Page 3 of Pucking Daddy

I take another drink, hyperaware of his presence beside me. "So, Jax-just-Jax. What brings you to this particular dive bar on this particular Tuesday night?"

“Needed a drink,” he says.

I raise a brow. “Groundbreaking.”

His mouth twitches.

Okay. So he does have facial expressions.

"I needed to get out of my head," he elaborates.

"That bad?"

He exhales slowly. "Life's about to get complicated."

"Join the club." I clink my glass against his without permission. "I'm moving tomorrow. New city. New job. New everything."

“What about you?” I ask, forcing my voice to stay light. “What do you do when you’re not… drinking in bars?”

His eyes hold mine for a beat too long.

“I work,” he says simply.

“Wow. Another mystery solved.”

That almost-smile again. Smaller this time. More private.

“You ask a lot of questions.”

“You answer like you’re being interrogated.”

“Maybe I am.”

I lean in slightly, lowering my voice. “Trust me, if I were interrogating you, you’d know.”

His gaze drops to my lips again.

Heat blooms low in my stomach, fast and unwelcome and… okay, not unwelcome.

Not even a little.

Who is this man?

His attention shifts to his phone when it buzzes.

I watch his face harden as he reads whatever is on the screen—jaw tight, that intensity sharpening into something almost angry.

He types a quick response and shoves the phone back in his pocket.

“Everything okay?”

“Custody hearing,” he says, voice flat, like the words cost him something. He looks almost surprised he said it. “Sorry. You don’t need my—”

“No, don’t apologize,” I cut in, turning on my stool to face him. “That sounds brutal.”

"It is." He drags a hand through his hair, messing up the careful sweep of it. "Can't afford chaos at home. Not now. Not with everything else."

The weariness in his voice tugs at something in my chest. I know that exhaustion—the bone-deep kind that comes from holding too much together for too long.