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“What’d I miss?” I asked Brady with a scowl.
“They botched it,” was his reply.
I swore under my breath, then turned around to see TJ had followed me in.
“Sorry ‘bout that,” I said offhandedly, reaching out to clap him on the shoulder. “Good to see you.”
“You too,” TJ sa
id good-naturedly. “You want this in the fridge?”
I nodded, then headed back toward the door when a knock sounded.
This time when I opened the door, I was greeted by the matching grins belonging to Cal and his younger brother Craig.
Cal, TJ, and I went back a ways. Back to the days before I opened my painting business, and was working odd jobs whenever I could. But I’d only met Craig recently. He was a good ten years younger than me, so it wasn’t until I started attending poker night that I had a reason to meet him. He was a great kid. An amazing baseball player, decent at cards, and all-around good dude. I grinned back at them and ushered them inside.
Brady and TJ were chatting and sipping their beers, so I asked Cal and Craig if they wanted anything.
“I’ll take a beer,” Cal said.
“Water works for me,” Craig added.
I left the guys in the living room and went to the kitchen to get the drinks. All of the food was laid out along the buffet, and Brendan was washing the last of the dishes.
“That everyone?” he asked.
“Everyone but Scott,” I replied from the fridge. Just then the doorbell rang. “That should be him.”
I heard Brady and Scott talking at the door as I took the drinks out to Cal and Craig.
“We can move this little party to the dining room, if you guys are ready to play,” I said to the room in general. The guys all started to get up and move into the other room, and I walked over to where Scott was just entering.
“Hey,” I said in greeting, “want a beer?”
“Hi, thanks for letting us take over your house tonight,” Scott said with a smile. He was still in his suit, so must have come straight from work. He shrugged out of his jacket and added, “Yeah, I’d love a beer.”
“Here,” I said gesturing toward the hall closet. “You can hang that up here if you want.”
“Thanks.”
When the jacket was hung and the door was closed, I stopped him before he left to join the others.
“Hey, Scott, there’s something I want to let you in on.”
He turned his dark eyes to mine, his face curious.” What’s that?”
“The other night, when I saw you all at the bar and we had that run-in with Victoria’s sister…”
“Yeah?” he prodded.
“Well, I’d seen Victoria earlier in the night, and I asked her sister where I could find her after you walked away. I ended up taking her for coffee the other day, and out to dinner the other night.”
I watched as Scott’s jaw dropped, and it took every ounce of control I had not to chuckle. Until I knew how he was going to react to me dating his ex-fiancé, I figured laughing was a bad response to his shock.
“You’re dating Victoria?” Scott asked, baffled. “Why?”
“Why?” I asked his question back to him. When I imagined Scott’s first reaction to me telling him I was interested in Victoria, that was not what I had expected. In fact, I’d expected to deal with him thinking I was breaking man-code, or worse, that he would think it had something to do with he and Gaby’s relationship. But this reaction kind of pissed me off. “What do you mean why? I should think it would be obvious: she’s a very attractive, single woman. So … why not?”
