Chapter 6
Hunter
Weekly dinners at the Twilight Tavern were a ritual for me and my brothers. Comfort food, cold beer, and the exact same argument every week over who owed for the wings. But none of that was why I showed up tonight. This time, I was here for her.
I knew the signs with Paige. When she started deflecting, joking too much, brushing things off— it usually meant she was hurting. Quietly. She wouldn’t come to me. So I went to her.
The bar smelled like fryer oil, lemon cleaner, and old pine from the dark wooden floorboards. Every table had a little battery-powered candle Paige had hot-glued into little mason jars. The jukebox still only played ‘80s music because she hadn’t been able to justify the cost of updating the selections. And yet, it was still the best place in town because she had made it that way.
The place buzzed with energy, a warm pulse that seemed to shimmer just beneath the laughter. Twinkling strings of lights traced the beams overhead, casting a soft glow over everything. The mismatched wooden tables, covered in ring marks from hundreds of glasses dripping with condensation from ice-cold beers, edges worn smooth by years of elbows, knowing glances, and secrets whispered between sips, everywhere, there was the hum of voices, the clatter of glasses, and the spark of a place everyone loved.
Tonight, it was packed. Local crowd, mostly. Paige’s regulars. Plus, a few tourists who’d wandered down from The Honeybrook. The kitchen was slammed. Two of the servers wove through the crowd with trays full of sliders and nachos, laughing and keeping pace with the rhythm of the bar.
Paige was behind the counter, pouring drinks and tossing sass like it was currency. The wordsIt’s five o’clock somewherestretched across the chest of her snug long-sleeved T-shirt, and her hair was up in a high ponytail. There was a smudge of something on her cheek that only made her look more gorgeous. I couldn’t get her out of my head, but I was currently refusing to think about why. She had gone from my best friend, Paige, to the most beautiful blonde bombshell I’d ever seen. Objectively speaking, I’d always recognized she was pretty; it was evident to anyone with eyes. But now she washot. Big brown eyes, tall, curvy body…
Damn it. Stop.
I slid into the seat at my usual table with my brothers and scanned the room. The light flickered above us, and I scowled. It needed to be replaced, not repeatedly tinkered with. I wish she’d just let me buy her a new one.
Paige moved behind the bar, ponytail bouncing, sleeves shoved to her elbows, eyes sharper than any knife in the kitchen. Every so often, she’d send a nod or a word toward her crew—quick, efficient, never lingering. I liked watching her like this, running her kingdom, making the chaos look choreographed.
She hadn’t seen me yet, and I hadn’t gone to the bar to say hi since she was busy. Or maybe she had—because the second the waitress dropped off our beers, a couple of my former classmates made a beeline for our table, and she shot them a glare.
“Hunter Cassidy,” the blonde one—Ashley?—drawled, leaning a little too far into my space. “Haven’t seen you in ages. How’s life treating you?”
I smiled politely, leaning back enough to put an inch of space between us. “Busy. Working a lot.”
“That shop still keeping you tied down?” she asked, fingers brushing my arm. “Bet you don’t get much time for fun. You were always there back in school, right? Working for your dad?”
Deacon smirked behind his pint, enjoying the show way too much.
I answered with a noncommittal “something like that” and reached for a wing. She laughed and touched my shoulder this time.
Out of habit, my eyes drifted toward the bar—and found Paige watching. Or rather,glowering.
She was sliding a beer down the counter to a regular, but her eyes flicked back to me in between motions. Her mouth was set in a tight, annoyed line, and she quickly turned to refill a pitcher, like I hadn’t caught her looking.
“Not tonight, yeah?” I said gently. “Brother night.”
“Gotcha,” she said, excusing herself with a grin. “Maybe another time?”
I nodded. “Sure. See you around.”
Brody leaned in, low enough that only I could hear. “You seeing this? Pretty sure your bartender’s about to follow her and break her hand off for touching you.”
“She’s notmybartender,” I said, but the corner of my mouth betrayed me as it twitched up in a satisfied grin.
Deacon chuckled. “Not yet.”
I ignored them both and caught Paige’s gaze again, just for a second, before she looked down, busying herself with wiping down the bar that, from my vantage point, looked already clean.
Yeah. She’d noticed, and she didn’t like it. Clearly, she was jealous—andI loved it.But at the same time, I wanted to reassure her that she was all I was thinking about, that I only had eyes for her. But I couldn’t do that yet. I didn’t want to risk scaring her off or putting pressure on whatever was happening between us.
There was something else going on, though. Underneath the sound of laughter and clinking glasses, there was tension brewing—a charge that made the hair on my arms stand up. Paige was moving a little too fast, her smile a little too thin. When she caught my gaze again, she held it for a second longer than usual, just long enough that my chest tightened.
It was more than her potential jealousy. She was stressed out; something was going on that I didn’t know about—yet.
That was when I noticed her sisters at the bar. Piper raised her glass to me in a silent toast, Lucy gave a tiny wave, then blew a kiss to Spencer, and Eliza pretended not to notice me at all, probably feeling guilty for spreading the muffin gossip. Cara, who usually kept to herself, was talking to Jasper, the new bartender, and the way she tucked her hair behind her ear made me wonder if something was going on between the two of them.
