I’m not sure I want to know how he knows about the breakup or the fact her boyfriend’s name is Denver. Ex-boyfriend, apparently.
“Is that wishful thinking so you can ask her out?” I grumble.
Silas slaps the table and cracks up laughing. “You’re an idiot.”
I glower at him.
“Friends don’t steal their friend’s girl. Bro code, man. She’s yours. It’s been a blinking red light over your head since the day she rolled into town.”
Grimacing, I shoot Monroe a look. “You believe this guy?”
Monroe grunts. “You’ve been a certain kind of way since she got here. Silas is practically family to you. He’s not going to take your girl.”
Their voices are carrying and I cringe at the thought of Nora overhearing this crazy talk.
“She’s not my girl,” I hiss, hoping they’ll keep their volume down.
“Not yet,” Silas says with a grin. “But you’re working on it.”
I am not working on it. Days ago, I hated her guts.
Liar.
You were upset with her and didn’t understand her, but you never hated her.
“How do you know they broke up?” I demand. “Was this gossip from Hattie?”
Silas makes a motion as if he’s zipping his lips, locking it, and tossing away the key. The Calder family are full of flappy-jawed secret blabbers. Always have been. Especially the younger two siblings.
“I’d make a drinking game where whenever you look over at her everyone has to have a drink, but I’m not looking to be responsible for an entire bar full of people with alcohol poisoning.”
“Please don’t make that game a thing,” Monroe says to his brother. “I only have so many officers on duty tonight and I’m not one of them.”
The two brothers continue to rib me about Nora while I keep stealing glances at her. Now that Silas pointed out that I do that, I’m ashamed how many times I look her way.
I slip away to Silas’s sound system and add a song to the queue. When I come back, Silas’s daughter, Reverie, has stolen her dad’s seat while he refills some drinks.
“So, word on the street is you have it bad for the new girl,” Reverie says, boldly pointing at Nora.
I grunt as I push her hand back down. “Don’t be a brat.”
“Uncle Monroe, arrest him.” She smirks at me when Monroe gives me a stern look for calling her a name. “Seriously, though, Elias. What are you waiting for? She’s super-hot.”
I’ve never noticed how nosy this town is until their attention is pointed directly on me. It’s annoying.
“Isn’t your flock waiting, Rev?”
When we turn toward the reserved corner of the restaurant for The Flock, one of the guys lifts his empty glass. Reverie grumbles as she slides off the stool. She hurries over to their table and turns up the charm. Reverie and Silas are good at working their patrons for tips.
Aside from me, that is.
They annoy me and I tip them anyway.
Someone’s playing this game wrong…
A familiar tune starts playing and I hold back a grin.
“That’s my song!” Nora cries out, nearly knocking over her stool in her haste to get to her feet. “Come on, Hattie!”
