“I’m going to check the walk-in. Someone around here has to make sure the limes aren’t molding. Besides, I think I already know the answer.”
With that, Mae walked away, leaving me staring after her.
“Better pick your jaw off the floor, son,” Lou said. “Before she comes back.”
I shot him a look, ignored his chuckle, and rejoined the others.
“Ladies joining us?”
Mason shook his head. “Pia’s at the inn.”
“Delaney said she was going home to pass out. Sounds like they had a good time at Grado.”
“So much for the pact,” Cole mumbled, looking into his drink.
Mason put his arm around him. “Chin up, buddy. Think of what you can do with the extra cash.”
“Wait a minute,” Parker said. “Did you pony up?”
All three of them looked at me.
“Why would I?”
The look he gave me was classic Parker. Everyone called him “the nice one” but he could freeze a forest fire with his eyes.
“We’re not dating,” I pointed out. “Hang on a sec.”
I flipped a shaker in one hand, poured tequila with the other, and slid a lime wedge onto the rim of a fresh glass, putting it, along with two beers, on Jenn’s pass.
“Not yet, maybe.” Mason lifted his empty mug, which I refilled.
“I told you, she put the brakes on us.” Last night being one glaring exception.
“That didn’t look like brakes,” Cole said, swirling his drink around in his glass.
“It didn’t,” Mason agreed.
“Awww, fuck,” I said, seeing three women walk in. One of them could easily cause me trouble.
Parker snorted. “Avoiding your past isn’t possible,” he said. “Just have to keep showing Mae it’s not your present.”
“Spoken like a man who left me stranded in a sea of plus-ones, quoting Nietzsche to the jukebox,” Cole said wryly.
“They don’t know who Nietzsche is,” I pointed out.
“Sure we do.”
I left Mason to argue that point to serve the newcomers.
“Looking good back there, Beck.”
True to form, Laurie Lagan Hoban was dressed to the nines. A beautiful brunette, she was bubbly and fun, but not for me. Especially now.
“Pit stop for a girls’ night out?” I asked them, avoiding her compliment.
“You know it,” her friend, one I didn’t recognize, said.
“What can I get you ladies?”
