"Don't need to."
"Brother." He pushed off the bumper and came around to my side of the rig, blocking the light from the bay window so I had to step half a foot to the left to see what I was doing. "She's a librarian. Twenty-eight. Blonde. Reads books on her lunch break. The kind of girl who'd actually go for a guy like you. Quiet. Solid. Doesn't talk too much. She'd eat that up."
"I'm not interested."
"You're never interested." He bit a chunk off the protein bar and chewed it at me like it was an argument. "Cassie was perfect. Jen was perfect. Allie was perfect."
"Allie was your cousin."
He stopped mid-chew. Pointed the protein bar at me. "Allie was perfect. You're impossible."
I was doing the morning check on the engine compartment, even though it wasn't morning, and the check had already been done. It was a habit. Things were either on the rig or they weren't, and I preferred to confirm it myself.
He'd been at this for the better part of a year. Cousins. Friends. Women he'd dated and decided he wasn't going to date again. He'd told me he was just trying to be useful, passing along the ones who weren't his type, but the truth was Duke didn't have a type. Duke had Hartsdale. Half the women under forty in town had walked through Duke Rhodes's life at one point, and most of them still spoke fondly of him on the way out. Linebacker shoulders, green eyes, easy grin. Built like a problem women didn't mind having.
I'd watched him pick a woman up at the diner on a Tuesday afternoon by pouring her coffee. He hadn't even worked there. He'd just been standing close to the pot when the waitress was busy. He poured. She laughed. By Friday, they were going to the movies.
"You think there's something wrong with me," he said.
"I do."
"You think I'm shallow."
"I know you're shallow."
"And yet I'm out there meeting women like an adult while you're across the street in the diner three nights a week, eating chicken parm by yourself."
"I like the chicken parm."
"Brother." He stopped in front of me. "I'm serious. There's nothing wrong with you. So what's wrong with the girls?"
It wasn't the girls. The girls had been fine. Cassie. Jen. Allie. All of them were fine.
The trouble was, I didn't know what I was doing with myself yet. The house wasn't sold. The boxes weren't packed. I didn't know where I was going to be in three months. Sitting across a table from a woman and pretending to know what I wanted next felt like a lie I wasn't going to tell.
Duke had never really understood that. He'd told me once, after Cassie, that I was overthinking it.It's a Tuesday night and dinner, Ford. Nobody's asking you to marry her.He'd meant it as a kindness. To him, dating was a Tuesday night. A drink at the bar. A weekend if she was good company. Nothing serious. He'd never lied to anybody about it.
To me, dating was something you did when you knew what you were offering somebody. I didn't have anything to offer yet.
I shut the engine compartment and wiped my hands on the rag that had been on the running board for two years.
"Maddy's nice," he said.
"I'm sure she is."
"You're hopeless."
"Yeah."
The lieutenant, Lou, walked past with a clipboard. He was six-three, gray at the temples, the kind of man who never had to raise his voice because the first time was always enough. He didn't look at either of us when he said, "Ford. Mendoza wants you on the line tonight. He's swapping with Halsey."
"Copy."
"Don't let Rhodes talk you into anything stupid."
Duke grinned. "I'm getting him a date."
"Like I said."
