AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“There’s nothing to tell.”
“I know he talked to you.”
“How? Never mind that’s irrelevant. We shared a joint, he got a phone call, and that’s it. I didn’t see him again after that.”
She leaned so far forward her hair almost landed in her eggs.
“See, that alone is like, epic. You talked to a guy and smoked with him. This is the first step to you two having your own summer rendezvous.”
I raised my brows at her. “Rhett isn’t…” Mentioning his name somehow summoned the man himself, I stared across the restaurant, watching him, Callum, and the beautiful guy with a man-bun come inside.
Like two magnets, our gazes locked, and he started coming towards me. Callum followed. The other guy kept going straight, probably to place a take-out order.
“You two are the best thing I’ve seen all day,” Callum stated, pulling out the chair on my right. Rhett took the one on my left and like meddlesome roots, they planted themselves without an invitation.
“It’s only eleven,” Em pointed out.
He snatched a piece of bacon off her plate and tossed it into his mouth.
“I know, and now I’ll have the memory of two beautiful girls to get me through the day.”
Em flat out giggled, sealing her fate with the hazel-eyed man between us. I simply stared. He glanced at me, and I wondered then if Emery couldn’t see it or just didn’t care, the darkness lurking just beneath the surface of his flirty persona.
He shared a look with Rhett, and then smirked at me as if acknowledging that he knew I wasn’t fooled by him. “You could at least give me a smile.”
“I personally want you to finish what you were saying when we were walking in here,” Rhett interjected smoothly.
I lifted a shoulder in a lazy shrug. “Nothing important.”
“If it isn’t important then you can tell me.”
Screw it. Why not tell him? It was better to get out this out in the open anyways.
I gave him my full attention and a small, genuine smile. “I was telling her you’re not my type.”
“Damn,” Callum chuckled. “I almost believe her.”
Rhett tilted his head to the side and studied me a beat. “Nova and I both know I’m everyone’s type. Especially hers.” He followed this up with a smile brighter than the sun spreading across his face.
There was an odd sensation in the pit of my stomach which to my abject horror I realized was fluttering. Rhett gave me those treacherous butterflies that people sang about in whimsical love songs.
I refused to give him a reaction based off the way he was making my body betray me. Thankfully he was cocky and arrogant, still something I found wildly attractive, but I could use that.
“And over-confident,” I replied coolly. “Also, I’m not everyone.”
Like the night before, his phone interrupted our conversation. He glanced at the screen and excused himself from the table, bringing it to his ear as he walked towards the back of the restaurant.
I watched him move with that easy-going grace that came naturally, along with every other woman in the vicinity. One he vanished from sight none of them knew who to look at next. Callum, or the man with the hair casually leaning against the server podium, flirting with Mrs. Henry.
A uniform flashed in my peripheral, summoning my attention to Sheriff Dean, Mickey’s dad. He stepped inside, scanning the room. When his eyes fell on me, the grim expression on his face had my butterflies dying and a knot of anxiety taking their place. He nodded to the parking lot and I excused myself, leaving Emery with Callum.
The sun beat down on me the as soon as I stepped outside.
Shading my eyes with one hand, I approached the moss and white colored cruiser he was leaning against. “Dean?” I greeted in question.
“Hey, Hun. How you doing?”
“I’m still breathing.”
He gave me a worn smile, his greying mustache lifting towards his freckled nose. I relaxed a smidge. If he were here to arrest me, I don’t think this is quite how it’d go down. Then again, Dean had always been fond of me, even after his son and I split up.
He was completely unaware who the girl that once sat at his dinner table was. It’s truly amazing the kind of people we let into our lives because we don’t know any better.
“I wanted you to hear this news from me. I, uh, know how close your family was with the Reedsies.”
My breath caught. This didn’t sound good.
“Pamela never called her daughter when she got in last night. She’d flown out a few days ago to visit her grandchildren. She didn’t call this morning either. When the girl couldn’t reach her dad, she called us. I just left from out there. They’re both gone.”
“I’m sorry. Gone?”
“I mean, they’re with the good lord now, sweetheart. Got caught up in a home invasion.”
