru offered softly. “I can go get them.”
Bayou’s eyes went to her and narrowed.
For a few short seconds, I thought he would actually say something about not liking her, but like the man I knew that he was, he decided to hold his tongue.
